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no ad's but i see theres a guy in my area who has "we buy houses for cash" signs plastered all over the place. I'm going to try and get to my local REI meeting, they have a "first time visitors pass, 2 meetings@$20 each"
I've just been scouring the area looking for property that looks distressed, taking down the address and coming home to research it.
I haven't gone near anything that has a realtor sign posted, not sure if I should even bother.

spoke to a commercial real estate broker friend of mine and he explained it this way. "The first thing you need to decide is, are you in the gas station business or the RE business. Most people will sell the site or ground
lease it to the operator, who has the systems in place the run the
business. Zoning, cub cuts, traffic counts and demographics will dictate
the value of the site for a gas station. "

so i had been thinking about it all wrong, what I'm really wanting to do is purchase a vacant parcel, clear it and lease it to a service station business. that way I dont have to become the business owner but i continue to maintain a cash flow from the lease on the property.

could anyone elaborate on what is involved in developing an uncleared parcel of land to build a gas station/convenience store?
the land is currently zoned Agricultural and the area across the street is zoned Agricultural overlayed by Planned urban development.

I know there are plans for future residential developments in the same area (SFH's starting at $400k)and I also know that the closest store or gas station is at least a 15-20 mile drive for the current residents in the area.

Right now there are about 150 SFH's in the area, nothing else close by and only one road leading in/out of the neighborhood so i'm sure a service station/store/fast food joint would make a nice profit there. I'm just not sure how to go about getting the ball rolling.

what would it take to develop something like that, are there grants or loans available for someone just starting out?

I'm researching the process to develop a parcel of uncleared land to build a convenience store/gas station. the land is currently zoned AGR and there are about 150 homes north of the area. they have a minimum 15-20 minute commute to any type of store or gas station and the opposite of the street from this parcel is still vacant but zoned PUD.

so what is all involved in the process to get something like this going?

So I've been working on this wholesaling idea for about 2 weeks now. I may be going about finding property all wrong so i could use some guidance.

normally i just drive around in different areas of the city and look for abandoned or distressed property, vacant lots etc. I write down the location and when I get home I start searching for info. I locate the owner, transaction price, tax rolls etc.

But what ends up happening is that i find someone who owns 10-20 different properties and is just hanging on to em. I found a couple places yesterday that looked promising and by the time i finished my research I realized one was owned by a home inspector who owns a bunch of property, one was an FSBO and the other was someone else who owned a few properties, rentals apparently.

my other source is just going to the courthouse site and looking up lis pendence filed within the past few weeks. I'm just not sure how to approach these and even so as far as I can calculate theres not enough equity in most of these to even try and get 70% FMV. these are all of the people who bought using subprime loans in the past few years and now they cant cover the mortgage.

so, where to look?
does anyone even mess with houses listed with a realtor? I can access an MLS search, I cant get specific details but i can see which area of town it's in and go looking.

heres to torrents :beer:

you made sure you stated "for sale or will trade for a newer model...no refunds or returns" right?

OMG....never heard of that kid before.....what a dumba$$...i got sidetracked reading his blog, it's like driving past a car wreck....but he put himself in that situation so nobody but himself to blame.

any suggestions as to estimate the equity in a home? for instance suppose i find a pre-foreclosure and i know the amount of the mortgage and the date it was issued and i want to estimate how much equity is in the home so I can decide if it's even worth pursuing

I agree with all cash, I've been working airline ticket counter/customer service for about 13 yrs and 99% of the population is not very bright at all. use the KISS principal...Keep it simple stupid.....

the landlords you called probably more interested in selling their space then buying yours. I think most landlords who only own 1 sfh never intended to be landlords or investors. most of those ended up with the property either through family or buying a new place and not being able to get rid of the old one so they rented it out. if you do manage to find any that are investors you may need to change the sales pitch, first theres 2 things that annoy most people

1) cold calling ..better be careful with that one since the laws changed, i have all of my numbers on the national do not call list and violators can be sued
2) door to door sales....ummm yeh..again careful with that too depending on your state laws you could end up with some bullet holes

if you decide to make a few calls, make em to places with more than 1 rental ad, those tend to be your investor type
next, business minded people want the facts, how can you help THEM, how will you put money in their pocket? mr landlord, my name is brandon and I may have some undervalued properties that would be of interest to you as income generating rental properties.....*perk* mr landlord just heard $$$..now you have some interest in what you have to say

then just tell them you are expanding your network of investors and you can help them find investment property that will put cash in thier pocket and in turn they will be helping you expand your business. its a Win-Win situation

no need to get into details on specific amounts like 70% of market value, if i were the investor I would be looking at your numbers...well you said 70% why am I paying 78%? see what I mean, you are cutting your own throat by putting out solid numbers

as to how you find the property...non of thier business how you find it, you have contacts that assist you in locating property and thats all they need to know

now i just need to heed my own advice and life will be good lol