Well my letter went unanswered, for like 2 weeks. I was torn between sending another letter with a signature required & just sending my guy Anthony over to take a look. I decided to send Anthony over.
The house looks vacant. And that changes everything.
These are the recent pics he sent me, what do you think? Vegetation is overgrown, porch light is on. Cat is still in the window... so I asked - turns out the cat is fake!! Who knew fake porch cats were a thing?! I learn something everyday.
Anthony then went above and beyond & called the city treasurer who had facilitated the sale of this property. The treasurer had some notes confirming that the current owner had been finding senior housing to move into & would be out of the property by about August. Bingo. It's vacant. Time to reformulate our plan.
Like I've mentioned in previous blogs, I've been buying houses like this & working with Anthony for years, so he knows the drill. He will have to break into the house for me. Usually just a drill is all he'll need to accomplish this, but you really never know. He has definitely pryed open windows & crawled through them in the past. One if the reasons why he is so great is he is the type who will figure it out, no matter what it takes. He doesn't call me complaining that he couldn't get into a property. He calls me after and explains that it was a little harder than expected but he figured it out. Priceless.
Once he gets in the main priority is changing the locks in order to secure things. The next priority is getting pictures and video of everything to send to me. As he does this he can usually get a pretty good sense of what major repairs the property will be needing.
My guess for this one, it will be extremely dated but in generally decent shape. I say that because older folks just moved out a few months ago. The utilities are still on. Odds are looking good this home is livable. But it probably hasn't been updated since the '70's. Lots of wood paneling I'm sure.