by Tom | Jul 10, 2009 | Marketing
While we are always networking and farming for new deals, we really turn up the marketing machine when we have time off between rehabs. Since the sale of the Hat Trick House, which is due to close next week, we have launched a full assault on distressed properties in our target areas. We thought we were rolling right into a nice duplex conversion to SFR in a historic area but when out of state family members decided not to sell it put us back to square one. Some of our methods of deal finding are driving, leaving notes, pre-foreclosures, mail shots, FSBO’s, networking with neighbors, talking to the mailmen, calling expired/cancelled listings and last but not least MLS and Craigslist. Our “We Buy San Antonio Houses” website leads have also been increasing. The courthouse steps can also be a great resource but make sure and do your due diligence before bidding on properties sight unseen. Local Realtors will also bring you deals that are not in MLS if they know you are a cash buyer and can close as promised. We frequently get offered these “pocket listings.”
I was recently asked what the best way to find a deal is. The answer I gave was there is no single best way, you have to do all 10 different things and then start weeding out your leads. To rely on one single source like MLS for instance, wouldn’t get you the good deals and frequently enough. Your acquisitions should be handled the same way as your sales, from all possible angles. Should you put your house for sale in MLS?, Craigslist?, Open Houses? Newspaper? I say you should do them all if you want the best results. I had a Realtor friend ask me this week if I still used Craigslist. She feels it’s blown out and full of spam and scam. I told her its still a valuable avenue that cannot be ignored. An investor friend posted a probate deal on there this week and has had great response with calls from motivated cash buyers. Bandit signs also still work in any market. Don’t overlook any of these avenues and you’ll increase your chances of making your deal work, whether buying or selling. Any given week we consider about 100 properties through our methods, this week we made 6 offers and got counters on 3. We think we have landed our next rehab and have a verbal offer accepted, hopefully the deal will go to contract next week when out of state family members arrive so stay tuned.
by Tom | Jun 26, 2009 | Hat Trick House, House Design, Marketing
We Sold The House In 5 Days and with Multiple Offers! Yahoo! Last weekend we had an Open House California style. We ran the big photo ad in the newspaper, passed out invites to the neighbors, had signs & balloons on the major intersections and hot dogs for the guests.
To all my Realtor fans, THIS is how you get 100 people through your house on a Saturday. It was really quite rewarding to hear all the feedback from the guests admiring the design and craftsmanship. On Sunday we accepted a great offer from the buyer and not 15 minutes later we had an agent call saying he had a back up offer.
The buyer had his home inspection on Wednesday and for the first time ever we saw an inspection report that couldn’t list one single thing wrong with the house! All the inspector could say to the buyer was “this one was done right, you better buy this house.”
In all my years we’ve never seen this happen. These home inspectors will pick any small detail just to make the buyer feel like he earned his fee. They’ll usually even list questionable things just to protect themselves. I think I’ll frame this report as it’s a testament to our workmanship and attention to detail.
Additionally, this week we passed finals on our mechanical and building permits so we are just waiting for the power company to move the line from our temporary pole and drop it to the new meter loop. We are set to close in mid July and are currently searching and writing offers on the quest for the next project.
by Tom | Jun 18, 2009 | Hat Trick House, Marketing
The Hat Trick House is finally done and officially on the market and in MLS. We’ve had a swarm of buyers throughout the rehab and 3 great offers before it was even finished. We went 9% over budget but luckily our estimated sales price is surprisingly up 25% due to market conditions! Our list price is $359,000, this will be the highest sale in our area and set a new high comp if it sells for that price. My wife and I staged the house and it’s all ready for an advertised open house this Saturday. We already had one showing today, one scheduled for tomorrow morning and an agent that sold another one of our properties (The Abandonded House) just called and her “picky” client found it today on Realtor.com and wants to see it. The agent from our first showing today said the master bedroom closet alone would sell the house. Really? Can’t wait to see how this weekend turns out and get all the feedback. According to the Brookings Institution San Antonio was ranked THE strongest metropolitan area for economic performance in the wake of a recession for the whole nation for Q1 09. Top 5 cities mentioned in the report are San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Austin, Houston and Dallas.
by Tom | Sep 16, 2008 | Marketing, Wholetailing
We have some good news and bad news. First the good news, we sold Bungalow #2 to another investor after putting it in MLS and getting a lot of interest on it, this is called Wholetailing.
All cash offer, it closes next week and we got the price we wanted. This 2-week deal will net us a 25% return on our investment and all I did was pressure wash it, take out the carpets and mow the grass. We were able to make a decent profit and still leave some on the table for the next guy.
Had I not already been working on a rehab across the street I wouldn’t have run across this deal. It wasn’t on the market for sale, was not vacant, and according to the neighbors the owner would never sell it and I still took it down. This goes to show that perseverance is the key.
Our rehabbed house, The Craftsman Bungalow is still for sale. Although the first offer we received didn’t work out we are still averaging over 5 showings per week. It’s been on the market 33 days now. No sweat, it will sell. It only takes 1 buyer. As long as we keep getting the traffic we are getting, I am not worried.
The bad news is Hurricane Ike hit Houston pretty hard last weekend and flooded my mom’s house so my wife and I loaded up the truck with a generator, fans, water and gasoline and headed over to Houston to help Mom out.
I had to pull up all the carpets as there was about 2” water in the whole house and had to cut down several large elm trees that had also fallen on the home. It’s a real natural disaster, there are no gas stations open, still no power in her home and a citywide curfew imposed until this mess gets worked out.
Galveston got hit a lot harder, my mom also owns a couple properties down there, both of which seemed to make it through with just some minor flooding. Thank God it wasn’t worse and nobody got hurt, houses can always be fixed.
by Tom | Sep 3, 2008 | Craftsman Bungalow, Marketing, Wholetailing
After 19 days on the market and 15 showings we finally received our first offer on The Craftsman Bungalow. We are getting great feedback and have had tons of showings personally to buyers driving around without an agent.
This offer was from a lovely young couple who are first time home buyers and not represented by an agent, thus saving us 3%. They still came in about 10% below our asking price, not a bad offer if we were your typical homeowner sitting here with years of equity but since this is an investment property for us, that 10% would represent a nice chunk of our potential profit. We countered their offer over the weekend so we’ll see if they are able to come up a bit. I have a feeling they were stretching already but we’ll see.
In other great news we closed on our next house last week as well. It’s actually on the same street as the other house but larger at about 1550 sf. As I worked everyday on the Craftsman Bungalow I noticed there was another vacant house 4 doors down.
I asked the neighbors what the story was, all of them telling me that the owner lives out of state but would never sell. One neighbor actually firmly instructed me not to contact him because it would be a waste of time because even if he did decide to sell he had promised the house to this guy’s daughter.
Did I listen to the neighbors? Of course not. I made contact and ended up closing the deal at 51% ARV. The day we closed I put it in MLS wholetail at 70% ARV and we’ve had about 8 showings already on this “Bungalow #2.” We figured we would throw it out there for a few weeks and see if we get any bites and if not our plans are to rehab this as our next project.
