We spend a lot of time learning about the finer points of real estate information in this job, and this week my colleague, Chelsea Morin, shares some great tips and resources to help you confirm the information you have, but perhaps to find even more! ~Helen
Chelsea Morin
Imagine this scenario: You’re asked to research a couple and you easily come across multiple properties all in both spouses’ names (think a primary property and a secondary property, or two, or three). Sounds nice right?
But it doesn’t always, or even often, happen.
Next week, Melissa Bank Stepno (HBG’s Vice President of Data Insight & Business Development and Managing Director of DAFinitive®) will discuss that real estate holdings are not always the most reliable indicator of wealth and capacity in her webinar R-Cubed: Residential Real Estate Review for the California Advancement Researchers Association (CARA) on May 16th.
But they are often the most visible. And when real estate holdings are considered in the appropriate context, they can provide a fuller view of your prospects. If you feel like you have been hitting dead ends in your real estate research recently, read on!
First things first – confirm what you have
Always try to use multiple resources to confirm information. There are several free resources that I use often in my research. The town or county property/tax assessor’s office where you suspect your prospect owns property usually has lots of local level information.
If you’re researching in the New York City area, using ACRIS and StreetEasy together can help provide a more comprehensive picture of tricky real estate holdings like co-ops.
And finally, OpenCorporates can be used to search for any LLCs you might come across and will show you who the registered agent is for an LLC. You can also search by agent name and find any LLCs they are associated with.
If you have paid resources available to you like LexisNexis for Development Professionals and iWave, they can be used in tandem to confirm information as well. I personally like to start in LexisNexis to view a prospect’s “Real Property” holdings and “Current” and “Prior” addresses (I’ve found that “Prior” addresses can sometimes reveal current holdings too). I’ll then head to iWave to try to confirm what’s in LexisNexis and/or find additional properties by searching on different terms. Some search queries I like to use are:
- a couple’s names together,
- each person’s name individually,
- common name misspellings,
- reverse searching addresses from LexisNexis, and
- any P.O. boxes associated with the household.
Moving on to find new surprises
In iWave, always look at the “Additional Properties” tab when viewing a real estate record – but don’t assume that that includes all affiliated properties! Something as common as a name misspelling can prevent properties from being properly connected in iWave.
Another great paid resource is Property Shark, which can be useful for viewing sale documents and finding finer details like signatures on paperwork. These can be useful in situations where you suspect that your prospect owns a property that is held in an LLC. Finding your prospect’s name and signature on the paperwork can help confirm the connection.
Be curious and look for patterns!
Real estate research can often be like putting the pieces of a puzzle together. I try to keep track not just of owned property addresses, but also the mailing addresses those properties are registered to, any LLCs, and registered agents for LLCs. You may find that the same agent manages multiple LLCs that seem related to your prospect. Or you may start to notice a pattern like I did when I researched a group of properties recently: they were all held in LLCs and had a similar naming convention based on the type of locale of the property.
To help put your new findings in context, you can use a resource like the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s House Price Index (FHFA HPI®) that my colleague Christine Bariahtaris recently shared with our team to better understand the local real estate market.
Being able to learn more about properties and locales across the United States (and sometimes across the world!), is one of my favorite parts of this work. I hope these tips help to make real estate research more efficient and enjoyable for you too!
