Vacant Houses around the country.
I am always interested by the why behind anything!
In an earlier blog I was speaking on vacant homes and how some of them (if not a large portion) are Real Estate Investor owned, this was all speculation and me just speaking from my mind based on information I have gathered over time. But amongst my daily digest of news and articles I found a year old article talking about just that.
The World Property Journal staff had done some crunching of numbers to give an indicator and information in regards to Vacant homes. Now the article is very heavy in numbers and not so much content but I think the numbers speak volume. Baltimore made the list in an interesting way.
So are these homes we see are negligent Investors, or someone who may be caught in a bad deal. Now that we know one side of the issue, the next step is to find a solve. With this situation we need to get creative because this is an interesting situation. I would suggest the section 8 approach for Investors who has a property in what we call a "Warzone" to give people more options. But careful research needs to be done. Because the properties drives the areas worth, so if the value of one property goes up its a domino effect (always have to look this up can never remember this one vs affect). I am assuming the end goal is to get a family or residents in the home though. If they have different intentions then another angle must be taken. Regardless of the situation I do think that these issues needs to be addressed and Investors need to be open to listening because those vacant beat up houses are hurting.
-Sidebar-
I was driving down north avenue and I saw a property just completely beat up and destroyed so I decided to try and find the owner information and send him/her a postcard to let him/her know I am interested in getting this property to fix it up and get it livable again. About 4 days goes by and I see I have a missed call and voicemail! (FASTEST TURN AROUND EVER) I get on the phone with the owner and try to start a conversation. I always start with do you have 5-10 mins to talk and luckily the owner said yes, so knowing how people are fast paced I get right to it while trying to build rapport not even into the 4th sentence I get a "I am actually getting to my destination can you call me back later."
In my head I am thinking "I thought you had 5-10 mins" but I respond "ok when would be a good time to pick up the conversation" and the owner replies "later" at this point I don't know what to think for someone so eager to give me a call as soon as you got the postcard this energy is off. Now it could have been something going on or a dire situation and all that but when I set a time and called back later the person, was missing information and started getting smart with me for not knowing it. I was like wow maybe I suck as a person in this conversation. I asked about the sq ft of the property as the conversation went on and the owner said you should know that. And I let the person know it wasn't on their property detail for some reason. After about 2 sentences later I got hung up on. ( I called back just in case the phone got disconnected but....)
Now I am thinking what did I do to deserve that. But I looked back on the interaction and said what could I do better. Maybe my approach was off, maybe this person was having a bad day, maybe the owner wanted me to pickup the phone and scream an offer price, I am still not entirely to sure.
-End Sidebar-
That sidebar example is put there because I am giving you all the scoop on me trying to dissect and understand the pain so I better address it. That person may have been fed up with people calling in and not following through and got to me and I could've said something to trigger them. Either way if you saw that house like I saw that house believe me you would want to get it in somebody else's hands right away.
Moral of the story is that with the current crisis at hand with the vacant homes, the best way to get rid of the situation is reaching out but bringing awareness to the investors so they can be more open to addressing it will play a vital part.
(I think the moral of the story part will bring my thoughts together I am going to do it more)
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