As you might have noticed, I haven’t blogged much in the past week. Aside from taking a long-weekend vacation for Thanksgiving, there really hasn’t been too much to write about the past week or two. This is the first holiday season that I’ve been investing, so I don’t know if it’s coincidence or seasonal, but it appears that there are many fewer REO deals coming on the market these days.
I’m hoping it’s just that the banks and agents are slowing down around the holidays, and that things will get back to “normal” (whatever that means) come next year; but in the meantime, we’re using the extra time to focus on better defining some of our systems and processes, putting together organized marketing plans, and networking with other agents and investors in our area. It’s nice to switch things up now and then, and the focus on marketing and figuring out how to better position ourselves to sell properties in the future is a great change of pace. We’re also going to use some of our down-time to do some volunteer work, and to spend more time with our puppy, who has been very lonely these past couple months while we’ve been running around working on houses.
Now, that said, we did spend all of yesterday looking at new properties, and we put in two offers today. Both properties were overpriced based on our desired exit strategies, but we made low-ball offers and are hoping that at least one of them pans out.
Additionally, we received word that our other outstanding offer was rejected (if you recall, we’re trying to buy a property to renovate and flip to an elderly woman who is ready to pay cash for a move-in-ready house). They countered at just $1000 below the asking price, and we re-countered with the best offer we could possibly make work in this situation; our final offer is just $9K below asking, and we’re offering $15K in earnest money, and a 7-day closing. Unfortunately, this seller seems dead-set on getting full-price, so it’s unlikely our final offer will be good enough.
We’ll know for sure by Friday, and in the meantime, we’re trying to find something else that will suit our buyer…
While things are slow, there’s a lot to write about…over the next week or so, I’ll talk about the status of our outstanding offers, some new financing options I’ve found, our new portable security system, the status of The Second Chance House, and some details around our marketing plans moving forward…
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