First Flip - Seems too good to be true

[Michael Marchman]

I'm about to pull the trigger on my first flip but wanted some advice from the BP community to see if I'm missing something...

Home is in a great area, with comps ranging from $90k-135K.

• The home was purchased by an "investor" in September for $30k and is now for sale for $75k. According to the Realtor, the investor bought the home to flip, but didn't have the time and did nothing to the home. 
• The text I got from the Realtor when I set up a time to see the inside of the home was, "it is awful inside".
• The outside of the home is in fairly decent shape with only minor work needed to be done (paint, mow the lawn etc..)
• The seller wants to do a cash deal because "a bank won't give a loan for this house".
• I'm going with an inspector on Friday to walk through and make an offer.

Am I wrong in thinking of offering a cash price near what the buyer just paid for the house a few weeks ago? The sellers agent has made statements to me indicating the seller wants a fast deal. For example, "He just wants to get rid of it"; "He is open to offers" etc...

*(All quotes are from the sellers Realtor)

[Carson Wilcox]

remember that this investor probably had costs above the purchase price, closing costs, title insurance etc etc.. 

OR it is so jacked up inside or hidden issues that this guy realized he cant make $ on it... and is trying to offload his turd.

Get inside it and get a ballpark $ for remodel... then put it in the calculator... dont worry about what he paid for it...  and run it like that.  Figure out the max you can pay to make your $, then cut that a bit, and see what he says.