All Forum Posts by: Terri Lewis

Sorry for the delay in the reply. Do some research first on property, and the bank. Make sure you can get the one holding the lien. Find out if the have a department that handles the pre foreclosures. I have called banks and talked to the person assigned to handle the property. They can generally get you to the right person or can help you get an offer to the right department. Make an offer that will work for you to be in the 60 to 65% ARV range. Either they accept it, or just move on and find another property that will make sense. Also @Bill Gulley  might have some knowledge as to what the possibilities would be for you to make an offer that might be considerably lower than the balance of the note. I believe you will need to be able to make a cash offer. I will keep my fingers crossed for you.

I would first do the due diligence with the county recorder or the department in your county that keeps the records on the property. Some counties have a link to all the records. The other thing is to search "short sale" here on BP. There will be a lot of posts you can look through and learn about short sales. First is to confirm it is still in her name with the lien holder at this time.

Run the numbers back words. If ARV is $165k then I would be realistic and reduce that first by 10%. $148,500 to $150k. Listing around this amount after rehab, will help sell the property quickly. Then 65% of that is the most you should have in the project. A lot of contractors can give a decent ball park rehab figure for you to be able to run the numbers. Just reduce the offer by that. So if the rehab would be around $20k then try an offer at $76k. Never know until you try.

The bank should not have changed all the locks during the pre foreclosure period. Since it has not been foreclosed on someone did something wrong. Might have been one of the banks that has been in trouble for doing so, or the preservation company. During pre foreclosure the owner has the right to enter and that right has been taken away by some means other than normal legal method from the way it sounds. That you will not know with out further due diligence.

If you want to just help her the first thing is to find out who holds the mortgage. If papers have not been served then she needs to talk to them. County records should show the lien holder. Once you find out who the bank is and if you have the funds to purchase, you could consider making an offer to them to take the property off their hands. You could always make a low ball offer to see if they just want or need to dump it. Some are even open to a sort of partner fix and flip. Or pay you to help them get it ready for sale. Providing you are set up with insurance and any other requirements in that county.

You might have a tremendous amount of damage since the property has sit for so many years and the fact the squatters don't care what they do to survive in there.

There are many note buyers that might have already purchased for a future profit and just sitting until they have that one in their que to start moving on it. Some of them hold thousands of properties across the states. They still will have to serve papers and go through the formal foreclosure for the state the property is in. 

I agree with @J Scott it takes too much time to sort through and find salable items. We sorted for the first few years to only make a slim amount of money. Just not worth the time vs. a dumpster and a quick trash out. Another thing we have done is a room or pile for Salvation Army. They haul away and someone benefits from the donation. That's only when the items are large, clean and in good condition. Doing that still takes extra time compared to quickly emptying the trash into a dumpster. Our carrying charges and possibly missing a sale are way more important.

That was quite a post @Chris Sangster . I am going to want to research all those possibilities in my local market. 

I think @Greg V. states to see if there are any grants that might help you restore the property or even use that as an incentive to sell it. If the building is in an area where it could be turned into a business incubator, for new and growing companies. You might be able to separate it into units for mixed use (industrial and office) and have a good ROI. If you belong to your local REA you might find some answers there also.

@Clint Coneley How about looking at wholesaling to get some cash in the bank? I've called a lot of the FSBO's some of them really want to sell but there are a lot that want too much. Just have to make those calls, weed out the bad properties, and you'll find some great deals. The other thing is to set up a web site, get some business cards and run some adds "looking for motivated sellers", use the same concept to find buyers. Before too long you'll have people calling you, wanting to just about hand you their property.

Searching on BP for topics on that will give you a lot of knowledge to try some different ways to buy with little or no money down. 

You can also set up key word alerts to inform you when someone posts about that topic. 

Fantastic acquisition. Congratulations, interesting how you didn't budge, and the seller finally gave up. 

Wow awesome thread to read @Nhi Nguyen it is a beautiful house. What a large project it appears to be. Well I guess for me it looks like it would be. I will be anxious to watch for the next pictures.

Looks like it was a great party! Congrats to BP, Josh. and all those who helped build BP to what it is today. A great site to learn and grow with.