Does anyone have a card they use to send to homeowners that just lost their house to a fire that they can share with me
I’ve found a house is a decent area that jus suffered a fire and now the house is all boarded up. This is my first fire damaged property that I’m going after. Does anyone have any experience on purchasing fire damaged properties? If so how does it work? Is there more hoops to jump through, do I deal with the homeowner or the bank, etc?
Ive come up with this
"Dear Carol or current owner
I am interested in purchasing a home here in Colonie. I drove by xxx Road the other day and noticed that there was a fire. I hope everyone is Ok and I’m sorry that you had to go through such a freighting event. I’m contacting you to see if you were looking to stay and repair the fire damage or if you are thinking about selling and moving on. If you are thinking about selling either now or in the near future, please call me at 518-852-2460 so that we can discuss your situation
Thank You
Vic "
IMHO, the nice words are useless. I’d be straight to the point - I buy houses, even if they have fire damage blah-blah.
Those who want to sell don’t need to know that you’re sorry and all.
Just my $.02
What is wrong with just sending a we buy houses advertisement. I don’t see a need to get into the details of their house burning down.
I think of it this way…how would you feel if you got a letter from someone who you don’t know at all apologizing for your house burning down and oh yeah can I buy it from you?
You can try writing a personal letter saying you buy houses but I wouldn’t bring up the fact that their house burned down.
The majority of these homes are insured and are waiting for appraisals and the inventory process to take place.
I am a full time Firefighter. I see it daily.
The way the process works is first, the house is immediately boarded up to prevent further damage and/or theft of contents. This usually happens the day of the fire or next morning. Second a fire investigation report is generated by the Fire Department’s Fire Investigations Division (in my city) or State Fire Marshall (in smaller towns) Nothing happens until that report arrives at the home owners insurance company. Then, an inventory of contents is done. This is why it is a HUGE benefit for you to video tape the interior of your house. Record everything! Then put the tape in a safety deposit box. This will speed up your claim BIG TIME. It is impossible to identify contents of some homes after a fire. If you have video proof of contents, insurance companies will accept that as ownership and can then assign a value to those items. People don’t realize that even in a small “room and contents fire” almost EVERYTHING is destroyed by smoke, water or fire damage.
Sorry to get off track here… The point is this is a VERY long process. Even IF the homeowner wants to sell there is no way they would until their claim is fully paid. You might want to find another source for home investments. It can work and I know guy’s who have purchased them but it takes substantially longer than any other transaction. Also, your letter will be lumped in with a mountain of paper work, bills that keep coming, insurance and fire department documents ect.