Skip Genie cofounder Larry Higgins found this lead and tried to get in contact with the owner of the property, but when he looked them up our skip tracing software had informed him that the property owner had died. After some more digging, he found out they owed like $30,000 in taxes. This was in the Houston area. The owner had died so Larry looked up her son and it turned out that her son had died also. He had no siblings, no wife, and no children. Her husband had died like 30 years prior.
The next step Larry took was to hire a genealogist. He hired a genealogist because there were no close heirs to this property. He also paid the genealogist an extra fee (the average bill with her is is $100-$150 bucks) to put a rush on the research she was doing, so the genealogist gave him this lady’s name and phone number to call.
He called her and left a voicemail. She called him right back, and he had to tell her that her cousin died a few years ago. He also informed her that under Texas law she owns a legal interest in her cousin’s deceased property in Texas. She was 1,500 to 2,000 miles away in the state of Alaska, and she had no idea how to take care of the heirship or the title issues.
To make things more interesting, Larry found out this house had squatters in it. He wanted a clean deal and he wanted them out by the time of closing, so he gave them $1,500 to incentivize them and get them out. He also ended up giving all the heirs $3,000 (to them it was like free money falling out of the sky). Then, he double closed on it (he didn’t necessarily want his buyers to see what he was making off it).
This sweet deal was a $150,000 deal. Larry was right under 150,000 all in, and he sold it for $200,000! You may not find a deal like this every month or every few weeks, but these deals are out there and if you know how to look for them you’re eventually gonna find some of them. If you don’t give up and all the signs are there (like in this case there was a huge tax problem and no close relatives), dig a little deeper and it’s going to be risk reward at some point.
Interested in finding out more about how to use REI Skip Tracing to close deals with juicy assignment fees? Join Skip Genie now and take advantage of our weekly coaching call with Larry Higgins that comes with your membership. You can ask any question you want and get the guidance you need to close high margin deals your competitors don’t know how to touch.
