Rhiannon Wilkinson

How To Find A Bargain On A Home



Posted: Monday, February 01, 2010

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If you are really looking to strike a real bargain - do not waste your time in a real estate agents office. Because all the real estate agent will do is take you to properties listed with other real estate agents. And these properties are usually listed at full retail value. When a seller lists their homes with a Realtor, they are looking for full retail price, and they are not going to budge much on it. (In most cases)

However, if you insist on dealing with a Realtor, be sure to ask for "aged" listings - which are properties that are vacant and that have also been on the market 150 days or longer. The reason you want to ask the Realtor to pull up those properties for you first is because that seller has been making the mortgage payment on that home for a very long time without any offers. And that seller is more likely to wheel and deal with you.

But by far, the best way to find a true bargain has to do with finding a MOTIVATED SELLER.

And what makes a homeowner motivated to sell are what real estate investors call the four D's ... which are Death, Divorce, Disease and Departure.

The homeowner is in a very tough situation, and they need to sell YESTERDAY. I personally don't pay more than 50% of what the house is worth, if I am using my own cash or credit - especially with all of the foreclosures that are flooding the marketplace. But that is because I am buying the property as a business venture, not a personal place to live.

A Realtor will tell you that $10,000 dollars off top appraised value is a BARGAIN. So, it depends on what your definition of a bargain truly is. You can't bargain with a homeowner who is not motivated to sell. They may really want to sell their house, but they would much rather keep on making the payment than to sell it to you for half off. But for some people, they can't afford to make the payment and they are at the point where they have to save their credit.

I know everybody is going to call me the big, bad, greedy real estate investor - but I am speaking from a place of truth. If you weren't around to help those people out of a bad situation, then a foreclosure would go on their record and it would stay on their credit report for 7 years. To some people, they would rather sell it to you for half off than to ruin their credit rating. So, it all depends on how you look at things. Regardless if the greedy, money hungry investor comes along to buy it or not - the problem still exists everywhere across the world. As a matter of fact, the problem would intensify if there were no investors to buy these properties from homeowners who are in distressed situations.

If I was buying a home for myself, I wouldn't pay more than 50% of what it was worth. If the owner doesn't take that, then it means they aren't motivated enough to deal with me. But then again, I don't have to have a white picket fence, in a certain neighborhood or a certain school district. I don't buy houses for emotional reasons, I buy them because they make financial sense in the long term.
Rhiannon Rose Wilkinson is President and Co-Founder of Equity Estates L.L.C. Find out why Oklahoma City is every real estate investors darling, offering the three sacred triads that every real estate investor looks for: Cash Flow, Equity and Future Appreciation! Visit my blog at: http://equityestates.blogspot.com/

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