Driving for Dollars and the Bandit Police

Driving for Dollars
I was perusing the properties on Realtor.com yesterday, when I happened upon a property that seemed like a good deal. I ran some numbers on it, and they are asking about 83% FMV. So, when I got home, I asked my wife and in-laws if they would like to go and see the property. It was located only a few miles from my house, and it's path took me in the direction of the property I just got a call on over the weekend (which didn't pan out).

We all got onboard and drove through the neighborhood where this property is located. While we were driving through the neighborhood, I noticed not one, but TWO properties that looked abandoned. Both had tall grass, and one had their blinds pulled up, which showed an empty residence. This one was a single-family residential (SFR), which appeared to be in decent shape. The other was a manufactured or mobile home. I wrote both the addresses down and then drove by the property I came to look at. Unfortunately, this property didn't fit my terms, but it appears to be in good shape. It's sort of a "diamond in the rough" type of place as it appears to be very clean and new amongst other homes that seem older and are not as kept up.

We then drove to the property I found on Realtor.com and it seemed okay. It was hard to tell if anyone was still living there, though, as all the blinds were shut, but the front coach light was on. Hmmmmm. It says it is 1600sf+, but it just looked smaller. Maybe because all the houses around it were bigger. I still need to run some financials on this house to see what I can offer.

When I got home, I immediately started researching the two abandoned houses. The first thing I found was that the tax records showed the owners address as being the same physical address as the properties. Ugh. This means I may be in for some investigative work in tracking down the owners. Another blow was the fact that both the property's tax values seemed WAY too high. The abandoned SFR had a tax value of $152,000. Keep in miond the nice/clean 2-story deal I passed up right down the road had a tax value of $160,000, and this property was only a 1-story in need of some elbow grease. The manufactured/mobile home had a tax assessed value of $91,000. I just about fainted! The land value was $25,000 and the home itself had a value of $66,000. I'll tell you, it didn't look like it was worth a penny over $10,000!

So, I got my work cut out for me this weekend. I need to track down two owners to find out their situation, and run numbers one one - and, possibly, three - properties. It's good I'll be busy, because ...

Bandit Police
I got a call at work yesterday on my cell phone. I happened to be in a meeting, but had it on vibrate. The number said "Private number calling". This is the first time I've gotten such a call on my cell phone. About a minute later, I noticed that they had left me a message. So, after the meeting, I called my voicemail to see hwo it was. The message said something like this:

This is Officer XYZ from the ABC police department. I just took down another one of your roadway signs. ABC has an ordinance that prohibits such placement of signs in the right of way. Please remove anymore signs that you may have up. If I find another one of your signs, you will be fined. If you have any questions, give me a call at xxx-xxxx."

Afterward, I called my wife to tell her, and she said that maybe it was another investor, who feels I am threatening their business. I told her the voice sounded legitimate, and that they did leave a call back number. Later when I got home, my MIL reiterated what my wife said. She said when her and her husband hung signs for their tile business, they would get similar calls. When it first happened, she was scared, because she and her husband's income was supported solely by their tile business. Later, though, she realized that almost all the calls were from another tile setter who felt they were taking his business away by hanging the signs. The way they found out was they put their sign right next to another tile setter's sign, and when they got a call, they would immediately go out to see about the signs. Sure enough, only THEIR sign was taken down.

What I'll do is call the number back to see if it goes to the police department, and, if so, if Officer XYZ works there. Even if that's true, I may even ask to speak to him to see if this is legitimate. One thing I noticed is that there were a couple of new signs in my farm area when I was going to work yesterday. This morning, those same signs are still up, leaving me to believe something doesn't seem right.

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Update: Regarding the property I found on Realtor.com, it doesn't look good. I figured the NOI to be $380/mo on the conservative side and $440/mo on the other end (curse Texas and their high property tax and insurance rates!). Based on those figures, I couldn't buy it for more than $80,000 at best. It has potential as a buy-n-flip, but even then I'd only be making a $2,000-$5,000 profit, which is too close for my blood. Guess I'll pass on this one then.