How I Almost Lost A Deal . . .

Do you double check your system for looking up property values? You could lose a great deal if there is a technical glitch.

The Deal Background

Last Thursday, a motivated seller called from a direct-mail postcard. He was extremely motivated – his house is scheduled for foreclosure at the end of August (14-days from when the call came in). I checked the Miami foreclosure calendar and this was unfortunately accurate. He made efforts the last two months with other investors – but they canceled. The foreclosure had been postponed three times already: we need to close fast. If anyone is curious, we send a 6 x 8.5 colored and custom postcard through vendor PostCardMania (I have no association, but this question always comes up).

My acquisition’s manager researched the house on the system for looking up comps, setting it to within 10% and 20% living area. Only two comps displayed – both at prices that made this deal appear as a no-win situation (at best, break-even). I let the seller immediately know what we found via values (since he had 14-days, he could then explore other offers). He thanked me for my time, and was somewhat resigned to allowing the foreclosure to go forward.

That evening, as I tend to do, I reviewed all the leads on our CRM that came in that day double-checking the values in a more thorough manner that is hard in the middle of a busy day. I dropped all filters, i.e. lot sizes, living areas, BR/BA, subdivision, distance from subject property. All of a sudden comps at $40,000 to $50,000 higher (and more similar to those previously identified) displayed instantly. No error on my team’s part: these comps were nearly identical and should have displayed on the 10% living area search. The system had glitched.

Building Trust & The Lesson

First thing next morning, I called the seller. I advised about the glitch that prevented me from properly evaluating the market value (this was not bait and switch).The day before I suggested he visit our sell my house Miami page and see the testimonials. I also sent him proof of funds. Our testimonials, web presence, and proof of funds ended up being important. He had checked out our website and testimonials which built trust. We discussed that we need a pay-off statement from the bank (which, by all accounts, is low enough for this to be a solid deal), hire an attorney to stave off the foreclosure, and for us to cover closing costs and attorney fees. By 7:00 p.m., we had an executed contract. Not quite a deal yet, but my read is that this will be an awesome deal.

The lesson here I learned is this: be intimately familiar with the technical process for how you look up comps. For me, this means removing every single filter to see everything in the neighborhood to reduce the change of a display glitch on one of the filters. This only takes a minute or so and provides maximum info on the comps.