First Wholesale property visit and negotiation w motivated seller

[Kelvin Duen]

I have been doing  some direct mail marketing and cold canvasing which resulted in my first solid wholesale lead. After the initial phone call, I can see that the owner is motivated (kept asking if we could close in two weeks). The owner was trying hard not to mention the property would be up for auction soon, even though it is public information. I have a cash buyer lined up so the closing period would not be an issue. Purchase price was not agreed upon but I put out some feeler questions to see where the owner stood in terms of price. I will be viewing the property really soon but I wanted to turn to the BP community for some last minute advice/tips/motivational rah-rah comments. Is there anything I should remember to do or avoid when I'm ultimately negotiating the purchase price. The property is in a desirable area. 
Should I determine what my cash buyer is willing to pay and work backwards from there, or use the 70% minus construction cost rule-of-thumb to reach a target range? Do I mention that I know their property is going to be auctioned away? Any and all advice is welcomed!

[Don Konipol]

@Kelvin Duen

You need to have a title search done to ensure that you have a doable deal. Amazing the liens, judgements, and encumbrances that show up in title searches that the seller either never mentions, or never realized existed. Could be anything from a boat loan judgement 8 years ago, to a contractor lien of a disputed payment, to a cash advance loan the property owner didn’t realize or acknowledge was a junior property lien. And judgements against the title holder having nothing to do with the subject property can still be valid liens against said property. As well as unpaid taxes.