Absentee Owner purchased the house but did not start the Renova

[Tim Clark]

It's been over a year and this absentee owner have not started the renovation!

I'm a newbie and I received 10 vacant homes for free in my area.  I decided to go out and check them out to see if they are vacant or not.  So I pulled up to one of the homes and I see a 3 men crew getting started to do some work on the house. 

I asked one of the guys, what  are you guys doing? He said, they are getting ready to do some rehab (Small Project)for the owner of the property. I asked a few more question and found out the owner is an Absentee Owner  in distress of the property and in need of money.  He also said, you probably can make an offer because he has a few more houses that are not completed and he needs to unload one or two for cash.

FAST FORWARD, A month later, which was yesterday my wife came home and gave me 2 vacant homes that she found on the way home and that house was one of them. I decided to get back in touch with the guy. Before contacting him I looked under the county property appraiser to get info of the property and owner. The guy did give me his name, so when I looked it up an LLC came up with the property address and an out of state mailing address, the same state as the guy told me.

I called the guy and I asked if the owner sold the property?  He said, no.  Then I asked if they finished the work they were doing at that time? He said, no.  I got a little more info about the property and he reminded me the guy really need cash and he need to sell that house.

I ask him if he still talk to the owner and he said, yes I can call him up now.  I told him to ask him what is the least amount he will take for the home.

It is 1925 home 1450 sqft 4 beds 2 baths on a scale 1 to 5, 5 is the highest it is a 2 as far as renovation.  At one time the property was a doctors office.

I looked on Zillow for the homes similar that was sold in the last 6 months and it is around $110,000 to $ 120,000.  He is asking $105,00.

Well my phone was ringing off the hook yesterday and it was an unknown call I know it was him but I did not pick up, because 1. I WAS SCARED AND DID KNOW WHAT TO SAY!  Even though I have listen to some podcast and they say to build REPOR ( I don't know if I spelled that correct) ask the reason for selling and so on.  THEN 2. I DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO OFFER.

I know he will call back today.

What to offer him?

Thanks