627 Homes purchased by 1 investor!

[Karen Margrave]

http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/08/03/bill-mcmachen-michigan-buys-hundreds-foreclosed-properties/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl5%7Csec3_lnk1%26pLid%3D188193

Sorry... I lost the instructions on how to do this more neatly.

[Matt Devincenzo]

@Sam Leon no out of 370 in Warren 160 were houses, so still alot of land/commercial but he may have had a higher % in the remaining 280ish props.

[Sean Kremer]

Wow, I can only imagine the night terrors I'd have after dropping that much money on that many homes all at one time. Even if you know what you're doing that takes huge cajones to take all that on, especially if it was his own money. I can only assume that he is going to earn every cent he makes on this package deal, and I hope he makes out great. That is the epitome of risk vs. reward in my book. Wow i'd like to know more about this guy....

Sean K

[Rob K.]

I own a house right next to this house in the story that was demolished. My tenant wanted this house torn down and I don't blame her. It was a complete wreck. The guy who lived there had not done any maintenance for years and years. After he died, it just got worse.

There's a few things about this story that I found interesting, like this quote.

"Elkins admitted that when the company learned so many of the foreclosed houses and vacant parcels were on the city’s south side, the firm was told it couldn’t back out without losing its deposit on the nearly 660 parcels."

Where did they think these foreclosed parcels would be, in the good part of town? What kind of due diligence (if any) did this buyer do before dropping almost $5 million dollars? All of these parcels were listed on the county website prior to the auction. Anybody that knows the area can tell where these properties are just by the address.

I'm also curious why this buyer is whining about this one property. The vacant lot is completely worthless. He bought it for the back taxes that were owed. He's now disputing the demolition bill, which will be added to the tax bill. You don't need a calculator or even a pencil to figure out that the best move here is to just not pay the taxes on this parcel and let it go. It will be up for auction at the next tax sale. No big deal.

What's funny is that if the city gets the lot back, they might offer me half of it for free and I will refuse. It won't benefit me at all to have more grass for my tenants to cut, have my property taxes increase, and have to move a fence.

[Scott K.]

I would like to bump this thread up.

I put in an offer on a property they got at the tax sale. They are asking way way over what they should. I offered half of what they wanted. That got rejected they said they need it a lot closer.

So I went up another grand and am waiting for a reply. I talked to the agent and even said that I know who this guy is and he will never get all his money back.

This guy is going to lose his ***. Like said above most of these houses are not in good shape. The one I offered on was not so bad but I have to get it at my price.

[Robert Farabaugh Jr]

if that guy would have have came to bigger pockets first he would have been a lot better off. Even as a complete Newbie I would have known better just from what I have already learned here. He probably just figured with this many properties he could make a quick killing and move on. The epitome of there is no such thing as getting rich quick.

Oh and Karen you can add a clean link by clicking the Icon that looks like a chain and coping and pasting the website URL there. It should look like this when you are done original story post here.

[Scott K.]

yeah he won't get his money back from the trying to sell his south Warren properties.

He was thinking he was smarter then everyone else. Now he has many properties not worth anything. Warren is a very tricky city.

[Steven J.]

What a fascinating story! I hope the guy does well by this. I'm a little disappointed to hear he is indeed asking such a high number on properties when he said in his interview he was going to probably get what investors would have paid regardless. But, not knowing the area, I'm not going to make judgements or assumptions about what 'top dollar' is out there.

Someone commented earlier about what guru he had seen who did this. Even with my lack of experience it seems like this may not have been the most intelligent real estate decision. If I were in his shoes my next step with my 600+ properties would be figuring out how to sell them quickly. Knowing I need extensive overhead for this process as one man can't manage that many sales and walk throughs, etc there is a lot I would need in place to be ready to move on this. From what it sounds like that management isn't there. I hope I'm wrong.