Posted by Will on August 05, 2005 at 09:13:46:
First, find out if it is occupied by the owner or by a renter. Your county appraiser office (or website) should be of service to you in that regard.
If it’s occupied by the owner, I’d go knock on the door. Tell him/her that you’re looking to buy a house in the neighborhood and you were wondering if they knew anybody who might be willing to sell.
If it is not occupied by the owner, I would call the owner on the phone. Ask them if they are thinking about getting out from under the burden of owning that property. Tell them you know it can be tiring dealing with tenants and maintenance issues, but that you are looking forward to a fresh challenge and you were wondering if they might consider selling the property to you.
My experience is that it is pretty difficult to target ONE property like that, though. It’s much easier to send that message out to a big group of people and let the interested ones get back to you than it is to hope for THIS PARTICULAR owner to express some interest.
You just can never tell what situation people are in. There is a family that owns 6-7 houses in my neighborhood in a college town. Property values are pretty high for this part of the country. Four of the houses are vacant and just absolutely in HORRIBLE condition. The father passed away and the mother is out of it. The daughter is not the brightest bulb in the box. They have 2 or 3 properties rented…and that is good enough for them. I’ve talked to them about the expenses for the vacant properties that must be eating them alive. I’ve tried to L/O them and I’ve tried to buy with cash. I’ve tried to get them to finance so they could have cash every month instead of a lump sum. I figured at least they could sell me one, use the money to fix the other three, and get their revenue stream going again.
There is no way this is a good situation for them right now. But they are not ready to sell.