New Way that Gets Your “Starter Home” for 100.00% Appraised Value ALL CASH: Part 1

It was one of those perfectly cute homes in a Hispanic neighborhood. A sweetheart deal, a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home in a working class neighborhood. We paid $30,000.00 for it.

A screaming deal. Or so we thought.

After about $30,000.00 in renovations later, it didn’t feel like such a screaming deal. The plumbing, flooring, siding, kitchen, and ac all needed to be redone completely. Contrary to what the owners had disclosed to us. As a 3/2 it would barely be worth $80,000, I realized.

So halfway into the renovation, with the home halfway torn open, I instructed my proud and noble handyman Raul to convert the extra space in the home into another bedroom and bathroom. So we ended up with a 4 bedroom 3 bathroom in the process. This boosted the appraisal value to $109,000.00 and make the home much more attractive to a potential buyer.

Finally, we began marketing this dollhouse. At first we promoted it the conventional way. Ads in the paper, signs in the yard, some flyers in the neighborhood. But after 30 days and no bites, I realized it was time to ramp things up. My investor loan was coming due, and I knew that if I didn’t get some action FAST, I could end up in deep “you know what.”

So I began thinking, “Hey, you’re Mr. Auction Powers! You’re the guy who teaches how to create a bidding frenzy. How would this fit for this home?”

Because this was a starter home (below the median in our market which at that time was approximately $180,000.00) I realized it would be ideal for a first-time homebuyer. Such a buyer would probably not have the cash to bid on such a property that a conventional auction or round robin bid sale would require. Such a buyer may have credit issues and probably be timid and have concerns about the home buying process.

So I discovered a way to position this home to eliminate all of these buyers’ concerns and make them thank us for it…This was the birth of my legendary “starter home auction”

Additionally, this home was in a Hispanic area, so I realized that prospects for this home may not speak English. So I hired a local translator for cheap. I also translated all my marketing into Spanish, and posted out flyers in Spanish as well as English.