Look around, meet with a realtor, make low ball offers.

I use them as my realtor when I want to go look at a potential property and they are generally able to provide me with their opinion on a "ball park" rehab cost.

When your end-buyer is ready to exercise his/her option, then you can also exercise yours, and handle both closings.

I also have a few mentors who did some research on this over a period of 1-2 years (a while back), and they found that the only times the DOS was exercised was when the mortgage stopped being paid, the taxes stopped being paid, or the insurance got canceled.

I was planning on making a low-ball offer of $35,000.My reasoning on this is that the bank has had this property on its books since last August and is probably getting pretty desperate.

It sounds like you have a broken chain, the older ones are metal and rust over time or you have a leaky ball **** (the red plunger at the bottom).

If you would kind of like to know the value as it would be nice to sort of know a general ball park then I would chat with a realtor.If you need to know because your closing on a home and need to line up a refi – in today’s world I wouldn’t do anything less then an appraiser – and even then you are not guaranteed anything.3-6 months is out – that world is pre 5/1/09. 3 months is really what you have to work with in today’s market.

If he's released, he will almost certainly be stalking me again tomorrow and I will need to exercise extra caution while working.

I cannot drop the ball on this.

We are using lease/options.I'm asking for a large security deposit (2-5% of value) that can be used toward purchase if they exercise the purchase option.