Tips for Newbies - MLS deals part 3

[Bryan L.]

OK, so here's the rest of the story. It's true, very true, that any good deal that hits the MLS and is priced right - that deal will get a lot of competition and will be sold quickly, often for a price that I am unwilling to pay. So, what do I do? I don't get too wrapped up in chasing those "hot" deals. Let everybody else fight over them. And while they are fighting and scrapping and spending time chasing that hot deal, I am hunting for those "hidden" deals.

The deal that I now have under contract is a great example. It was over-priced so it wasn't being chased by all of the newbies and wannabies in town. But, a sudden price drop (fairly large on a percentage basis) caught my eye. Here's another thing about this house. It's listed as a 3-bed, 1-bath house. And basically that is correct. But it has a very large "bonus" room. Now, what can one do with a bonus room? Put a couple of hanger rods in the closet and you now have a 4th bedroom. I can guarantee you that I will list this as a 4-bedroom house after I finish my rehab. When families have several kids and not much income, they don't care that extra bedrooms are not exactly typical. They just need more square feet for the dollar. This often happens with blended families when there are step-children in the family or a case of "his, hers, and ours". Sometimes, families are almost forced into buying houses with more bedrooms when there are custody battles involved. A judge might be willing to grant a parent custody, but only if the child will have his/her own bed-room. I once had a renter to leave my 4/5 bedroom house for a larger one because mine did not have enough bedrooms. Silly me, I thought all the girls could share one bedroom and all the boys could share another, but there was a court order involved. Anyway, back to the tip.

So, you may have to "hunt" for these kind of deals. I have my MLS set-up so that my search results also include a category of $/ft^2 in the display. And I can sort by this column with a click of the mouse. Another good reason to be your own Realtor - so that you can set up your MLS search parameters how ever you want them. And there's several other ways to hunt for "hidden" deals. Maybe I'll post more later.