Door Knocking in the neighborhood

[Cornel Smith]

Let's say a neighbor lived in a house that looks like it needs a lot of work. You look at the county tax assessor site and see the owe over 14k on property taxes. Would you knock on their door and inquire if they were interested in selling. If so, how would you go about it?

[Michael Knaus]

I door-knocked  a house that was about to go to tax sale. It looked rough and she owed about $5k in back tax. She said she had no idea was scheduled to be sold but wanted to move anyway. It was only 3 days before the sale. I signed an agreement of sale, had her sign a deed,  paid her taxes to get it taken off the list and gave her $5k to to vacate. It was worth $50K and it surely would have been bid up by other investors and she would have got nothing. I thought it was a real win-win and she cried she was so happy to get something.