Advise on letter

[momony50]

Hi everyone. there is a vacant house in the neighborhood. and i plan to send them a letter. But don,t know what to say. According to tax rec. The last sale,s
date was in 1970. And the owner,s are or where in there
90,s I spoke to a few neighbor,s but did not get to much
info. How can i approch this. Thank,s for your replies.

[tedjr]

Howdy Momony50:

Who are you going to send the letter to? It is hard to get anyone to answer letters. You will be better off finding the owners and talking directly to them or their heirs. LOL

[momony50]

Thank,s tedjr:

I have the owner,s name. I am going to address the letter to them. And hope i get a response. Is there a sample of a letter to a seller or potential seller that i can
see?? Thank,s

[tedjr]

Howdy Momoney50:

Something like this:

If you are still alive and have moved to a nursing home you may now want to sell the old beat up house where you lived for 90 years. I will buy it cheap and not give you what is is really worth. I am a vulture and want to pick your bones.

Unsincerely

Big bird


Unfortunately almost any letter you write will sound like this to the owners. I letter is better than no contact at all I guess. I still insist on the personal contact approach. If you must write a letter anything will work, Try to be sincere that you are trying to help them maybe with a property that has back taxes or something that they may lose. I have dealt with several old folks and they do not want anything done to the house where they lived all their life. There are also problems sometimes with heirs and they will not contact you no matter what, I tried to but one once where there were over a 100 heirs to the deceased. I finally gave up. Someone years later finally got it and fixed it and sold it. LOL

[momony50]

That,s funny ted:

I have the owner,s name and an old ph.# the house is
vacant. What would you do??

By the way congrat,s on your 1700 post. just think your
2K is olny day,s away. Thank,s again

[tedjr]

Howdy Momony50:

Start with a letter. Nothing to lose. Be sure to write return receipt requested and pay the extra few cents to have the forwarding address returned to you. This may help. More often it will just come back addressee unknown. Then you will need to do some investigation.  Maybe some more neighbors, same last name folks in the phone book may be kin. May check the obits in the archives. Probate office may have info.

[freedomflea]

I agree with ted. 95% of the time on this type owner, you are looking at a probate/nursing home situation.  I would first ask more neighbors about the lil old lady, then hunt her down accordingly. Chances are, you will be going to probate records. If she passed away in the same county, you will be able to establish a contact name(s) from probate. If not, maybe the letter or meighbors know of a relative that you can contact. Also, call the tax office and if the taxes have been paid, ask what the mailing address is for the tax statements and the contact name.

These kind of deals take more work, but can be very lucrative because you have no competition.

Good Luck,
Lance

[momony50]

Thank,s

I spoke to a neighbor who told me the house was sold
already.   The search goes on. once again thank,s

[rhm76384]

Hey,
     All the info you need is at your courthouse. If you're lucky its online or on computer. But, if like me, you have to search the books. If you're lucky and have a big county with lots of activity you may find some title company researchers there who might be willing to help you. Good luck.
Peace,
Richard

[MichelleBedore]

Hi-
Regarding Cold Solicitation Letters-Here's our experience:
My husband and I found a local (FANTASTIC AREA!) trash-infested 10 acre A-2 parcel with a half-torn down mobile home on it.  I did a lot of footwork and talked to a few neighbors.  Apparently, the land had been offered on the market a few times but no one bought it because of a lot of red-tape and non-permitted things (the well, bootlegged electrical, non-permitted mobile home) scared away potential buyers.  I did a ton of legwork, and discovered the previous agent who listed it the year before--she tried to get me to *hire* her to contact the owner.  Hehe.  but I knew better, and found the parcel online at the Los Angeles County Assessor's Online, got the APN  and went to our local assesor's branch.  Anyone can get an owner's name and mailing address from them, free and in minutes! I visited the Dept of Health and Zoning and Planning, and discovered the red tape wasn't really THAT bad... So I wrote a letter to the owner simply asking if he was still interested in taking offers for his parcel.  The letter was short and to the point.  Well, the owner called us right away and said he was interested, and would consider all offers over $250k.  We dallied a little while wrapping up our legal info-gathering on costs to bring the parcel to the point of ready to build.  Anyway, we placed the offer within 2 weeks.  It was rejected, lol, the owner decided to list it again, now asking $350k.  Dang, it is still unsold, and I still want it, even for $350k!  But, it's just too much for us right now--since we won't touch our existing home's equity-too scary for this newbie.  Besides, we just visited the parcel again.  Still not sold.  Still trashed.  Wonder what he wants now for it? Great area.....  dang, investors anyone????

[ginasands]

Why haven't you contacted him again... with a lower offer of $240,000 ???

[MichelleBedore]

Well, we were so bummed out we couldn't somehow obtain that parcel.  It would have to have been contingent on the sale of our home--or offered in partial trade anyway, because we had no down, and couldn't get a loan because it is unimproved land.  Plus, we couldn't afford to own both properties and make payments.  Plus our credit could have been better.  The credit rating is better now, since last summer we improved it quite a bit. I'd had many many loan agents trying different ways to get a bridge loan to build and all sorts of other creative ways, but we were simply not going to be able to get that land unless we sold our home and got that $300k equity out.  Then, we would have had to live in tents on the parcel with our 3 kids and 3 dogs and cat, pet rats in their cages, 3 birds and 3 horses, lol (you get the picture! lol) until something could be built.  Because he rejected our offer of $250k last summer, we threw in the towel; we could do NO MORE! We licked our wounds, and  decided to remodel our home--my hubby is soooo handy!  We ripped out the fireplace and re-did it, all custom, ripped out the carpeting and got wholesale Kahr's distressed oak flooring, got new toilets and new Italian ceramic tile in both baths and kitchen, and got all the acoustic popcorn ceiling off, put in 5 new electrical circuits and recessed lighting in the LR, Hall, and Kitchen. New interior pain in LR, Hall, Kitchen. We are just about finished, and we paid cash for materials (under $6k)and my poor hubby is doing all the work himself.  We had decided to upgrade our home for the 1st time since we bought it (as a FIXER) 13 yrs ago. All we did was roof it three years after we bought it.  I have not forgotten how close we were to almost getting that 10 acres in santa Clarita...The market is CRAZY here in Santa Clarita--too many buyers, not enough houses, median home price just hit $569k this summer.  If I sold this house, I would not be able to afford to buy another house here.  Our payment (includes tax and insurance) is almost half of what we could rent it for.  From what I am learning, cash flow is KING, and we *should* rent it out after Nick is finished with the stone fireplace, lol.  Too bad we can't bear leaving this fine community---we are priced out now.  Luckily we bought n 93 for $160k, prior to the big rush on this area.  I don't know. I know this is long, sorry!  I would love to hear any comments or advice from you who have more experience.  From what I am learning, flipping and rehabbing would probably be best for me to start off with.  meanwhile, last week, I bought a 2 acre parcel in a growing subdivision in Klamath falls for $7500.  I want to keep it for myself, not sell it because I absoltely LOVE the area and want to retire there.  I was thinking about buying up a few more of those parcels and re-selling them for a few grand profit each.  Yeah, I know, small peanuts, but I want to have small risk, since I have small money.