Dan and his wife Audrey found a seller through an expired listing lead in Colorado Springs. The property at 3026 North Hancock is a 2-bed, 1-bath home with a historic tuberculosis recovery hut in the backyard, listed at $359,900 as a lease-option with a 60/40 split. They're using a rotating sign strategy to generate buyer interest.
Chapters
Very nice gentleman, very easy to talk to, and he wasn't ready to, you know, join up with us initially, but nothing was moving. And then finally he said, you know what, let's go for it. He liked us.
Well, congrats on the deal, Dan.
Well, so I mean, it's— no, it's good. It's great to have a signed contract and actually Do more than just call sellers. So it's you know, it feels like a big step forward.
Feels like progress. That's what we want. I love it. Well, that's that's extremely exciting.
Yeah.
Tell me a little bit about the deal. Tell me like what what location motivation. Sure, sure.
Yep.
Yeah.
So um so I do most of the calling, but it's funny like my wife Audrey because she works does less calling. But she's had some really good success. Oh, I don't know. This thing about, I don't know, people just like, like talking to her, I guess. I like her. But so she, she was, she tried a different strategy. I was calling more recent sellers, homeowners on— oh God, what, what's it called?
My Plus Leads.
I+Leads. Yeah.
Like expired listings, things like that. Right.
Expired listings. So, so she went back because she knows you can't go more than 90 days. So she went back as close to the 90-day mark as she could because she figured those people would be a little more eager and, you know, maybe on the verge of being a little desperate to sell. So she spoke to a seller, Jonathan, and we're in Colorado Springs.
Yeah.
His mom had lived in Colorado Springs, and then he figured he would buy a property and use it as an Airbnb. And then right as he was buying the property, his mom passed away, unfortunately. And he realized after he bought the property that we have all these regulations that were enacted fairly recently restricting Airbnbs. So he lives on the East Coast, so he's no— he's nowhere near Colorado Springs. He now owns a home. His mom has passed away and he realized that this wasn't going to really work for him. So first he leased the home. I think he had about a year-long lease and that was up. And then he figured, you know, this is more than I want to deal with. He's got a busy life. So he decided to sell it, put it on the market. Of course, the market's a very difficult market. The home is small, but it's Close to downtown, which is nice. It's not far from all the cool things that happen in downtown Colorado Springs. But it's a small home. It's not, you know, it's not the kind of property that, you know, people are going to necessarily jump at. You know, it has to be a very particular person who buys this property. And how so?
What's the difference with the—
Because it's small. I mean, it's a small property.
Yeah.
And it's, it's like 2 beds, 1 bath, I think.
Okay.
About 1,200 square feet. It has no, no central air.
What's the address? I'd like to see it.
3026 North Hancock. It has, you know, no central air. It doesn't even have a dishwasher, actually, which I don't even— I don't know why he didn't put a dishwasher in before listing it because But anyway, it doesn't have a dishwasher, it doesn't have central air. You know, I mean, since we're not being filmed, it's not a very exciting property. It's funny, in the backyard it has something kind of cool. Around the turn of the century, there was a lot of tuberculosis.
Mm-hmm.
Colorado for healing. And it has an old tuberculosis hut, which is a wooden hut. that people would use to recover because it isolated them and it had great ventilation. So he has an old TB hut in the back, in his backyard.
Interesting.
And it's interesting that the property is actually 2 properties. It's 2 separate deeds. And originally he was just going to sell the property that the house was on and parking was going to be problematic potentially because you'd have to park on the street. But then when Rick and I spoke to him, He agreed to add on the second property so that, that added $35,000 to the price. But now it's actually 0.22 acres. So it's, you know, pretty big.
Yeah.
You could do a lot with it. The land to me is what's really cool about this, that, you know, for the right person, this could be a really cool property because you have a fair-sized chunk of land not too far from downtown Colorado Springs. But the house itself is— it's okay.
Okay.
But he was, you know, he wasn't— he was ready to— very nice, very nice gentleman, very easy to talk to. And he wasn't ready to, you know, join up with us initially, but nothing was moving. And then finally he said, you know what, let's go for it. He liked us. And, you know, Rick spoke to him a couple of times. So we did an AO.
Okay.
And With a, you know, 60/40 split.
Okay.
Originally, he wanted to— his realtor was pushing to keep the property listed as a for sale while we did our thing. And we talked him out of that. You know, he understood why. But, you know, he wasn't difficult about it. But that was his original intention. And we said, that's not going to work. And yeah, so The lease option price is, well, you know, you can see the numbers. It's $359,900 as of right now. And we're almost at the end of our 3-week period.
Okay.
We've gotten some nibbles. You know, we have one potential buyer we might be showing the property to this week. But, you know, we've definitely got some interest. I go put the signs up. We have a realtor sign. You know, we bought a— one of those, you know, with the kind of like the T, you know, one of those plastic ones. So we have a big realtor type sign right outside the property which stays there.
Yep.
Friday at noon, I go there and put signs, you know, with it.
They get taken down.
And then Monday. By noon, I go back, I pull them out. But, you know, people see the signs. What's, what's nice is that it's, it's, it's in a fairly well-trafficked area.
Yeah.
You know, we're getting nibbles, but we're getting a steady stream of nibbles. People, people are definitely seeing the sign.
That's awesome. Yep. No, it makes sense. You're 3 weeks in, so that means that you're probably close to your first price reduction.
I would think that by early next week, if, if nothing big is happening, I would, you know, based on what you guys have told me—
Rick, are we in price reduction mode yet? Not— well, we're coming up on it.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's what I thought. So usually every roughly 3 weeks. So and then we'll pop it from there. Okay. Yeah, I looked up the property. I mean, it's a great little property. 2/1 is, is always slightly more challenging to sell. But I've sold plenty of 2-1s and actually had some of my best deals have been 2-1s. So it just depends. Any reason why you guys went with the AO versus the, like, a lease purchase or anything like that?
I mean, let me just think about that for a sec.
I think it was a very, very slim on the spread.
Okay. But you can obviously make that decision if you guys get a really good buyer. At that point, you can always make a decision to stick in the game. What's the— and it's a fairly new mortgage, I'm guessing, then.
There actually is no— it's— I believe there isn't any mortgage. Oh, thank you.
Wait, they're free and clear property?
No, it's a low— hang on one sec.
Not sure where to get started? Go to smartrealestatecoach.com/getgoing for free books, strategy calls, and a whole bunch more. We're going to help you get going the wicked smart way. We've been after this for over a decade doing exactly that.
That's why I'm just asking these questions so that we can really analyze.
I don't recall whether it was the seller didn't want to wait that long or it was a very slim spread.
It's usually one or the other, or they need money, a lot of money down.
Yeah.
But if he was used to leasing it, I mean, it wouldn't, wouldn't have been too much different than what he was doing.
Yeah.
You know, I'm not sure. It's either no mortgage or it's a small, fairly small payment. Yeah, I just don't remember. Let's see.
Well, keep that in mind. I mean, obviously, as you guys are going through this process with the AO, they can always pivot. Yeah. Once the seller is— you know, once you're kind of working through this deal. Okay. Yeah, I'd love to know if you guys could get together and tell me why we went the AO versus the lease purchase. That would be important so that way we can walk through it.
