Start with the distance. The county runs from Corona all the way out to Blythe, and a lead in Corona and a lead in Indio have almost nothing in common. Corona-area workers average about 37 minutes each way and nearly half of them work outside the county. In the Coachella Valley, fewer than one in ten do. So the first thing our caller writes down is where the owner actually lives. A lot of Riverside County sellers don't live in the house anymore, and the ones who do often spend more time on the 91 or the I-15 than in their living room.

Probate is centralized. Estates from Palm Springs and Indio still go through the Superior Court at the Historic Courthouse on Main Street in downtown Riverside. A simple estate takes 9 to 12 months, an average one 12 to 18, and notice has to run three weeks in a local paper. IAEA authority is routinely granted, so an administrator can usually sell without a confirmation hearing. Prop 19 is what pushes heirs to sell. A child keeps the parent's tax base only if the house becomes their principal residence, so an heir who already owns a home elsewhere is looking at a reassessed bill.

Foreclosure is non-judicial. The Notice of Default is filed of record, the owner has 90 days, and the Notice of Trustee Sale goes out at least 20 days before the auction. Riverside County banned solicitation on county property in 2011, which ended decades of sales on the old courthouse steps, so check each notice for the location. On one-to-four unit homes, owner-occupants and tenants get up to 45 days after the sale to bid, and the Attorney General's registry shows those sales landing in places like Palm Desert and Lake Elsinore this year.

Tax sales here are mostly land. The county requires five or more years of default, sells online through Bid4Assets, and asks bidders for a refundable $5,000 deposit. The January list held 946 properties, with opening bids from $100 on lots in Lake Elsinore and Wildomar up to $1.16 million on a Desert Hot Springs residence. Everything is sold as is, and the buyer handles any eviction through the Sheriff. Mello-Roos makes this worse for some owners: a CFD special tax is billed with the property tax, and if it goes unpaid, the district can foreclose to cover its bonds.

Here's a call we'd expect from Menifee. Our caller reaches a man who lives in Temecula and inherited his mother's house in Sun City last year. Probate is open in Riverside and his sister has letters. Neither of them will move in, so under Prop 19 the tax bill resets, and the insurer that covered their mother for years sent a non-renewal notice. The kitchen and baths are original. He wants it sold as is before the next tax installment. You get who has authority to sign, the insurance status, the condition and his number before you dial.

Riverside County sellers lean retail, and we won't pretend otherwise. With a countywide median owner value near $557,300 and Corona's near $700,700, plenty of owners have already talked to an agent or a cousin with a license. So our callers ask on every call whether there's a realtor or another buyer involved and write the answer into the note. A seller who has heard the retail pitch and still wants a quick, as-is sale is a real lead. One who wants full market value isn't, and we don't send that one to you.