How Can I Avoid a Bidding War?

How Can I Avoid a Bidding War?

I asked my agent to search for property within a 25 mile radius from West Los Angeles. The criteria includes: As Is, Price Reduction and Vacant. Everything they send has a bidding war. How do you avoid this?

Ideally, I would like to accumulate as many ideas as possible to find property with out a bidding war. Bandit Signs, Fliers, and Online Adds is where I will start. In Los Angeles County, the seller just needs to list their property and within 5 minutes they've got 20 offers. MLS property according to the agents on average will sell for 25K more than list. How's your experience been with expired listings, shadow inventory, probates, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc.? Anything you have to share on this matter is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Greg

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Greg

Drive your neighborhoods.

Most investors are armchair investors and try to do it all online. The MLS here is pretty much a lost cause for finding a good deal. Drive your neighborhoods and find houses that are sitting empty. Find out who owns them and get in touch.

Karen

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Here's what I did.

I was driving through the neighborhoods and stopped by my relative's house and while sitting on his deck I noticed a house right next to his house that looked vacant. And it was. The weeds were growing, the yard wasn't mowed and it looked like nobody is taking care of that property. So I looked up the owner, and his mailing address was in AZ, so I knew that it's an out of town owner. I sent him a letter saying that I'm a cash buyer and I want to buy his property. That was about a month ago. But guess what??? Today I got a call from the owner and he said that he got my letter about 3 weeks ago but the most important thing is that they WANT to sell their house. whoo-hoo... I talked to the guy for like 30 min, tried to find their magic buttons. They own the house free and clear. And he'll send me the keys to the house so I could see it inside. I'm stoked!!! This could be my first deal.

p.s. sorry didn't mean to steal the thread but just wanted to share my experience with driving for dollars. IT does work, but needs a lot of persistence. Good luck.


Very cool Artem!

keep us posted on how your deal turns out!

Greg,
you can also look at for sale by owner sites and on craigslist... check out HUD site too, and look at REO's at individual bank sites....

Wishing you success,

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Valerie

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Real Work

"...expired listings, shadow inventory,(notice I'm leaving out probates), Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc."

These are all government or bank owned. They are auction properties...whether there is an actual open bid auction, or not. Whether there are even any actual bids against you, or not. Those are ALL bidding wars.

ps- Notice I'm leaving out probates.

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"The harder you work, the luckier you get." -Gary Player


Artem

artemtroy wrote:
I was driving through the neighborhoods and stopped by my relative's house and while sitting on his deck I noticed a house right next to his house that looked vacant. And it was. The weeds were growing, the yard wasn't mowed and it looked like nobody is taking care of that property. So I looked up the owner, and his mailing address was in AZ, so I knew that it's an out of town owner. I sent him a letter saying that I'm a cash buyer and I want to buy his property. That was about a month ago. But guess what??? Today I got a call from the owner and he said that he got my letter about 3 weeks ago but the most important thing is that they WANT to sell their house. whoo-hoo... I talked to the guy for like 30 min, tried to find their magic buttons. They own the house free and clear. And he'll send me the keys to the house so I could see it inside. I'm stoked!!! This could be my first deal.

p.s. sorry didn't mean to steal the thread but just wanted to share my experience with driving for dollars. IT does work, but needs a lot of persistence. Good luck.

Double thumbs up!!!! I told you I liked you for some reason! Eye-wink

Karen

__________________

"You're never too old to be what you were meant to be!"

www.deangraziosi.com/real-estate-forums/investing-journals/59128/day-for...

"Shining Like a Star & Dancing on Sunshine"

"Shoot for the moon! Even if you fall short, you'll still land among the stars!"