Collecting Property Information with a Property Information Sheet

If you are using a blank sheet of paper or, even worse, scraps of paper to jot down information about potential properties when you are talking to potential motivated sellers on the phone for your initial call, shame on you!

You should be taking down all the information about the property and sellers in an organized fashion. If you do not have a Property Information Sheet to use to gather this information for your own real estate investing business, then get one or, as a last resort, make your own and use it for every call.

Most of the information you'll gather is

Follow up:

pretty straight forward: seller's name, address, full contact info including e-mail, work and home telephone numbers. And, of course, you'll want to capture everything about the property. In addition, you'll also want to ask these often overlooked--and sometimes feared--questions.

First, when are you looking to sell? That helps you determine what the seller is planning to do and occasionally gives you an initial indication of motivation.

Second, if I was to send an appraiser out to the property tomorrow, what do you think it was appraise for? This gives you an idea of what they think a professional would value their property at. Notice, it is not: what do you think the property is worth. Nor is it, what was it appraised for last year, which, in our current market conditions, doesn't mean much.

Additionally, to be able to determine if they could accept my offer, I need to know what they owe on the property. Of course, I will look up on public record to see what public records shows they owe, but I always ask them as well. Since many people have a hang up about asking this, I will share with you how I ask it.

"Do you own your own free and clear or do you have a mortgage on it?"

If they answer they have a mortgage, my next question--without any hesitation--is, "and how much do you owe on the mortgage?"

It is important to note that I've spent a good bit of time on the phone with the seller by this point and my asking this question is very natural as I am trying to see if it is something that I can buy. I will point out that it could be much more difficult--albeit not impossible--to ask this question calling on For Sale By Owner properties. When the seller calls me, they are calling me to see if I can buy the house and I need to know certain things to decide that.