Looking For The “Nasty” Gem – Doing It Right?

[Deborah McCarthy]

There seems to be a huge amount of investor competition in the Boise/Nampa area and it is a struggle for a newbie like me to snag a great deal. I have literally missed great deals by a matter of 15 minutes or so in the last 3 weeks. So, again, my goal is to get away from the MLS and tackle it from a more direct stand point.

While I was disappointed about losing yet another great deal, I drove around the neighborhood (which was very nice!) an noticed a really crappy house standing out like a sore thumb. The yard was completely over grown, no signs of habitation, and no realtor signs or lock box. I also noticed a white sticker on the garage. It said that the home was declared vacant on X date, then winterized on X date, then it had been checked on about every six months thereafter - for a total of almost 3 years. I was really surprised because the neighborhood was amazing and the house only needed cosmetics on the inside and massive landscaping on the outside.

I spent a few more hours and drove around more "high glam" popular neighborhoods and found quite a few more just like this – with the mysterious white stickers and ghostly appearances of an extreme lack of human care. When I got back to my house and started researching the addresses, a lot of them had MLS numbers with statuses of "withdrawn" or "not for sale".

Can anyone tell me if they have had experiences with seeking houses like this? Who puts up the white stickers and why are they not active for sale? Any tips, tricks, or advice for a newbie?