A deal came to my attention by way of an acquaintance. The acquaintance does not want me to tell the potential seller that she told me about the deal. Here is the deal: The potential seller is a drug user who is behind on payments and near foreclosure. Her mom and dad no longer want to bail her out as they have done in the past. The potential seller has taken no actions to keep herself out of foreclosure to my understanding. The particulars are she has a 100k mortgage and there are two comps within 100 feet that have sold for 239k in the past year. Apparently in the past she has balked at offers because she proclaims that the house is worth $300k and she’s not taking any less! The house is a wreck and I estimate it needs about $40-50k of work, (without having seen the inside). QUESTION: How do I approach her in my first call to her to get her on my side and consider my offer, which would be about $120k. I don’t want her to hang up on me. Also, how do I answer her if she asks, “how do you know about this house?” Any help would be greatly appreciated, since this is my first potential deal!!
You have 3 problems
- She’s not motivated.
- She’s a drug user.
- She thinks she knows better than you (she’s a woman, I don’t pretend to understand the workings of the female mind).
The only way to get her motivated is to be perfectly blunt and point out to her that if the situation continues as it is, she’ll lose the house and get squat. Explain that with your offer she’ll walk away with 20K, which is a lot of mary jane.
Walk around the house (if she’ll let you in) taking pictures and point out everything that’s wrong, including the estimate to fix, write it all down and put it in front of her.
If she asks how you found out, you found it in the county court records, provided of course she is actually in foreclosure.
Don’t hold out much hope, these are the ones that nearly always go to the sherriff’s sale.
If the comps at $239K are still relatively valid and there is that much fix-up, then your offer is realtively fair…70% of $239K is $167,300 so $120K puts your spread for rehab and holding at $47,300…
Maybe if you offer to provide her equity in crack…
Keith