$100K+ in 2 months after niching down to probates
$100K+ in 2 months after niching down to probates only. Stopped trying to market to everyone.
About
Adrian has been in real estate for seven years, starting in 2018 at a Southern California wholesale brokerage where he ran dispositions and then acquisitions. He went out on his own, first through agent relationships, MLS offers, and SEO, then rebuilt the business around direct to seller probate marketing. Today he runs a solo first to market probate operation across five SoCal counties under his company, The California Home Buyer.
Operating market
Southern California
Favorite features
The Challenge
Adrian spent seven years in real estate without calling a single seller directly. He started in 2018 at a Southern California wholesale brokerage, first running dispositions, then acquisitions. He found the deals, the company sold them, and he kept 20 percent of the profit. So he went out on his own. The new business ran on agent relationships, MLS offers, and SEO. "I didn't have a CRM. I just have my phone. I just had my computer."
He calls that version of the company a hobby, and the income proved it. "Last year I had, I made maybe like 15 or 20 grand in like the first seven months." Then the final two months brought in over $100K. The swing bothered him more than the slow months did. He wanted a business where a set number of calls produces a set number of leads and closings. Direct to seller was the way in, and he had no data system to run it.
What They Built
Stopping everything for a month of training
A post on X about stacking two lists pointed Adrian to DataSift. Inside the community he watched user interviews and the first to market challenge, then made a decision most operators avoid.
I just kind of stopped everything I was doing and for like a month just dove right into the whole REI SIFT dojo training stuff.
Daily probate pulls across five counties
He works five Southern California counties, anchored in Orange County where he lives, plus LA, San Bernardino, and Riverside. Most require a courthouse visit for probate filings, so a $70 a month service uploads them daily. He filters hard: full authority probates only, homes built from 1989 through the 2000s, under 3,000 square feet. Decedent name, petitioner relationship, case number, and hearing date go into weekly sheets, and a macro formats each file for upload.
Two skip traces and a manual check before dial one
Records get skip traced in DataSift, exported, skip traced again through Skip Genie, then re-uploaded. As a licensed broker he also verifies numbers in Forewarn. When one number shows up in all three sources, that is the number he dials first. "I love getting the pickup on the first dial and the first number." The up-front deep dive is manual and slow, and he credits it for contact rates that surprised him.
Running the sensei flow almost verbatim
Mail goes first: hand-addressed envelopes carrying a mail merge letter. Then three call attempts through Kixie click to call, each attempt tracked as its own filter. He had read community posts about 1 percent connect rates and spam-flagged numbers, so he braced for the phones.
I started click to call and I was like, people are answering and they're talking to me.
Records that go nowhere keep their status and wait in the rehash pool for the next pass.
Before and After
Before DataSift
- No Deep Understanding Of His Own Data
- Gave Up Bulk Dialing And Texting Years Ago
- Relying On Inbound Leads And Bought Deals
- A Contract Per 12-13 Qualified Leads
- 10,000-record Niche Lists, Filtered Monthly In Sift
- Focused Down To Indiana And Ohio
- Owns The Operation Now, 50-50 Split
- $300K In Spreads In His First 90 Days
- Almost $600K In Contracts Ghosted Or Backed Out
- Five States At Once, Spread Too Thin
- All The Profit Going To Someone Else
- Running An Agency For 14-16 US Investors
- Homegrown Closer Converts Over 20% Of Offers
- Text Blasts First, Smaller Call Lists After
- Whole Philadelphia Metro Recycled Through Rehash Campaigns
- Sequences And Lists Fully Dialed In
- Over 50 Deals A Year Across Two Companies
- New Construction Plans Stalled By Rates And Costs
- Deep Prospecting Alone, Before Any System
- Two Cheap College Duplexes, Bought With A Partner
- Everything Done By 6pm
- $1,500-1,800 A Month Total Marketing Spend
- 150 Dials A Day, First To Market
- 200 Probates A Month From Weekly Courthouse Runs
- $800K A Year Running Solo
- No Online County Data In His Market
- Long Hours Getting The Business Started
- Years Of Flips And Contractor Headaches
- Tuesday At 2 Hunts Generate His Own Deals
- 4 Deals And $330K Equity In 30 Days
- Sales Leader Owns Leads, Casey Tunes Systems
- 325,000 County Records, Scrubbed Nightly By VAs
- Full Operation: Acquisitions Agents, Sales Leader, VA Data Team
- Team Waiting On Leads To Come In
- Doing Well, But Knew He Could Do More
- Watching Every Lead Himself, Day To Day
- Callers Grinding Through Manual Data
- Two-man Team: Casey Plus One Acquisitions Guy
- Cutting edge 1-1 sales and marketing integration
- Improved accuracy when making offers and estimating rehab costs
- Leak proof communication between clients, buyers and contractors
- Thorough marketing and acquisitions from anywhere in the world
- Real estate companies that want documented communications with contractors, clients and buyers
- Wholesalers who want to enter into new markets
- Investors looking to have leak proof marketing and acquisitions
- Anyone looking to wholesale virtually
- A significant boost in confidence to create a great life for you and your family.
