How to Drive for Dollars

What to look for and how to make the most out of your time.

Driving for dollars is a fun way to find houses that need work. Your goal is to find as many houses as you can that look like they haven't been taken care of. Often, the owner of the property has trouble maintaining it, and wants to sell it without expensive repairs.

The houses you are looking for usually have some common signs that they're in trouble. The grass is high, the windows are boarded up, there are tarps on the roof, etc. We'll be going over a lot of the common signs that a house would be a good driving for dollars find.

Where to drive

You can drive for dollars anywhere, but some areas are better than others. Before you head out, open up a Google Map and look around in your area for the nearby neighborhoods. There may be patches of residential streets that you didn't know about, and if you know where they are before you go, you can spend less time adventuring and more time driving.

The best kind of place to drive is a neighborhood with uniform and homogenous houses from street to street. Most of the houses should look pretty similar. Don't skip any neighborhoods just because you may not be finding as many houses. The bad house in a nice neighborhood is extra valuable!

How to drive

Drive slowly so you have time to look at every house. If there is a car behind you, pull over and let them pass so that you can take your time. Take care to drive every street in a neighborhood before moving on so you don't miss any houses. Driving for dollars apps like DealMachine, PropertyScout, and Bluelane will let you leave 'breadcrumbs' as you drive so you can see all the streets you've already driven. This will help you track your progress and avoid driving the same road twice in a complex neighborhood.

It can be helpful to drive with a second person in the car. Not only is it an added pair of eyes looking for properties, a passenger can more easily (and safely) record the addresses as you find them.

What to do when you find a house

After a few minutes of driving, you'll probably find a good house. You need to figure out and record the address.

If you're not using a driving for dollars app, you can write the street number and street name on a piece of paper or text the address to yourself. Street numbers are usually visible either on the mailbox or street-facing front of the house. If you can't find it, you can write the address of one of the neighboring houses, so in your notes you may have something like 'To the left of 321 W Pennsylvania Ave'. Don't forget the prefixes and suffixes of the street. If the address is '123 E Main Street', make sure to include the 'E' and 'Street'.

It can be helpful to drive with a second person in the car. Not only is it an added pair of eyes looking for properties, a passenger can more easily (and safely) record the addresses as you find them.

If you are using a driving for dollars app, like DealMachine or PropertyScout, you can drop a marker on the house using the app's map. This will record the address and make sure you don't miss any important address information. Take a picture of the house, record your tags and notes from within the app, and go on your way to the next house.

What to look for

High grass. This one is very common. High grass usually indicates a property that is not well cared for and is a telltale sign of distress.

Dirty exterior. Sometimes the walls and roof of a house look weathered and dirty. There could also be peeling paint or an excessive amount of debris on the roof and yard.

Tarp on the roof. Deferred repairs as major as a roof can be a sign that the owner doesn't have the money or time to fix their house.

Boarded up or broken windows. Same as above. If someone was living there and had the money to fix it, they would have done it by now.

Notices on the door or window. These are often code violation notices placed by the town to let the owner know that they are going to be fined for their property not being up to code in some way. These can also be notices of a property going to tax sale or a foreclosure auction. Signs on the door are a VERY good sign of distress.

Lockboxes. A lot of houses with lockboxes are listed with a realtor, so be aware to steer clear of those. But if a house with a lock box is not listed, it's very likely no one lives there.

Stuffed mailbox. If the homeowner is never around, nobody is picking up their mail. Another similar sign is newspapers/ phone books strewn on the driveway or near the front door that were never picked up.

Broken down car. If you see a car that's missing tires or a license plate, and it looks like it hasn't moved in a long time, it's possible nobody has been there in a while. Bonus points if it's in the middle of the driveway. (If somebody lived there and used the driveway regularly, they probably would have moved their dilapidated car out of the way.)

FSBOS (For Sale By Owners). FSBOs that need updating can be great leads. The sign in the yard has a guaranteed correct phone number, and you're guaranteed an appointment -- you already know they're interested in selling!

Porch lights. If you see someone's porch light on in the middle of the day, that's a sign the property might be vacant. People will sometimes keep their porch light on all the time in an attempt to make their house look occupied. If someone lived there they would probably turn their porch light off while they were at work during the day. This is not always a sure sign, but it's one a lot of other people may not think of.

Snow. If you live in an area with snow, notice tire tracks in driveways and footprints near front doors. If a house is completely snowed in, especially a few days after a snow, nobody has come in or out.

Holiday lights. Holiday lights still up in July? Maybe somebody packed up and left around holiday time and they haven't been back since. Or laziness.

Examples

Boarded and broken windows
Code violation sign
Code violation sign
Overgrown grass and car without a license plate
Dirty exterior and appears abandoned
Damaged roof, notice in the yard, overgrown yard

Some helpful tips

When you write down an address, record the reason you wrote it down, too. That way, when you're talking to the owner, you can say to them "I noticed XYZ about your house and thought it might be a good fixer upper project" etc.

People are more likely to be home after 6pm, so if you drive in the evening it can be easier to determine if someone is home.

You don't have to be exclusively driving for dollars in order to find houses! Keep an eye out when you're on your way to work, or even out for a walk or bike ride.

If curbside pickup is common in your area, garbage day is a great day to drive. Houses without cans either forgot to put their trash out, or no one lives there to produce any trash. When everyone elses cans are at the end of their driveways makes it very easy to pick out the ones whose cans are still up next to their houses.

Next steps

So now you have your list of addresses. What's next?

If you're driving for an investor, send them the address in whatever way they've asked you. Chances are, if you're reading this article, you will use the special submission site link that they've sent you.

If you're an investor, you'll need to find the owner's mailing information. Using your county appraiser's site, look up the owner names and mailing addresses of your leads. The mailing address will almost always be different than the site address of your lead because your leads are all likely vacant.

You can use this information to do a few different things. You could send mail to the owners with just this information, or you could skip trace the owners to get their phone numbers and call them. Or, you could go knock on the doors of the owners to speak to them directly. Whichever approach you decide to take, make sure you are consistent in your marketing. Check out this article about scaling up your driving for dollars operation

Scaling and leverage

A great way to scale your driving for dollars operation is to have other people look for hosues for you. Coloquially referred to as "bird dogs", these people can be friends, family members, mailmen, Uber drivers, or anybody who is interested in making money while helping you find houses. Explain to them what you're looking for and offer them a dollar for every lead they bring, or some other form of compensation that you decide. These bird dogs will send you good leads if you compensate them well. Apps like Property Scout can help you effortlessly manage your team members and the leads that they bring.

In order to create your army of bird dogs, you have to get the word out that you're looking for distressed houses. Talk to family and friends, your pizza delivery guy, Uber drivers -- get creative! If you have a PropertyScout account, you can put the link to your property submission page on a business card to hand out and leave in public places. This will make it easy for your drivers to submit properties as well as ensure that all of your leads are in a convenient, organized location.