Neighborly Advice When Flipping

[Philip Coiro]

I wanted to share some advice on how we handle neighbors when we're about to renovate a property and how this saved a deal!

I just completed my second long distance flip (Pittsburgh, PA) and I am in contract after days of negotiations with a difficult buyer. After we agreed on a sales price she wanted a maintenance contract with the neighbor on a tree they allowed us to trim to create a better view of the city. Picture attached is the city view from the house WITH the tree in place! 

Whenever we buy a house to work on we send every surrounding neighbor a handwritten card introducing ourselves, my contact information, a preemptive apology for the noise and disturbance along with a $20 gift card to Starbucks or amazon. We learn their names and always make sure to say hello, keep the job site clean and even though we own the house, we act as a guest. 

Back to this tree lady. After talking with the neighbors about the maintenance contract they were totally happy to do it and help us sell the house in any way they could. We went back with the good news and the buyer now wanted the tree removed completely! We told her it's not our tree to remove or frankly, be negotiating about as we don't own it! She then requested a $20,000 price reduction, we told her to find another house. Later that night they came back at our agreed upon asking price and still wanted the tree down. We talked to the neighbors again and they said we can take it down. 

We are currently under contract and I'm sure it's not the last I've seen of this buyer but she's getting a hard no on any further requests! 

Be kind to your neighbors as they just may save a deal for you!