One day I was in between appointments and had some time to kill. As usual, I used this time to drive around the neighborhood and look for any vacant or distressed properties. While driving I saw a house which looked quite strange compared to the others. As I crossed it, I saw vines growing on the sides of the house, on the roof, up and through the gutters.
Not only this, but the vegetation was completely uprooted everywhere. It was so bad, you could barely find the front door to this property, and it was painted bright red (or at least at one point in time before the weather took it away). The grass must have been knee-high, and the trees on the plot were completely uprooted. Some trees that were close to the property now had limbs resting on the roof and visibility was breaking the roof shingles. The fence, which I could see in front, was dilapidated and the boards were missing and scattered all over the yard.
a dilapidated house reclaimed by nature
From what I could tell, this house was only able to get so bad because it was on the back side of a subdivision on a cul-de-sac with only a few other houses. There weren’t any code violation postings or anything like that, which was surprising since the house had many potential violations. Needless to say, this was a home that interested me.
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As I got closer, I saw some vans parked near the property, and some people coming out of the house towards them. As I got closer, I saw it was animal control.
I got up and went outside to talk to him. As it turned out, they had pulled out a family of raccoons that had claimed residence in the attic and a few boxes of feral cats that now claimed the rest of the property as their own. Eager to find out more, I quickly pulled up a Dallas CAD on my smart phone to see who owned the property, but sadly, no dice; It just reported “current owner”, which did me no good.
Playing Real Estate Detective
Trying to find more clues, I contacted one of the animal control employees and asked them if they knew what had happened to the property. They were quite clueless and seemed as stumped as I was. After the crew left, I went to check the perimeter of the property some more and noticed that the back door was completely unoccupied (which is probably how all these animals got in). Anyway, I decided to go ahead and peek inside for a quick moment (kids, don’t do this at home).
For a house that looked so awful from the outside and was previously inhabited by wild animals, the interior was in pretty good condition, all things considered. Mostly it just requires basic cosmetics like paint and flooring to help get rid of the odor and cover up some of the damage. It was a very nice neighborhood—there were no areas in transition or being occupied by rental properties or anything like that. To give you an idea, its ARV was around $230k, and I find it strange that a house like this could be let down to such an extent in this neighborhood.
After leaving I decided to make one last try to try to find contact information for the owner, so I started knocking on the doors of some of the neighbors in the area. The first few houses weren’t there, but someone in the last house answered. The neighbor was an older woman, and as it turned out, she was good friends with the owner of the subject property. She began telling me what had happened to the house and how she was tired of sitting in it—especially considering they were looking to put their house on the market soon. She rummaged through a Rolodex and was able to come up with a phone number. I thanked him for his time and headed back to the car.
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trace owner
Hoping that the number was on, I went back to the car and called her. To my surprise, the owner’s daughter answered the phone. As it turned out, Mom was now living in an assisted living facility, but they both agreed beforehand that it was time to sell. He asked me on the phone if I could make an offer. I felt a little nervous doing it on the spot, especially since I hadn’t even met him yet, but I quickly ran some numbers through my head and figured out the ballpark area where I’d get the deal. There was a need to understand. I put my number there – and then silence. I waited a few seconds, but it felt longer than that. They said my offer was the highest they had ever received (apparently some other investors had already looked at the house). At this point, she was ready to work with the house and asked me when would be a good time to meet to sign the contract.
Fast forward a few weeks later: I had an executed contract in hand and a house set to close within a week.
When was the last time it was profitable for you to track down the owner of a dilapidated home?
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Note by BiggerPockets: These are the views expressed by the author and do not necessarily represent the views of BigPockets.
