Found a MF that is condemed. Yay or nay?

[Greg Feilner]

Thanks for reading! Fair warning I am not a writer at all so please forgive me for the many mistakes I will make.

Quick note. This would be my first deal ever.

My partner and I where walking around our neighborhood a few days ago and happen to take extra notice to a MF that had very overgrown grass. I remembered a spinet from "Bidding to buy" that said something along the lines of unkempt grass can be a sign of a foreclosure. I made a little joke to my partner about it (it being my silly knowledge of this little fact). Maybe a week later we where walking once again by it and the grass was cut. I make a joke about it again. She happened to notice something that we both did not the last time around. There where boards on a window and what looked like papers attached to the front door. We decided to take a closer look. Low and behold it was papers for condemnation. We made some more jokes about buying it and how it would be perfect to move in one side and rent out the other. Well I thought about it more and more and it dawned on me. WHY NOT?! So we went back to take a closer look. The duplex was totally empty and in great shape. According to the papers on the door it had been condemned since 2018. The papers did not say much. Just about the grass and a few windows had been boarded up on one side (other side seemed perfectly fine). We called the number that was provided on the papers. It was to a sheriff. He sounded very confused how we got his number plus had no idea about the property. He was kind enough to give us a number to someone that he claimed would be able to help us in this matter of finding the owner/any history on the building. Alas all this kind lady could tell us is that it was condemned because of the tall grass and she had no info on the owner.

Luckily my partners sibling just started being a realtor. We asked her and she had no idea or even a clue. She did let us have access to her MLS where we were able to look at the property. It said it was owned by a C****** Trust (I don't want to put the persons name because I have no idea where that could lead) looking on the MLS we found that C Trust had a few other MF homes around our city. Feather investigation also showed that C Trust sold a few of there MF to a R****** C (C being the first part of the Trust. So it appeared to be a last name).

Not sure what to do with all this information or where to go next. Googling C Trust or R.C. got us no where useful. I would really love to talk to the owner and find out if they are willing to sell because of the blatant abandonment of the MF home. Any advice or direction would be awesome. Thank you so much for reading.

Side note. This MF duplex is in great shape other than the windows on one side. The fences is neglected and falling in on parts. The "good" side looks perfectly fine. The "bad" side looks fine except the windows being boarded. Very confused why someone would leave such a nice looking investment to rot.

[Neil Schoepp]

I'm going to throw some ideas out there one to give this a bump to the top of the list the other because one of these may work. First you running into this road block is actually great news. It keeps competition at bay. People give up way to easily. You just by this post you are not one of them. 

First thing I would do is in some counties you can look the property up in the GIS system so search for County name, state GIS 

You may also by able to find information on the county tax assessment site. Again county, state tax assessment.

What you are looking for is the sales history. With a trust a lot of times it will be smith trust but when you go back in the sales history you will see peter smith was the previous owner before it was smith trust. 

If you meet a dead end on line You can go to the county records and look up previous owners you are looking for the recorder of deeds office. 

Another option is to visit a title company and ask them for guidance (essentially they are going to do the immediately previous step I suggested) the difference is this is what they do day in and day out AND they may even be familiar with the property in question. It's the quickest and best way in my opinion, besides if you end up acquiring the property you will need title work.