REI Wealth Magazine Featuring Paul Finck | Page 79
5) LOW COST TO RESEARCH
Throughout this book, I refer to the
probate laws and procedures in the state of
California for the basis of the information
provided herein. Since 49 of the 50 states
base their laws on English Common Law
(Louisiana, based on French Law, being
the only exception), I assume that the
probate codes and practices in most other
states are parallel to each other. Over the
years in my finance business, that has
certainly been true. There are many more
similarities than differences between the
English Common Law states in the United
States.
Chapter Four provides detailed information
regarding the understanding and research of probate
cases. Suffice it to say, once you understand the
process, you should be able to review and extract the
requisite information for each case, in 5 minutes or
less. At this rate, you can easily gather 10–12 probate
cases, your new leads, per hour. This is true whether
the research is done at the court itself or online. As
part of your initial probate education, you may want to
do the research yourself. However, once you have
mastered this skill, you will want to hire an assistant to
gather this data for you. If you pay this assistant
$10–$12 per hour, your cost per lead is roughly $1.
79
This is very affordable, especially since this is
proprietary information that you are not sharing with
anyone else. Other real estate investing niches, such as
foreclosure and bankruptcies, may provide database
subscriptions at a lower price per lead, but that
information is sold to 50–100 investors each time, and
possibly more. The value of your probate data, at $1
per lead, can and will be proven valuable over time.
Since your probate competition is minimal, your results
should be very costeffective when compared to other
investors who rely on this aforementioned shared
information.