My 1st Driving for $'s (trial by fire style)

[Randy Sinda]

Fellow BP’ers,

As a newb and taking the advice of all of the posts, blogs and podcast recommendations out there of not spending money on guru’s/training etc. and the mind set of just get out there and get some OJT I took my 1st driving for $'s excursion today and just dove in trial by fire style. I drove around and found 6 properties in 2 targeted areas today and took some pictures and wrote down the addresses. When I got home I downloaded my camera and and started to populate a basic info spreadsheet I built to document my findings. As I live in Roseville CA area the targeted farming areas were in Sacramento County, I used Redfin, Zillow and the Sacramento's Recorders website info to build out my rough and initial data analysis set. The whole process was very enlightening and really opened up my eyes as to what is out there that you might just normally drive by when you do not have the mindset of an REI. I've been obsessively listening to "BP" & "Flipping Houses Junkie" podcasts and basically just tried to apply some simple math to analyze the data set that I loaded into excel.

For the basic math I used the 70% rule and from the FHJ podcast I’ve hear some rough math thrown out there that says use $20 - $30 a sq. for rehab costs for rough numbers. Using those numbers there are 3 of the 6 I looked at that could be a potential deal. The 3 houses where the numbers look somewhat favorable are very neglected/abandoned and have an atrocious look to them (maybe that is a good thing).

I guess my quandary now is what to do next? Sac county does not let you see DEED images over the internet, I think some people out there do have access without having to go down to the county office and request/lookup the info to see what the deeds look like. Then there is title, do these leads have clean titles? When I look up the assessor data I see trust’s & “affidavit of death” etc.

How would I find these people/entities? Should I try to find out mailing address and do direct marketing? As my 1st time out DF$’s I was apprehensive to get out and walk up to the door and knock. If they answered the door what the heck would I even say to them? “Hey want to buy your house, I ‘ve got cash (ya right, in actuality I’ve got nothing)

Looking for some feedback from the community, here are 3 potentials that stick out to me. I know there is alot more to to take into consideration and actually getting a real view of the inside and out to come up with a solid rehab estimate. Are these properties better suited for FF? B&H's? What do you think? Thoughts? suggestions?

Regards,

Frank

Property Lead #1:

Year Built: 1959

Type: 3/1.5

Sq.Ft.: 1,120

Lot Size: 5,663

Parking Sq.Ft: 437

Last sold price: $85,000

Redfin Estimate: $212,044

70% Rule - /$25 per sq. rehab = $120,431 offer

Property Lead #2:

Year Built: 1974

Type: 4/2

Sq.Ft.: 1,455

Lot Size: 6,970

Parking Sq.Ft: 480

Last sold price: $119,000

Redfin Estimate: $258,920

70% Rule - /$25 per sq. rehab = $144,869 offer

Property Lead #3: (this one looks like grandma might be dead and propped up in there)

Year Built: 1958

Type: 3/1

Sq.Ft.: 1,055

Lot Size: 7,841

Parking Sq.Ft: 307

Last sold price: $48,500

Redfin Estimate: $215,240

70% Rule - /$25 per sq. rehab = $78,894 offer