A friend of my brother has a property he wants to sell. It is distressed and the price reflects its condition ($155k with comps in $200k range). Here's the tricky part...he doesn't technically own it. According to him, his father in law is selling the house to him but it's stuck in limbo because he doesn't have great credit and can't get the financing. He mentioned the paperwork is at a certain title company and that if I were interested we'd just go to the title company and switch it to my name. This is all highly unusual to say the least. I have never worked directly with a seller before so I'm not sure how this process works and what I need to have in place to protect my interests. Help!

not really someone posted the exact same thing a few months ago.

title company usually wants a contract.. so you can go to the stationary store by a blank generic purchase and sale agreement fill it out get the seller to sign and U sign and hand it to the closer .. really simple as that.

Hey @Silvia Ochoa - @Jay Hinrichs is spot on as usual. You can have him assign the contract to you, pretty simple.

Hate to point out the obvious, but a fixer upper at $155k with an ARV of $200k doesn't sound like a great deal. Would suggest you use one of the calculators:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/real-estate-investment-calculator

To make sure you can actually make some money:)

Good luck!

Thanks for the response. I should mention this guy said his father in law didn't know he was going to sell to someone else....this is the unusual part. My mistake for forgetting to include this part earlier.  BTW, this is a buy and hold. Rent's are $1600 - $1700 in this area. Thanks again for your input.