Cary:
Is this an investment or a home you MUST have? I learned early on that you shouldn’t get emotionally attached to a property unless it might be desired as your home.
One thing that appears clear, is that these owners may be motivated. Will they let this home go real cheap? Who knowns? So get a hold of them, see if you can cut a deal with them that you & your spouse can live with and be happy with. If it turns out that you acquired the home below market, so much the better.
With the kind of equity they have in this home, there are ALL sorts of offers you can make. You can try to low ball them (or steal the home, you can see if they will carry back the financing for you under favorable terms?, or perhaps you can cash them out for part of their equity and get them to hold the remainder in the form of a subordinate 2nd lien that would have VERY “Soft” repayment terms. The possibilities are endless ONCE you find out that they really NEED and how you can acheive that in your offer.
A pretty house built Dec.99. In Nov.99 the owners got into marital problems and started the divorce procedings. The contractor completed the house and used the house as a model home for his business until May00. House has been vacant ever since, and has never been lived in. The house is currently listed with a realtor.
In doing some checking the owners were given the notice of defalt last month (Feb.01). In talking with the attorney handling the case, he mentioned that the house will go to the courthouse steps in mid June or early July.
From the county assessors office I found that the house has a first mortgage that is in default ($47k) that was taken out in Dec.99, and a 2nd mortgage for ($65k) taken out in May 2000.
The house is listed for $325K, and comps out at about $315K.
I got all of this information without contacting the owners. I do know who they are and their contact information, but I don’t want to “scare them away.”
So, what would be a good strategy to contact the owners with? (Oh, by the way, I would like for this “beautiful” home to be my personal residence) My wife thinks I ought to just contact them directly and offer them a 70%LTV offer ($225k), with the idea that they will still be $125k above their loan values and should be happy to walk with $125k.
I was just wondering what approach I should take and what would be a good price to offer?