Chelsea Morin Archives - Helen Brown Group

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, and perhaps 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 16^th.

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!

Happy Prospect Research Pride Month, everybody! It’s been pretty thrilling to watch #ResearchPride grow over the past 9 years, shining a spotlight on this most wonderful of professions.

And that’s what we’re going to highlight this month on The Intelligent Edge – careers and leadership in our field. What motivates some of the leaders in our field to innovate (or just keep moving forward some days)? What inspires newcomers, and what keeps it interesting and fresh for folks who’ve been in the field for a long time?

This week we highlight an article from my colleague Chelsea Morin. One of the things we struggle with as a profession is how to advertise. How do we let people know that our profession exists? How do we reach out and recruit the curious? Chelsea is new to the field and she shares some terrific perspective that we can all benefit from, including great advice for people considering prospect research. ~Helen

My path to research

In November, my lovely colleague Kelly Labrecque wrote a great article about how she and many of our colleagues in the field of prospect research fell into the work one way or another. This got me thinking about my own path. In college, I always knew I wanted to “help people” in some way but this was, of course, a very nebulous concept that could have been applied in a million different ways.

Over time, my focus sharpened into working with nonprofits and I interned with some really impactful organizations. But as I got closer to graduation, I still wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted my work with nonprofits to look like.

By chance, I noticed that my soon-to-be alma mater was hiring for an entry-level position in the development and alumni relations department. The position itself consisted of speaking with local alumni but was situated within the research and analysis team. It was from that team that I learned about the field of prospect research and how it could be used to help organizations further their goals.

After a couple of years, I realized my passion for research and went on to join the Helen Brown Group. My path to prospect research was quicker than most, so I’d like to use this space to recommend this less common career path for impact-oriented college students and early career professionals.

What is prospect research? Why is it important?

For the uninitiated, what even is prospect research? It’s so many different things. But to keep it simple, it usually involves conducting research for a nonprofit about individuals and companies who may be interested in supporting their organization. Some typical tasks include finding real estate or stock holdings, previous philanthropy, or possible connections to the nonprofit’s board members or volunteers.

Nonprofits are bolstered by generous support from donors, and prospect researchers can help to find those donors. We can also find additional information to help bring them into the fold.

Could prospect research be for you?

One of the greatest aspects of a career in prospect research is that you get to work every day with organizations that are making a difference. This kind of work is needed at institutions of all different shapes, sizes, and causes. So, there are plenty of opportunities to find an organization that fits with your interests and passions. And if those passions change over time, you can always seek out your next role at an organization that fits with your new direction.

Even if you are feeling a bit adrift (I certainly remember that feeling) or feel that your interests haven’t neatly coalesced into one particular area that you’d like to explore for your career, I would still humbly submit prospect research as an excellent option. From writing detailed profiles to researching IPOs to finding new prospects, the work is varied and allows you to delve into a number of different areas.

What makes a good researcher?

If you’re a curious person who enjoys solving puzzles and synthesizing information in useful ways, then prospect research may be a natural fit for you.

You can study anything in school and become a prospect researcher, but many who studied the humanities and social sciences seem to make their way into the field. These areas may be well-suited to this kind of research because they involve digesting lots of information, remembering details, and making connections.

Prospect research may also be for you if you enjoy continuously expanding your skill set. I am still a newcomer to the field myself but in the past year alone I’ve had opportunities to learn more about donor advised funds, SEC filings, the private equity landscape, New York real estate, and compensation estimation. Those things may sound tedious to some, but if any of them piqued your interest then this career may be right up your alley.

Where can you learn more?

If you’re still in school, try connecting with your university’s development and/or alumni relations department. This could be through the annual fund, student giving drives, or even internships or work-study opportunities. Not only can you learn from them, but it is more than likely that they would be very excited to learn from a current student too.

If you’re an early career professional interested in learning more, try joining a local chapter of Apra, such as NEDRA. These groups often host bootcamps, seminars, and webinars for those who are newer to the field. And you just may make some useful professional connections as well.

Finally, to those reading this who already work in prospect research – please share this post with anyone you know who may be searching for a unique and exciting way to start their career! After all, Research Pride Month is here!

Digging Deeper into Real Estate

Celebrating Research Pride: Prospect Research and the Early Career Professional

Get the Intelligent Edge