Probate Monday: A little negotiating going on

This is going to be another busy week for sure.  Even though the last letters I sent out where in the first week of August, my phone rang with a call from a lady who had been holding onto my letter since I mailed it back in January.  Took me a bit to find her name because when she said it on the message it sounded like “Cook”, but in fact it was “Cope.”   I managed to to do a search on the address she left in the message and find what her real name was.  If I couldn’t find her name the return phone call would have sounded something like this, “Hi, my name is Scott Costello.  Someone from this phone number called me and left a message about selling a house at 123 Main St.  I apologize but I could not understand the name given in the message, is this house still for sale?”

Mrs Cope, wanted to know if I was still interested in buying the house.  She said the house was currently under contract for $160k but she didn’t sound confident it would go to closing and wanted some back up offers.  My research got me to a figure of about 100k for a cash offer.  Besides the house already being under contract, another monkey with this house was that it was an Illegal two family home that was grandfathered in.  Not really sure what this means for someone who wants to fix and flip it or how to find comps.  Should I comp it as a single family or a multifamily dwelling?

When I gave my offer to the seller, she said that she had a few higher offers on the table but if I could get it closer to 160 then we could talk.  I haven’t seen the house yet and the repairs might not be that bad (I assume 50k repairs if I haven’t seen the house), but I don’t see an offer of 160k coming from me with an ARV of $245k.

I do believe I took another small step forward with this opportunity though.  I actually talked with Bruce and he said he’d be interested if I got my number.   I say this is a step forward because in the past I just handed over the lead to Bruce to negotiate, but this time I talked numbers first.  Baby steps right??

Last Weeks Goal Review

My original thought about last week was that I got a lot accomplished, but now that I review my goals I actually did not get any of them completely done.  The main reason for that was because I never reviewed my weekly goals like I should.  Every morning I should write my goals down on a piece of paper.  This I did not do.

1. Modify Postcards: Didn’t even think about this one because it completely slipped my mind.  This is going back on my todo list for this week.
2. Prepare September Mailers:  I put this off three times last week.  I kept telling myself I have time and then I ran out of time.  Perfect example of what not to do right there!  Learn from me
3. Research Proof Of Funds Options: Early in the week I came up with about 10 different proof of funds options.  However I never did any deeper research.

This weeks Goals

• Modify Postcards
• Prepare September Mailers
• Finish Proof of Funds Research

They will get done this week!

Related posts:

1. Probate Monday: Letters Sent
2. Probate Monday #6 – What to say when they call?
3. Probate Monday #7 – Got the Meeting, now what?
4. Probate Monday: Offer Under Consideration
5. Probate Monday: First on the List!