{"id":82186,"date":"2016-11-02T11:15:25","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T17:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=82186"},"modified":"2024-02-19T14:35:27","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T21:35:27","slug":"property-sight-unseen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/property-sight-unseen","title":{"rendered":"How I Bought a Property Sight Unseen for the First Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>Have you ever bought property without seeing it in person first?<\/span><\/p>\n

Buying real estate sight unseen — and especially out of area property without going there first — is becoming increasingly popular again. For many, it is absolutely needed in order to find value, to land good deals that make sense by the numbers, and to diversify. Some are still scared of taking the leap. Others have been making a mint by doing it for years. Here is how my first sight-unseen deal went.<\/span><\/p>\n

First off, let me\u00a0say that if I wasn\u2019t local, I wouldn\u2019t have done this. My partner and I heard of a local real estate auction. There was a total of 65 properties that were being sold off. We were able to get ahold of the list. We drove areas and neighborhoods and compiled a shortlist of about 12 properties we were interested in after driving all of them. No one was able to gain access to the properties in advance. You simply had to drive by, even if they were vacant. <\/span><\/p>\n

Bidding Wars<\/h2>\n

When I tell you it was a bidding frenzy, it was crazy. There were real estate investors who came from out of state, and some were paying almost retail for some of these properties that needed work. It can be easy to join the frenzy, but you have to stick to your number. It\u2019s easy to join the crowd, but you don\u2019t want to end up getting stuck with a property that you overpaid for and end up regretting it for years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong> I Almost Bought Properties at Auction: Here\u2019s What Stopped Me<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The Surprise<\/h2>\n

There was a property on the list that wasn\u2019t formally on there. We hadn\u2019t gotten a chance to drive by it, but we knew the area. We pulled up an image via Google. The image showed it needed work (of course). We ran the numbers and came up with a conservative offer price. We managed to land the winning bid. At this point, my partner and I began looking at each other like, \u201cWhat the heck did we just do?!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Why it Worked for Us<\/h2>\n

Even for the properties that were occupied, we went super conservative on our numbers. We planned for the absolute worst case scenario. We went in with the anticipation that each property was a “gut to studs” renovation job on the interior. Fortunately, that wasn\u2019t the case for any of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong> How (and Why) I Offer on Properties BEFORE I Ever Step Foot in the House<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

After the Purchase<\/h2>\n

We went in and renovated the house. It took a lot less time and money than we anticipated. We were actually approached by several parties to purchase the property in as-is condition due to the upswing of the neighborhood. However, at that point in time, plans were to hold onto it for the cash flow. So far, everything has worked out perfectly.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Summary<\/h2>\n

It worked out for us. We will probably do this again. However, we will only do it when we know the area and values and have run\u00a0the numbers and made similar offers to\u00a0ensure we can be profitable, no matter what work needs to be done inside. <\/span><\/p>\n

What have your experiences been with buying property sight unseen?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Let me know your stories with a comment!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buying an investment property without having stepped foot in the door can be risky. But done correctly, you might just snag yourself a great deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12140,"featured_media":82196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5524,5183],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-investing-for-beginners","category-landlording"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}