Be careful driving for dollars!

[Jay Orlauski]

 So I had an experience the other day that I thought was worthy of sharing with the community. I am generally a big advocate of "driving for dollars"  - for those who don't know - it simply mean driving around looking for distressed houses that owners may be willing to sell - typical giveaways are boarded up houses, unkempt yards, citation notices on doors and the like.  Once you find a property that fits your profile - you can look up the address on county records and attempt to contact the owner to acquire it. 

Well anyway, I get a lead from my pest control guy about some boarded up houses on the other side of town and decide to go check them out and figure I'll keep my eye out for other houses too. I get there and sure enough its boarded up and looks like a great prospect, so I get out of the car and snap a few pics.  The place is obviously vacant and has no fences with a wide open yard -so far so good.  But then I decide I'd like to snap a few shots of the back of the house and check for overall condition.. .... que up the tension music

So before I get through the front yard,  a man starts walking out from the back yard.. a large man.. a kinda scary looking guy that I immediately got a bad vibe about - he looked up and was caught by surprise. To try and diffuse a potentially dangerous situation, I said "hello" - but he did not reciprocate my cordiality - instead he immediately became aggressive and demanded 

"Who are YOU? .. what are you doing here?" 

Caught a little off guard by his immediate and aggressive tone - I said "I'm looking for a house for sale -someone wants to sell this house"

Angrily he replies  " WHO wants to sell this house?"  

I said  " the owner"

"I am the owner of this house" he responds..in a very direct and angry way. "now how you gonna tell me I want to sell my house? " 

At this point I am rather uncomfortable as it is not exactly the best area to begin with. I say to him 

" a friend told me about it and said that it might be for sale.. so I was just checking it out " 

He pointed to the burned house next door - "That one's for sale" 

"I'm sorry .. I didn't mean to trespass .. I'll leave" 

At this point he softens up a bit and says -- " it's OK man.. I just gotta be careful with all the vandalism that happens around here" 

Again I apologized and said I would leave and didn't meant to bother him 

Now he says .. "that's OK .. you're legit ... don't worry about it"

So I figure that now that I have his attention I'll ask if he actually is interested in selling and he says "not at this time, but things could change in the future." I asked if I could give him my card in case he decided to sell it he could give me call - and he said yes - so gave I him a card and introduced myself. I pointed out that it looked like a duplex to which he agreed and started describing how many beds and baths, etc. I asked him if he was an investor that had other units but he said this is his only one right now. I proceeded to tell him that I run a REIA group and had access to several investors that might be interested in a place like this and it got his attention so we talked awhile. I mentioned that if he was an investor he might enjoy coming to the meetup groups to which he said he was already interested in it as soon as I mentioned it.

Long story short ( I know .. too late)  The guy was a real nice guy, an investor and very interested in coming to the meetups - we talked for a little but soon he had to go  -  so we said our goodbyes and he got into is car and left. I later looked up the address and checked county records and sure enough  - he was the owner of the house. 

Moral of the story: I got lucky this time - but when driving for dollars - especially in sketchy neighborhoods  - maybe it's best to stay in the car. At the very least  - do not trespass even apparently vacant properties. 

Has anyone else ever had a situation where you were surprised by someone you didn't expect to be there ? Or for that matter ever run anyone off your vacant properties?