Hello all, @Tony Battle @Hal Thompson @Steve Babiak @Brendan Harrison @Account Closed
Thanks again for all of your help. This deal will be a crazy story I'll remember for a while. About 3 days after I posted this, I get a call, and it's the Probate Attorney managing the estate! The mail I sent to the deceased home-owner successfully forwarded to the heirs in another state, so they called the attorney and asked her to reach out to me. Crazy! She said they JUST hired a realtor (terrible news for me) and had gotten an offer for 217k from a neighbor months ago that was being sketchy, so she said if I bring an offer that's competitive and can close fast then this house could be mine. So now I'm freaking out, this house has an ARV of 425-500k (who really knows in this current market) and the rehab should land around 100k (also a very rough number with how quickly construction costs are going up, could have been 150k easy).
This is where I made my big mistake. I was already working with a realtor myself, so I reached out to her to submit my offer for me and make sure my interests are represented. I pitched the deal to a local HML so I had POF to submit a cash offer. But before we submitted the offer, I wanted to actually step into the house first and make sure it's not about to tip over or something. The seller's agent seemed to be in no rush, as it took about 5 days to get into to the house. We get to the house, and He and my agent did NOT hit things off well. I think he saw her as a threat to his commission. But things were still looking good for us. Their was no money in the estate and it was still full of junk so it's ideal for a quick cash deal. But I KNEW this house would go for 300k+ if he just put it on the MLS, somehow I guess the realtor himself didn't even realize this yet. So we submitted a competitive offer ASAP.
We sent our 230k cash offer that same day, 13k more than their previous best offer. Sellers agent said it's a strong offer and he will show it to his sellers (there were 2 heirs). 2-3 days later he gets back to us and says it's not quite enough so they think they are going to list the property and see what happens. NOOOO! We immediately submit our highest and best offer of 270k and he loves the offer. Says he will get back to me in 48 hours. 2 days later I'm checking redfin and the house is listed for 235k. NOOOOO! All the flippers hop on this ASAP, He shows it to about 5 flippers over the next 48 hours and it sells for cash at 300k. They would have sold to us if we matched, but it was just too much of a risk for us so we opted out.
In hindsight, we probably could have matched the 300k offer and this still would have been a great deal. But this would by my first deal and I just couldn't put that kind've stress on myself and my wife with the current volatility of construction costs and HML expenses going way over budget if we don't do things on time.
Long story short, I am now absolutely hooked on real estate. All of this happened on the FIRST day I ever actively searched for a property. I woke up not feeling well so I took a day of PTO and decided to walk a neighborhood I was interested in. I mailed ONE letter and got INCHES from my first deal, of which I probably could've still landed a nice profit but just couldn't bring myself to take on such a large risk on my first deal.