- Tips and tools to maintain a steady flow of income, regardless of external circumstances.
- Knowledge of how to succeed in any market condition.
- An understanding of how to achieve long-term success with solid marketing processes.
- A big boost in confidence to make a great life for you and your family.
- Tips and tools you can use to get a steady flow of money coming in, no matter what's happening out there.
- Learned how to succeed in any market condition.
- Understanding of how to achieve long-term success with solid marketing processes.
- Anyone, regardless of budget, looking for a strong start to avoid common mistakes.
- Business owners who want to have simple processes for their VA's to follow.
- Investors willing to create a steady monthly income to secure the future of their family.
- Those who tried many ways to succeed but still aren't seeing good results.
- Efficient KPI Tracking
- Enhanced Follow Up Process
- Data Driven Decisions
- Fully Integrated With REISift
- Streamlined Sales & Marketing Flow
- Enhanced lead management
- Unorganized Data
- Expensive/Ineffective Tech Stack
- Basic Marketing Approach
- Poor Data Management
- Unorganized Processes
- Refined Direct Mail Strategy
- Clarity In All Business Operations
- Enhanced Team Management
- Strong Lead Management Flow
- Advanced Data Tracking
- Effective Marketing Flow
- Limited Marketing
- Targeting Constraints
- Poor Lead Management
- Difficult Team Management
- Reactive Marketing
- Ineffective Marketing Flow
- Empowered Data Management
- First to Market Strategy
- Automated Processes
- Strategic Focus
- Improved Lead Prioritization
- Enhanced Data Tracking
- Low Level CRM
- Successful But Hitting a Wall
- Missed Opportunities
- Poor Data Management
- Data Driven Decisions
- Full Data Clarity
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Lacked Marketing Clarity
- Difficult Marketing Flow
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Strong Lead Management Flow
- Strong Marketing Flow
After DataSift
- Achieved Data Clarity
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Poor Marketing Flow
- Little Data Clarity
- Relied On Google Sheets
- Consistent Deal Flow
- Data Clarity / Organization
- Wholesales, Flips And Does Retail
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Didn't Understand Data Management
- Strong Real Estate Agent
- Wanted To Break Into Wholesaling But Didn't Know How
- Healthy Scale
- Data Driven Decisions
- Consistent Deals
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Inconsistent
- Little Data Insight
- Unorganized Bulk Marketing
- Strategic Focus on Niches
- Enhanced Lead Flow and Certainty
- Streamlined Marketing Process
- Efficient Use of Data
- Direct Mail & Deep Prospecting
- Broad, Unfocused Strategy
- Inconsistency in Results
- Dependency on Luck
- Marketing Clarity
- 6 Figure Months
- High Deal Volume
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Proper Data Management
- Weak Marketing Flow
- Poor Data Management
- Lack of Focus
- Manual Efforts
- Successful Scale
- Total Data Clarity
- Clear Marketing Approach
- Large Deal Spreads
- Improper Data Management
- Poor Marketing Method
- Inconsistent Deal Flow
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Clear Data Management
- Clear Data Management
- Successful Scale
- Many ways to close deals
- Large deal spreads
- Poor data management
- Unable to scale properly
- Poor marketing flow
- Smaller Deal Spreads
- Increased Deal Volume
- Platform Utilization
- Realtor Collaboration
- Funding Efforts
- Lots Of Deals
- Data Driven Decisions
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Sales And Marketing Clarity
- Poor Data Management
- Poor Marketing Flow
- Relied On Bulk Marketing
- Lack of Clarity
- Automated Acquisition
- Strong Marketing Flow
- Data Driven Decisions
- Structured Follow-ups
- Increased Lead Generation
- Achieved Sales And Marketing Clarity
- Manual Acquisition Processes
- Ineffective Marketing Flow
- Minimal Lead Insights
- Poor Follow Up Flow
- Inconsistent Lead Generation
- Lacked Sales And Marketing Clarity
What changed
The shift started with other people's interviews. Adrian watched them while his own pipeline still ran on agents and MLS. "I saw Tyler, his videos and he was talking about this first-to-market and I was like, what is first-to-market? Like I didn't even know any of this stuff." He recognized himself in the users on screen, people who knew the work but not the next step. So he copied the flow, uploaded verified numbers, and started dialing. People answered. The fear had lived mostly in his head. A month in, he can already see that missing ten records in a week costs him a lead.
The Results
The before and after fits inside one calendar year. First seven months: 15 to 20 grand total. Final two months: over $100K, five times the money in less than a third of the time. Those closings came from the agent and MLS business he already ran. The lesson he took was about focus, and the probate flow is how he keeps it.
Today Adrian works about 150 probate records a month across five counties, solo. Overhead stays near $70 a month for the data service, plus skip tracing tools. One honest number: at recording, one month into the flow, he had not yet closed a probate deal. He is fine with that, because probate is a long game and every record gets mailed, called three times, and banked for rehash. The target he is building toward is Sam Oneil's math: one operator, 150 dials a day, $800K a year.
I wanted to make it manageable, that way I could build on top of it.
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