Off market opportunity
When a coworker told me her neighbor was considering moving I stopped by, with Panda Express, to negotiate. After settling on $230,000 and signing a lease back for a month we were in business. Halfway through our renovation the house next for sold for $350,000 so we knew we we had some equity in the house. The renovations took longer than expected since we tried to do most of it ourself, but the worst was yet to come when it came time to find a tenant… Definitely read the letter’s below to see how they accused me of being a potential rapist in order to try and get out of the lease. And my response to it.
Day 1 Eviction
We received a lot of applications, but for whatever reason we were not seeing any home run candidates. Finally we settled on a young couple with a high credit score who’s realtor had been communicating with pretty well. We let the realtor know, sent them all the paperwork, got everything signed, and celebrated after all our hard work was now paying off.
On October 1st, day one of the lease, I received a call from the Realtor - “Hey, so they can’t live here…” My heart dropped through my chest. To make a very long story short, the Realtor explained that the woman in the couple had not ever viewed the property and was basing this al of of her man’s opinion. When she walked in the doors she ‘had PTSD’ because the layout of the home reminded her of a traumatic event she had earlier on in her life.
After talking through the issues I let the agent know verbally they could pay 2 months rent and get out of the lease. The Realtor asked if she could give my number to the woman’s mother and I agreed. Mom called up about 15 minutes later. She went through the reasons why her daughter was having issues with the house and asked what we could do from here.
“Well ma’am just to start from the beginning - these two are currently in a lease where …” That was all I was able to get out as she started her very loud rant. To sum it up she accused me of misrepresenting myself and said that she was recording the call and would make it go viral. She was an insane person and it was all making sense. I mean I was talking to the mother of my 23 year old tenants what did I expect. After going back and forth for a while they sent me this insane letter. After several drafts I responded.
The Math
Purchase: This was included with a larger purchase of land
Rehab: $11,000. This included gutting the entire inside of the building, replacing both windows, all new insulation, leveling the floor, installing wood plank ceiling, walls, new electric, and LED lighting around the ceiling trim.
Returns: Received $800 / month in rent from an esthetician. 87% Cash on cash return.