Probate SFR Sale From the MLS at Bargain Price

[Dante Pirouz]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Port Huron.

Purchase price: $15,500
Cash invested: $21,000

An SFR from a probate estate sale that we negotiated to a really low price.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

I was looking to add another rental unit to our portfolio and this was a good price.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

It was on MLS for a long time and marketed very poorly. Bad pictures, short description. The agent was not local and the seller was the inheriting family members from the probate so there probably wasn't a lot of desire to really promote this listing.

How did you finance this deal?

Cash

How did you add value to the deal?

We put in new flooring, appliances, windows, painted exterior and interior, redid the bathroom layout to make more spacious and add a tub (it had been used as an office before so it only had an accessible toilet but a big footprint), added a laundry room to a rough utility room and updated all of the lighting fixtures.

What was the outcome?

It is currently rented by a great tenant

Lessons learned? Challenges?

The big lesson is to keep an eye on a property that you want and time is on your side. I like old MLS listings that have languished for a long time because that means there is something wrong with the way that it is listed and buyers have already written it off. Then I have the advantage to low ball the offer and negotiate a really good price. This property was listed a year earlier at $49K but no bids. We started our bid in November 2016 at $12K and ended at $15.5K.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Yes @Paul Steward was our agent.