All Forum Posts by: Eric Olsen

@bryanotteson very good point. I will begin tracking milage.

Thanks for pointing that out. 

@jesus garcia no. Im currently helping another incestor locate prospects. I offered up my time to help an investor in exchange for some guidance along the way. 

Ok everyone, so as the title says this is report after day 4 of D4D.  I am new to this so take it for what its worth.

Days out D4D: 4

Miles driving:  I have not been keeping track (perhaps I should)

Hours invested: 10 +/-

Houses viewed:  Best guess around 1200 +/-

Distressed homes:  28

Pre-foreclosure homes: 2

Vacant homes: 5

Solid leads: 2  (1 lead was sold about a week before I found it. see my other post. 1 lead remains)

Using the county property look up, I check to see who owns the location and where they are. My remaining good lead is in VA and I am in IL. Turns out that the owner of the house inherited the house after his father passed away.

This is my action experience in real estate.  Clearly making progress just by getting out there.  I intend to keep posting about this all as BP has helped me a great deal already and hopefully I can offer something back!

E

@Rheonnawinston this is just what i was looking for. Thanks for your post. 

 Thanks, Alison. Just trying to make each time D4D a little more productive and organized than the one before. 

I keep thinking about Andrew Cushman from podcast 170 who made all those cold calls before getting a deal.  Talk about determination! 

I've got a sad update here. The property that was my best lead was sold just a few days prior to my finding it. Dang! 

On the bright side, I was a year late on one and a few days late on this one. I like where my timeline is heading!

Anyone else making progress D4D?

 What are you looking for in Aurora?

Day Two Update..

New location not far from the previous area. Pretty much the same process yet I corrected a step in preparation from my last effort. I did a better job of confirming the ARV for the area. Last time I just picked a location without much thought behind it. Double checking the comps in prospective locations is certainly going to expedite this process.

Ok, details from today...

This is an older area of town.  My thoughts behind this was that the odds of locating distressed properties here would likely increase.  From what I saw, I would say it was a valid idea.

Found 4 properties that were closer to my criteria.  1 of which has an absentee owner.

I looked at one property pretty thoroughly (parked in the drive, and walked around the house.  Took a few photos) Apparently I am blind because I missed the hubzu sign in the front window.  The house was clearly vacant yet I wanted more info so I went over to neighbors house.  Here I met Karen and boy did she have a lot to say about this property.  see below...

1. Property was foreclosed on over a year ago.

2. The owner who was foreclosed on apparently lives with someone in the house on the other side of the property that was foreclosed on.  Karen states that the old owner works at a grocery store near by.

3. The home has a septic tank and city water.

4. The crawl space floods in heavy rains.

5. The pool in the backyard has been out of commission for over 3 years.

6.  Karen also stated the the owners funneled all their gutters into the septic tank which would overflow during heavy rains.   Why the heck this was ever an idea, I do not know.

I spoke with Karen for about 30 minutes and she actually sat in her kitchen with her as she pulled up the house on Zillow.  Pretty crazy.

Anyway, I think it is too late for this house being as though it was foreclosed on.  If only I were a year and a half earlier.

However, I found a vacant house that is in need of attention.  With a quick search on the county web site, I found out that the house has an absentee owner who is in Kansas. (I'm in Illinois)  This one is certainly getting looked into further.  I went to the neighbors house to talk but no one answered the door. 

Well, that was day two.  I invested about 3 hours of time today and I found a few properties that I think I am late on.  However, I found a good possibility that will be research further.

That is all.

Eric

Thank you everyone. Planning on going out tomorrow as well. I will update after again with my experience.

Hello everyone!  I just wanted to post about my experience with driving for dollars this evening.  I had some goals in mind that I wanted to achieve tonight and I learned some things along the way.  Here we go...

Criteria: 3/1 or 3/2 SFR, distressed, ARV between 150-200k, not currently on market.

I invested just over 2 hours of time, almost a 1/4 tank of gas, and around an hour of preparation for this.  I would guess that I viewed an estimated 500 properties and I did not find any property matching the criteria. I did find a 3 locations of interest though so all is not lost!!

Successes from tonight...

1.  I now know there are no deals for me within this part of my search area.  This places me closer to finding my deal.

2.  I was unable to speak with any home owner however I did not let that deter me from talking to some neighbors.  Here is what I found out from the neighbors.  

    A.  The owners of a vacant house with a for sale sign out front moved out about 3 weeks ago.  Apparently they kept to themselves mostly and people didn't know them.  The man I spoke to was sad that the previous owners left as they were good friendly neighbors.

   B.  Another house with boarded up windows on the second floor was not for sale because the owners were repairing damaged caused by a fire.  No one was injured and the family had raised close to 50K in charities.  The family did not have home owners insurance.

3. I found homes in this area that I never knew existed.  I grew up in this area and I was on streets that I never heard of.  If not for my maps and gps, I would have been lost in my own home town.  Apparently options can be ANYWHERE!

4.  The talking part was no where near as bad as I had anticipated.  Actually, it was kind of nice chatting with strangers in my home town.

5.  I took action, as I said I would, and from this I gain experience.  Enough said on this one!

All in all this was good step.  Whether you call in failing forward or faster either way its progress and this is exactly what I made up my mind to do!

Go get some people...get some!

Eric