How To Manage My Time
I hope someone can offer advice.
I have a Realtor that emails me updating forecloure listings. My goal is to buy single family homes, rebab the property and then resell to a retail buyer.
The problem is that I'm wasting alot of time. Driving around to see the properies, having someone look at them, having the Realtor pull comps and making offers that the bank is rejecting.
I'm spending alot of time to have all my offers rejecting. What am I doing wrong.
Yaisa
Where are you focusing in Chicago? What is your price point?
I'm looking on the South Side of Chicago and the South Suburbs. Max price is $100,000
What is your % of list that you are offering on the foreclosure? I have heard in some places you must be at a certain minimum to be considered. Something like 83%.
As far as time management, when I go hunting, I map them all out first and drive to the furthest and work my way home. Weekends are best so you can see activity in the neighborhoods too. Gives you an idea of when to do any repairs. (Like 8am during the week... )
Best,
Ryno
I'm not offering a certain percentage. I'm using several factors, m ainly the repair estimates and the APR Value. It just seems that the banks are trying to get FMV.
Thanks,
Yaisa
If your looking for big profits, you need to do your homework before the realtor gets it. They'll scoop the good deals up b4 you ever see them. Unless your realtor is your spouse, I'd bet you're getting second choice at best.
Dear Yha,
Tough area South Chicago. Also very competitive as to what you are doing.
If you are a personality type outgoing person I suggest you swing over to Pre/Foreclosures. Make a nice little pitch and go for it. You might also work on those that are getting pretty close to the actual day of sale.
Of course make very sure you know the true Market Value of what you are looking at and also make very sure that you are bidding from where you think you are on the title train.
If you are really tight with your realtor, like you trust him and you are going to give him all your business ask him to supply you with recently expired or canceled MLS listings. Go bang on those doors, smile nicely and see if you can buy from them.
I banged on a door and a man answered and thru a small child out into the street. I closed the door on his hand and would not open it until he agreed to make up with the child and talk to me. No I did not buy his house but I found that little child a friend I think his name was Michael Jackson.
Do hope I have been helpful Lucius
Lucius,
I certainly enjoy your posts most of the time, but this one make me laugh. South Side of Chicago is a tough area only in terms of having abundance of properties available. I subscribe to the foreclosure report of chicago, and I can tell you that every week several dozen of properties end up as REOs in Cook County, and most of them are on the South Side. Heck, I just saw an opportunity to buy a 10-flat on the south side for $250k! And don't think there too many takers. Of course, a lot of banks don't realize that still want to sell their REO stuff at FMV. But I can tell you, if you're looking for a good deal(moneywise), you have better chances to find it on the South Side of Chicago than anywhere else(in terms of quantity that is).
yahgood,
Ask your realtor to narrow down the list for you. The realtors have the ability to enter multiple search criteria when looking for the houses. An example in your case could be as follows.
Foreclosures and REO's, Listed at or below tax assessed value, and obviously handyman special or fixer-upper etc. You could also ask for listing of homes within your criteria that have been listed for a while, say 5 months or so. This would pull up properties that needed extreme amounts of work, and probably have generated little interest by buyers. They would however probably be houses that everyone except the real rehabbers would be afraid of because of the depth and scope of the repairs needed. Don't let this scare you. Most people that consider themselves buying fixer-uppers are looking at houses that may need a roof or carpeting, and/or a paint job.
If this example is extreme, you could tweak your search for houses that are listed at no more than 5K above tax assessed value or something like that..
Once you've got your Realtor sending you fewer but better qualified prospects, ask him/her to provide you with comps (if they exist) when they send you the listings. You'll want comps of recent sales, not existing listings.
After you've decided which properties you're really interested in, then go looking. When you make your offers, you could try to provide the bank with pictures as well as estimates of repairs needed in order to get them away from the market pricing, and seriously consider your offer.
If you start making offers on houses that have recieved little interest on the past, they might start taking notice.