All Forum Posts by: Ray Eason

 $2+ Million dollar property. 

I'm confused why you are focused on this property.  Not much will frustrate you more in this business than trying to make an unmotivated seller motivated.  Good exercise to work through some deals, but this is not a sales job.  You need to be making lots of offers to find the ones that will say yes, not finding a house that is listed for more than its worth and somehow talking that seller into realizing they should take half that so you can make money off of them.

In fact, you are not looking for a house anyway, you are looking for a problem you can solve.  This can be repairs, a seller's financial situation, or many other things.  You can also create value by recognizing opportunity, like developing the three lots on this one, or adding square footage in high dollar areas, zoning something commercial, etc.   IMO, you should make your offer, move on, check back in later if they say no.  

Zillow is a decent thing to check, but is in no way something you can rely on. A realtor is NOT the "only" way to find values. I trust mine, but most realtors aren't that great at what they do and very few understand what we do as investors. I usually start with what the average $ per square foot in your area is and multiply that by the sq/ft of my subject, then look at sold properties near the one I'm analyzing and check out what is for sale around there. I've got MLS access, its a big help because you can see the interior pics of the recent sold comparables and such, but the other sites (Trulia, Redfin, Zillow) have enough info to have an idea what something is worth. Nothing magical about it, but there is no computer that can tell you what a house is worth. Hell, I argue with appraisers ALL the time on values and they are supposed to be the experts. I look at the Zestimate and eappraisal, and all the others, but just to see what they say against my number. You just gotta look at whats going on in the market, including how long it takes things to sell, what other houses have sold for, if there are things that make this house more valuable (views, acreage, nicely renovated, neighborhood amenities, etc) or less valuable (steep driveway, on train tracks, trashy neighbors, in a flood plain, etc.) and use some common sense on what people will pay more or less for.

@Ray Eason

Are you using a tablet or phone? It doesn't work on my tablet. It works fine on my laptop though. I think it requires flash.

@Wayne Brooks  - While that may be accurate in most places, DOM might be right for where the seller is.  I agree with you however, because in the markets I'm in anything over 30days is an indication it is either 

 1 - a 2MM+ property 

 2 - it is over priced

3 - A Rehabbers Dream

It's quite simple.  It was on the market for 6 months, and no one was willing to buy it for that price.  And yes, everyone else knew it was zoned for 3 units.  It's over priced......period.

Motivated seller is key!...it will be difficult to wholesale if the numbers don't work...

Your looking at it from it's zoned for three units so are your making it a new build deal. Can you add two units, or will you need to tear it down and build the three units. The tear down increases the cost of the lot. And paying basically for three units that aren't there is speculation. Any new construction in the area at all?

It is an old habit but I like to check the current tax assessors value. I know it is not the real market value but it makes me think about the property a little bit. If the assessment is a lot higher I have to say what the heck, why?  Lower, maybe I am thinking about offering to much, in any case it doesn't give me the current market value but it does make me think about the property from a different angle for a moment. And this may be a figure you can use with the seller sometimes to help swing their thinking in a different direction.

 I thought you were planning to wholesale it?  Will you close with cash if you can't find a buyer?  If not, does she know that your ability to close is contingent on your finding a buyer?

@Ray Eason 

As an agent, I have access to the MLS here so I can tap into it and look at sales data and come up with an educated guess as to a reliable range for the value of a given property. Do you have any agents on your team locally that would could help you with a valuation based on sales comps? You can get the data straight from the horse's mouth that way.

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You seem to have a lot of enthusiasm and drive with what you're doing, keep it up and you will do great.