A Book About Me??

Scott Costello All, Blog, Probate Investing 4 Comments

Well not really.  I have been asked though to be a part of the creation process of a book about developing an internet business while working a 9 to 5 job.  I will be one of 5 to 6 people who will work through the process of developing that internet business.  The experience of the participants will act as case studies for the book.

This is something of great interest to me and I would have bought the book even before I was asked to be a participant.  I am excited about the opportunity and the experience and knowledge I will gain by being led into battle by the author, Nick Johnson.  This book won’t be directly geared towards real estate investing, but I’m quite sure it will be easily applied to it.

By taking part in this book, I agreed to not divulge what I’m being taught so I will unfortunately not be able to write much about it.  I will however update on how things are progressing from time to time.  This is very exciting!

Couple Lead Updates

“Make an offer and I’ll accept it Lead”:  This isn’t going to go anywhere.  They guy is sticking with the value the assessor came up with and won’t budge.  Maybe a learned a little about motivation here.  Going over the conversation I had with the seller, he referred to the “lot size being the true value of the property.”  He mentioned that right after telling me what the assessor valued the property at.  I’m not coming to any conclusions just yet, but it seems that the seller was justifying the price.  If the seller is justifying a price then the motivation isn’t to get rid of the house, but to get a certain price.  Anyone want to chime in on this theory?

“Potential First Deal Lead”: My friend Bruce went and visited the house this past week and found the place to be in ok condition accept that their was an Oil Tank buried in the yard that was used for heating back in the day.  This is common in my area and it’s best to have it removed.  The good news is that the State of New Jersey will do it for free if you can get some kind of certificate.  The owner seemed reluctant to do it so Bruce offered him $167,000 if the tank is removed and said it would be less if the tank stays.  The owner said it was his wife’s decision and they would get back to us.  So we wait.

Have a good weekend everyone!

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Comments 4

  1. Scott, thanks for the mention of the book project. I'm sure you'll have a lot to share and you will be measurably successful at the end of the project. I've got some great things up my sleeve.

    As far as you un-motivated seller. The problem is in who he trusts. He doesn't trust you because he trusts the assessor. It would be wise of you to research into how the assessor/office determines the value and use that information as trust building information with the seller, especially if there are faults in how they determine it.

    Most counties will re-assess a property if the value if you formally request it. This could end up going your way or not your way but if you know for a fact that it's not worth the assessment, it would be a good idea.

  2. Take this with a grain of salt, but it sounds to me as if the guy was fishing. He wanted to see what it was worth and was not to happy to know it was worth less then the county assessor. BTW, I would hold little if any stock in what the county assessor determines the price to be. I think they hire appraiser dropouts.

  3. Thanks for the good tip Nick. I will look into how the assessor's come up with the value of a property. Have you found any faults in the way an assessor values a property? IN my experience they make a lot of assumptions about a property. When they assessed my condo they didn't even come inside.

  4. The problem, like Nick said above is that the seller will tend to trust the assessor more then you so it is up to us to gain the sellers trust and poo poo then assessor's value some how.

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