Do You Answer EverY message?

Here’s my question:
One guy left me a message saying that he wants to sell his house, how wonderful the house is, how everyone is wating to buy it from him, that i need to be fast if I want it, because he already has 2 guys scheduled to see his wonderful house on the next day. He didn’t leave the address of the property not his asking price, just an apprased value of 250k.
Now he obviously wants the FMV, so I am thinking not to waste my time and don’t call him back.
But how do you usually react on messages like this?

Check out the house quick (don’t spend a lot of time as its probably wasted time), give him an offer in writing that fits your numbers, walk away. If he has trouble selling it down the road he might call you, if not no biggie. If you have 100 other good houses that you could spend your time checking out I would put this way on the end of my priority list.

I would call him and verify his level of motivation over the phone. Generally after about 5 minutes of talking with someone, you can determine whether or not they are truly motivated.

If you don’t call people, how are you going to make an offer??

I almost lost a deal b/c I didn’t call a lady back b/c she said on her message that she had only owned the house for 1 1/2 years. I figured there was no equity. I took a closer look and the house had appreciated 60% in 1 1/2 years.

I called the lady back, went over to her house that night and did a nice Sub2 offer. The house only needed some paint and carpet and turned out to be a $40k deal!!!

I called him, it’s a no deal, only 25k in equity, and he wants to settle in 2 weeks.