About October last year I had an owner look at one of my places during an open house. I learned she was widowed and was considering selling here Cape Cod style place. I didn't think much of the touring of the property as she was checking out a town house as a replacement.

Turns out she didn't know what a townhouse actually was. Fast forward to this week, she said I made a positive impression by texting her the online estimations of the value of her home last fall. With winter in retreat, she has found a new place to move in to, and she called to have me look at her place. A fall open house is still yielding results

I would call her home more bungalow style than a cod. It is the worse looking place in the neighborhood, as most of the houses nearby are your tier two places and this one is a simple starter house, a tier one place. It is dated but well maintained with newer mechanicals. (furnace 2010/power panel 2019 and HWT 2020) The 3-bedroom 1 bath has an ARV of about 145-150. It needs about $8,000 in RC for anew metal roof and installing a door & 3 ft long wall at the top of stair landing eliminating a pass thru bedroom situation.

The thing since it is small will rent for only $1,100 or so. This place is far from being a grand slam, I told her the place which was valued at $140 in Oct now is worth about 125. I told her to consider what direction the market maybe headed in the future. But because of how numbers shack out, about the most I can offer is about 100.

This makes this one rather lean But with newer HWT, furnace, and electrical service - a new roof coming, it might be alright since there are nicer houses around it.

She said the doctor next door wanting to look at it Sunday to house their mom. I told her that I also offer referral bonuses if I buy the place and you find me a new tenant. Being the worse house in that area isn't a bad thing if your neighbor is a doctor. Guess we will have wait and see.

This past month, the adds in the Free paper are hot. No telling what method will be hot next month, so you need multiple methods going on at the same time

What is the beehive's thoughts on this one.

When I was still buying full rehab places I loved being the ugly kid on the block.

Neighbors were always happy to see the place being worked on, even if that made a different house the ugly duckling once I was done.

Are you buying it outright or doing some seller financing? Talked to my banker buddy yesterday and he said OO is still floating at 6% with no points.

"worst in the neighborhood" : I would have expected a lot more wrong with it. Must be a really nice neighborhood. The new items are definitely a big plus.

(It's incredible that the ARV is that low, compared to here)

If you decide to purchase, do you truly want her to find you a tenant? I'm reading you would do expensive work to get max rent. Doable. How long do you feel it would take to buy, renovate and put a tenant in for max rent?

Timelines that work for your short or long term goals.

As of this morning, I didn't get a call back.

Still early in the week.

Got a call from her. The neighbor said $117,000 with bank financing. She asked me if I could better than that.

Wow, that's a big spread from the doctor's offer.

Let me understand. You said earlier to her that it was valued at 125k and that you could offer her 100k.

Now you offer 155k at 1k per month?

But you said it was small and would only get 1.1k in rents (for now) and the purchase price doesn't include the rehab you will need to make.

Are you planning to buy it on contract, fix it and sell it for a profit? Seems like you are above market on it already.

Maybe you plan to start it at 1k/55 months and then come into some cash to buy the remainder out cheaper?