Local Distressed Property
Hey BP nation,
I was wondering if anyone could offer some advice on approaching a home that looks distressed from the outside. There is a house down the street from me that looks like it is about to be foreclosed on. I keep thinking I should take a picture of it so I could share it on this forum, but I never got around to it. Basically, there is a large blue tarp on the roof nailed down with some strapping (recently), a Pontiac Firebird up on cinderblocks in the driveway (been there a while), old looking curtains in the windows, and the property itself needs some TLC. There is a car that still leaves and comes back and the grass gets mowed once in a while, so there is definitely someone living there still. The property on zillow is "zestimated" at $300,000 and all the properties around it are worth about $300,000 - $500,000. This is a B+/A- neighborhood in a good town.
My question is:
How do I find out what the story is with the house without insulting the homeowner? I guess there are a lot of people who wouldn't care, but I would feel like an *** knocking on the door and being like, "hey, your house looks really awful. Do you want to sell it to me?"
Does anyone have any opening lines they use to ease the tension on a visit like this. A way of not insulting the current owner by saying that their house looks like its about to fall down.
Thanks.