That quote in this lesson’s title is attributed to Baron Rothschild, an 18th-Century British Nobleman and member of the Rothschild banking family. The guy made a fortune buying stuff in the panic following the defeat of Napolean at Waterloo.
“Buy when there’s blood in the streets.”
It’s some great advice to follow in real estate investing. Imagine if you had followed that advice more back in 2008. Think you might have built up some equity in your properties between then and now?
To buy properties that are ‘flowing blood into the streets,’ you have to find the properties first.
What better animal for finding blood than a shark? Sharks can smell blood in the water from up to a quarter mile away. So to find properties that are bleeding, why not find your own Property Shark?
The folks over at Property Shark are data aggregators. They are trying to capture all the data they can for properties throughout the U.S.
Data that both investors and Realtors can use to make money.
Extensive Research Is Just a Few Clicks Away
Ever been down to your county courthouse? If you have, you know it can make the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) seem like an extremely efficient organization. It’s hard to find records – you can only search a few at a time, and many times you run into dead ends.
Fortunately, many cities and counties are putting a lot of their information online. But that can also take a long time to sort out.
That’s where Property Shark comes in. Property Shark can give you very detailed reports of a property to help determine if it looks like a good deal. It can also give you lists of properties that are ‘bloody.’ By bloody, we mean the property has some kind of lien on it – whether that’s a mortgage lien (foreclosure), tax lien, or something else.
When you head on over to the Property Shark’s website, you will find a search bar…
You can put in a specific address or parcel ID. If you hit the dropdown menu on the left hand side of the search bar, you can also search by owner. This might come in very handy for identifying owners of multiple properties.
Say you come across a rental property in disrepair… you can probably guess that its owner doesn’t run a fantastic rental business. Maybe he’s a burned-out landlord who wants out. And… maybe he has 5 or 10 other properties. Imagine if you could wholesale his whole portfolio for him at once? Not a bad payday.
Or maybe the property is in good shape and the owner is running an efficient operation. If you find someone who is buying up properties in that area, you may have just found a great addition to your buyer’s list.
Up on the top right of the homepage screen, you can see there are some other options as well:
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Foreclosures
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For Sale/Lease
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Comparables
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Maps
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Leads
Before I get into those, let’s talk about the property reports Property Shark can give you. The reports have extensive detail on them, including:
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Sale and Property History – Very useful in determining when the current owner purchased the property. Chances are that the longer the current owner has owned the property, the more equity is built up in
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Owners and Residents – There is a section here called ‘Ownership from Permits.’ This will tell you who has pulled a permit to do work on the property. Many jurisdictions require emergency contact information for owners as part of the permit. Property Shark can give you that contact information, including phone numbers, if it’s in the public
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Title History – Shows all the deeds and mortgages associated with the property. If you know your way around a financial calculator, you can then calculate the balance on the mortgage. You can also see the recorded paperwork. Sometimes if you find a property owned by an LLC, the paperwork will give you the names behind it.
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Environmental Information – To help you avoid some ‘gotchas’ about a property. Property Shark can let you know if there are any environmental hazards nearby or on the property. Or tell you if the property is in a flood zone. Then you may be able to avoid a lemon that would be extremely tough to sell.
You can sign up for free to receive a report on one property, but then there are monthly fees if you want multiple reports.
You Don’t Want One Property, You Want Lots of Properties
The reports are nice once you find a property, but you need lists in order to locate the diamond in the rough. Property Shark can give you those lists. Specifically, they can give you foreclosure lists.
When you click on the ‘Foreclosure’ tab on the top right menu of the homepare, it takes you to another screen that looks like this:
The screen has 4 more tabs, showing the various stages of the foreclosure process.
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Pre-Foreclosure – When the notice has been filed but the owner still owns the building (great candidates for short sales)
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Foreclosure Auctions – Properties that are scheduled to be auctioned
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Auction Results – Properties that have been auctioned but may be in a redemption period
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REO – Properties that are through the foreclosure process, and are now bank-owned
The foreclosure listings have lots of information, including pictures about the properties. You can also export the list to Excel, PDF or print out the property reports.
Another choice from the homepage is the ‘Leads’ tab. Leads can give you a customized list of your choosing based on criteria you select. There are several steps involved in building your list:
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Select a ‘Build a List Option’ (New York City area only)
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Select a Targeted Region
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Select the Type of Building
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Filter Your Data according to statistics on the properties
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Review and edit the results
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Choose which properties you want to include in the list
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Download the results
Property Shark can build and create a ready-to-mail list for you, complete with owner information and addresses. Monthly pricing for these lists is different from the pricing for the individual reports and can be found here (scroll down to the bottom of the screen).
There is also a tab for looking up properties for sale or lease in a particular area. When you click on the tab, it only provides a few listings. However, it does encourage you to visit their sister site of Point2Homes for more extensive listings.
The data in Property Shark is still being built out. Right now, the property information is much more thorough on the coasts than it is in the middle of the country. As Property Shark grows, there will be more and more data that real estate investors can really use.
Will You Take a Bite?
What do you think about Property Shark? Share below.
Use Data – Data can save you both time and money. You can tell if you have a good property or a lemon. You can also use the information for negotiations.
Look for Shortcuts – Always remember that time is your most valuable asset. Instead of going to the courthouse, see if you can find simpler ways to find property records. Look at everything else you do in your business. How can you extract more value in less time?
Don’t Forget about Your Gut – Sometimes all the data in the world cannot give you a clear-cut decision. You just have to go with your instincts to determine if a property is worth it.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.