First attempt miss

[Curtis Steineke]

I know most of these are diaries of peoples completed deals but my first time out was a miss but figured I would share it with the group. I had found a 3 bed 1 bath property 1,000 sq ft, FMV at about 120K to 150K in the neighborhood depending on the size, this was a smaller home so I went with the low end figure for my math. I went and researched the property, ran title check etc found out it was a one owner since 1989 when bought new, owner took out a mortgage from the bank for 40k back in 04 was now in foreclosure at 15K, owed 5k in back taxes had one line for 2K against the property, other debt for about 15K not attached to the property.

Made some calls and lined up a friend to go bid, had the plan to wire the money etc. Verified Monday afternoon that the property was still going to auction, got up this morning and called the Sheriffs office one last time and found out it had been canceled. I know there had been a lot of traffic on that property and given the amount of equity in the home, I was interested to see how the auction would go. 

I wish it would have went different, but I did follow through the process and got a feel for what I was doing so it was worth it to me. I spent some time - I didn't keep a good time log, figure about 2-21/2 hours on various phone calls and internet time researching the property, neighborhoods, talking to friends, bank, utility companies, etc. and about $130 bucks between the title search and a couple of records searches but I count that as part of the education process.  Since I haven't golfed the last two months, I will call that hobby money invested in my education, I kept all my spreadsheets, documents and notes in a file so I can reference in the future and keep on looking for the next deal.

Hopefully someone got a win today!!