Ok, I got you to look but I did get that from purchase to sale price. I have some costs and what not which decreased my return to about 800%. 

Here is the story. I live in the Denver Metro area. Property is expensive and the market is very competitive. My direct mail marketing has had abysmal returns. I followed Brandon Turner's advise and looked around for a market near me that was affordable. I turned to Cheyenne Wyoming and mailed to out of state owners there. I got great results and one of those calls was this deal.

It started out by her apologizing for the property. I asked what she wanted for it and she hemmed and hawed around and won't give me a price but asked me to drive by and look at it. She did offer that a real estate agent told her it would sell for between $15,000 and $20,000. I drove by and it was a SHACK in every sense of the word. Low ceilings, broken windows, haphazardly boarded up windows and doors.

I called her back and told her it wasn't much of a use to me. I might be able to replace the roof and store something there. I offered her $1,000. She took it. She didn't argue or negotiate, she took it. Floored me. I closed on it and paid cash (just like a promised in my letter because I would have had to pay for a cashiers check from the bank). I was worried up until I signed the documents that she would back out. I'm guessing she was concerned about the same. We closed New Years Eve.

I then paid some guy $150 to haul all the trash out of it. It took 4 pickup loads he said when he initially thought it would be 2. Then my plan was to hold an open house the 2nd weekend in January and auction it off to the highest bidder Sunday night. I use the term open house loosely because the house had no heat, the gas, electric, and water services had been removed by the previous owner in preparation for demolition. I bought big ads in all the local papers (paid about $400 in advertising)

Well my wife got sick so I couldn't do the open house. I called everyone and told them the door was open and to just go in and look around. I thought about doing the open house again the next week but decided that it I should just work with those who were interested. On Monday I called everyone who had contacted me and told them to submit an offer. Around noon on Tuesday I got my last of 6 offers (all were for more than what I had in the place). I called everyone back and told them to submit their highest and best by 5 pm on Wed.

I had the winning offer and on Thursday I called them and sent them a contract. They wanted to close on Monday but it was a bank holiday. I was scared he would back out but the money was wired to my bank account yesterday by 5 pm. Yes!!!

After paying for my direct mail campaign, two closings, the trashout, and the advertising I think I cleared about $8,500. Not bad for my small world.