Using Prospectizer is like going to the end of the dock with a single fishing pole at best you can catch one fish at a time. Using Real Estate Pro is like using a commercial trawler with mile-long nets.

The main issues with Prospectizer...

1) Prospectizer requires potential clients to fill out a long winded 40+ question online form. You gotta ask yourself - when was the last time you filled out a form that long without just saying 'screw this' and clicked the back button? Thought so. Prospectizer's whole concept is that a person facing foreclosure is going to magically find your website, fill out a long 'autobiography', and then sit patiently awaiting your return phone call. Does this sound like reality? Read on, it gets worse.

2) Most people in foreclosure are in complete denial of their situation. Half the time these individuals are so badly in debt that they don't even have an active phone line, let alone a working internet connection, so how are they going to even get to your site if they even knew about it? You need to beat the streets and seek out these individuals. Prospectizer defies logic, period.

3) The other reality about foreclosures is that less than 1% of these properties have numbers such that you stand half a chance of making any money off them. Using the Prospectizer system, you would have to have literally hundreds of leads pouring in before you find a single one that will turn a profit. On top of that, each lead still requires tons of research at the courthouse just to qualify it. Tough times.

4) Okay, so you get a lead as a result of someone in financial trouble visiting your site and filling out a form. What about the tens of thousands of foreclosures out there that you are missing out on? Prospectizer simply acts as if they don't exist or even matter. To make money in the foreclosure business you NEED to have access to these properties so you can stop wasting time chasing after leftovers and instead take a seat at the head of the table where you can pick and choose from which properties you want to invest in.

5) Prospectizer does nothing in so far as helping you with property research, creating contracts, filtering lead data according to your specs, or managing the foreclosure process from start to finish. All it really does is provide a contact form and a simple classified ad system, really nothing more. If this is all you are interested in, simply sign up for a MySpace account and post your properties on CraigsList and it won't cost you a dime!

The biggest mistake is for people to equate a DEAL with a FORECLOSURE.

A successfull deal is where you meet your numbers in acquisition and your exit strategies.

Could be foreclosure,death,fsbo,estate sale,divorce,etc.

I don't look at one area and categorize it as a deal.

Are they motivated to do something is the real question. You could spend a hour looking up all this data to find the seller tells you to f off!

So determine motivation,if motivated wrap up under contract to lock up from competing offers then do your due diligence and back out if it doesn't work.

If you can't react immediately to solve someone's problem they will go to someone else for the immediate fix.

There are some tidbits for you new guys to the investing world on how things really go down in real time.

Super Realtor,

While, foreclosures are a percentage of my total deals they do not encompass a total of 100%. Some times just good old fashion driving down the block and looking for 'ugly' homes works. There are tons of strategies and deals to go along with each.

Where my opinion differs (or perhaps I misunderstood your posting). I much rather do my research on a property and know the numbers longer before wasting my time talking to someone. A 30 second 'screw you' from a person takes less of my time than sitting down for an hour with a person only to find out they had no idea what the total amount owed on their mortgages (ohh.. how many times that has happened to me ... 'I owe $150k I promise' -- next thing you know it is now $250k).

On the research side, honestly this is why I developed Real Estate Pro. I used this in-house for awhile long before deciding to release it to the public. Things like running comps, reading property appraiser information, viewing official records from the county court house, calculating all known mortgages, liens, and judgments, etc. This items are all handled and managed in Real Estate Pro in far less time than using any other method that I know of.

All in all, you are most correct in that the person in foreclosure needs to be motivated or any deal becomes impossible, and taking this into consideration, yes you can waste huge amounts of time getting bogged down in the researching side of things. Again, this is why Real Estate Pro came into being. In 30 minutes I can run filters on thousands of properties, perform my research on those that look like likely prospects, and print out a list of properties that pass muster. Now I am ready to go out door knocking, and with any luck, have signed contracts all in the time the average investor takes to research just a small handful of properties using conventional means.