Targeting vacant and/or abandoned houses has become a popular strategy for savvy real estate investors, but there’s another niche that most aren’t aware of, which is pre-vacant houses. In other words, there’s actually 3 stages to vacant/abandoned houses and BIG profits to be made in each…
1 – Pre-Vacant Houses
These are houses that have owners who are so fet up that they’re about to pack up their bags and abandon the property. There’s a lot of money to be made here, because other investors don’t know that these great deals exist. They simply don’t know how to effectively find them. While most investors are targeting vacant houses, the savvy investor is targeting the homeowner just BEFORE they vacate, which is when they’re often at their most motivated point. We target these people using hidden market indicators.
See that house above? We picked it up for $22000 using our pre-probate hack
It was a pre-vacant house, meaning the owner was about to move out. The house is in our area (Central Florida) and the owner was an elderly man who was moving up north to live with his son. He filled out and recorded a specific document which, when filed in public records, tells us that there’s a strong likelihood that the house is in a pre-probate/pre-vacancy situation.
The house had a good amount of deferred maintenance, because the man was older and simply unable to continue taking care of it. He had always done repairs and upkeep on his own, but over the past several years, his health had began to prevent him from continuing to do so. He didn’t have much money, so he neglected everything.
My wife and I have a few entire systems which we use to target pre-vacant houses. The Pre-Probate system is only one of them. The first thing we did was mail a curiosity letter to the owners son, who was on the legal document filed which indicated the house was heading into a pre-probate status. As soon as he received it, he called us for more information. Within a couple days, we had the house under contract. Here’s how the numbers looked…
We put the house under contract for $22,000, all of which went to the seller who owned the house free and clear. We also paid closing costs. We then assigned the contract to another investor and…
Made a $14,500 Profit
We were in and out of the deal in about a week. The investor we wholesaled the property to is in the process of rehabbing it now and he expects to resell the house for just under 100k. His rehab, done properly, should be under 20k. It was a win-win for all parties involved.
For more information on Pre-Vacant Houses, CLICK HERE
2 – Vacant Houses
Vacant houses often come right after the pre-vacant stage. They’re a great source of motivated seller leads. To find them, most investors drive around neighborhoods looking for houses which have signs of vacancy or use tax records. Then, to target them, investors typically mail postcards or letters.
3 – Abandoned Houses
Abandoned houses are usually the “end of the line” in the vacant house process, but they’re an absolute goldmine for the investor who knows how to find the owner. The trick is finding the owner. Many investors skip-trace the owners, which often turns into a waste of time and money. There’s a much better way. For a trick to finding abandoned house owners that no one else knows about…
