OK - as the subject line says, I’m willing to admit that not everything has been tried, but my partner and I are scratching our heads and saying, “What else can we try?”
For the last several months since we started in real estate investing, we’ve been looking at abandoned houses in blue collar neighborhoods that we can buy at a greatly reduced price and sell to another investor/rehabber in a quick turn transaction.
FINDING the houses aren’t the problem, but finding the BUYERS for them definitely is. We’ve tried the classified ads in the local papers as many gurus tell people to try, and after spending several hundred dollars that frankly neither of us could afford to spend, we got nary a response. We both live in a small town in Michigan (in the “Thumb” area), and there aren’t any REI clubs around here in which there are other investors to network with.
So far we’ve had to get out of contracts (losing the $10 deposit, so that wasn’t horrible) on several different occasions because we had no interest. I don’t want to believe that people simply don’t read the paper, but what do I know? Maybe the investor’s DON’T read it. At the risk of being called ignorant for perhaps not seeing what should be obvious, what have you seasoned pros to offer that we can’t think of?
Thank you in advance for whatever advice you have to offer.
Have you tried calling the “We Buy Houses” guys (signs, car signs, newspaper ads), etc. The gurus really like that, although I think the vast majority of them will be newbies who also attended a seminar. You could also try calling the for rent ads in the paper and see if any of the landlords are looking for property.
I HAVE tried calling the “We Buy Houses” guys, but as you pointed out, most of them are newbies like myself. You did give me another angle to try, however, with calling the “For Rent” ads and inquiring whether these landlords are looking for more properties. That never occurred to me. Thank You!
How big is the circulation of this paper? If you live in a small town, then the paper probably doesn’t reach many people. I’d try finding investors from major metro areas near you.
Jim, I’m originally from the same area, small town north of Det., but now live in California. Shoot me a message on the specifics of what you’ve got and maybe I can tell you some people to call or things to try. Maybe we can even come up with some deals.