Last night in the chat room, Jackie from Dallas gave a tip on finding “motivated sellers”.
Thanks Jackie! you ARE Great!!
anyway,she advised going to the local roofing companies. They often times will drive around after the anow clears and write down homes that need a new roof. They then market there services to these homes.
And, the good news is that, many times, the home owner cannot afford a new roof and wants to sell.
Well, I called two local comapnies today, and also talked to a friend who does roofing. She was right! (as usual).
They do make this kind of list, and were eager to pass it along. I mentioned compensation, and we will pay $40 to one company for there list, and the other simply wants us to allow them “First crack” and/or referal to work in these homes. (I only agreed IF they would meet or beat other area companies prices and estimates…always ask, it works.)
My friend said that he’d just GIVE me his little list, because, I could “copy” it for him on my paper and machine. (that is cheap!!)
So, thanks Jackie, and try this folks. It just may work!
Good Luck,
Jim
Posted by Diane Hill on March 14, 1999 at 08:13:53:
This might seem realy obvious but I realized something yesterday that others might also find useful. I was out prowling a new community for vacant houses when it occured to me that there is still snow from last weekend. Well, if your out prowling- and you see driveways that haven’t been cleared or driven on— kind of obvious if there’s snow! You can take a better look. I found 2 vacant houses by obvious signs but I located 8 others once I tuned in to the “snow factor” method. These houses didn’t look vacant at a glance but when you take a good hard look- yep-vacant and waiting for me to make an offer! Good luck!
A variationn on your snow theme. A few years ago, I was browsing through the MLS book at my realtor’s office (this was back when there was a real book with pictures).
This was July, and I ran across a picture of a property in the area I had targeted. In the picture, the property had snow on the ground. When I checked more closely, the listing was more than six months old. The owners had contracted to build another home and were selling to “move up”. There had been two other contracts on the property, but each had fallen through for some reason.
Sensing a motivated seller, I made an offer at about 70% FMV. The offer was accepted without a counter.