I can elaborate on it. Its still a developing story. To be honest, it could just be a few owners trying to avoid losing their *expletive* on a property by telling a few well placed lies, or it could be some sort of title bate and switch thing. I'm not sure. Either way, it was way to suspicious to continue pursuing the deal. To give you sense of how sketchy it was, I brought a utility knife along with my to visit the property... just incase. Never doing that again by the way.
The owners said they needed to sell the house because they were starting an assisted living business and they found out too late that the house was too small, so they needed to buy another one. They said they purchased it for 25k, put 10k into it rehabbing it, and needed to get rid of it fast so they could buy another house. Initially, they said they just wanted to recoup their losses and sell it for 35k. I look at the comps- the fully rehabbed houses in the area MAY have gone for 30k absolute maximum. I tell her I may be able to purchase the house for 12-16k depending on how far along the rehab is they are in the middle of based on the comps. She says a realtor did a professional report on the property saying it would be worth at least 50k, which is absolutely ludicrous, but she keeps skirting my request when I ask her to provide that report.
Anyways, I visit the property, knife in pocket.. Its nothing special. Some work has been done. The floors need to be redone, the kitchen needs countertops, the bathroom needs redone, and it needs all new fixtures. Maybe some wiring. Now they are insisting that they have two buyers for trying to offer them a contract to close in 30 days and want to purchase it for 30k. They say they can't wait that long and need to sell to me just as long as I can close in 10 days.
At this point, I think BINGO! I say 22k, which they agree to instantly. Which is weird because they were so insistent upon not getting less than 30k earlier. My plan at this point is to grab some hard money, close quickly, and sell it to one of the buyers she mentioned earlier for 30k and make an easy 5k or so from just holding the property for 20 days.
So I ask for the two buyer's contact info, and she avoids the question. So now I'm really apprehensive about the whole deal, but can't put a finger on why. I explain the situation to my realtor, and she mentions one thing that doesn't fit- they haven't explained why they can't wait 20 days for 8k. Their carrying cost can't be THAT high. So... what's the deal?
I follow up in an email asking why they can't wait the 30 days to close if they make 8k more on the sell, and asking for the contact information for the buyers they said they had lined up. She responds with (paraphrasing here, she had very unintelligible grammar), "The buyers are like you. They want to sell to someone else (basically wholesalers). If you find your own buyers then we are okay with you buying it for 22k. And we can wait (referring to the 30 day closing for the other investors)." This last statement, directly conflicts with what she said about, "Not being able to wait 30 days to close."
Again, she skirts both critical questions, but this time she provides some clues - clearly she doesn't want to sell her house too badly, and that she has been lying about something critical or maybe everything. At this point, I'm out, and I tell them I'm not interested.
Not enough information to prove beyond reasonable doubt it was a scam, but something was going on here, and this woman was a liar. Not someone you want to buy a house from. Both my realtor and I are keeping an eye on the property to see what happens with it.
@Brad Dwin- sorry if I hijacked your welcome post with this book. Just let it serve as a lesson to you too avoid tunnel vision and keep your eyes open. Sellers do lie.
