I still look back at that deal as a reminder to myself NOT to pre-judge people.
About four years ago, I was lucky enough to finally get my first REO listing after doing BPO's for a long time. An asset manager left me a voicemail and said he had a listing for me and I had to accept it on RES.NET right away. So I ran home, signed up for RES.NET and accepted the assignment. I looked up the property, and to my amazement, it was located in an upscale develpment and was worth about 1.5 million dollars. (It was also vacant, empty of all furniture and clean as a whistle. :) )
Once on the market I proceeded to hold the home open every weekend, for the first several weeks. One particular guy came in and started looking around. He was a bit grouchy and didn't seem very interested in talking to me, in fact I would have guessed that he didn't like me at all. I did get his contact info though. When I put those contacts into my contact list, I made sure to write down at which house I met them.
A year later, Im sitting at my desk with nothing going on. So I looked up which properties were currently active in that development. There was just one for sale, so I emailed the listing to all those people I had met at that REO listing and asked them if they would like to see it. I received one response... from Mr Grouchy. "Yes, I would like to see it" was the reply.
I proceeded to start working with him, as he seemed ready to buy. He did warm up to me a bit after we spent some time together. A few weeks later, we went into escrow and closed on a different property worth $1,050,000. I then listed and sold his previous home. It sold for $550,000
Lessons:
1 Don't pre-judge
2 Get that contact info.
3 Write down where you met the contacts
4 Stay in contact with them.
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