Local real estate investor shares how he searches and purchases his own investment properties

Our guest today is local real estate investor Steve Daria. Steve shares his search criteria which include specific keywords like foreclosure, short sale, distressed property, and handyman special to quickly find investment opportunities. He emphasizes the importance of understanding newly sold comps to determine acquisition cost, allowing for a competitive pricing advantage and quick resale. He also conducts thorough research on big-ticket items such as foundation, roof, HVAC, AC, and septic to estimate renovation costs. He performs a title search and obtains title insurance to ensure a clear title.

Watch the full video

Foreclosures in Lee County, FL
Foreclosures in Fort Myers, FL

Set up free email alerts for your preferred Zipcodes: https://www.foreclosure.com/alert/

Get more information about Steve Daria here -  https://www.cashforhousesfl.com/

Get Free Email Alerts: https://www.foreclosure.com/alert/
Find a Foreclosure home: https://www.foreclosure.com/foreclosures/
Affordable Homes: https://www.foreclosure.com/affordable-housing/
Buying Foreclosure Videos: https://www.foreclosure.com/videos/
Foreclosure articles: https://www.foreclosure.com/articles/

Foreclosure.com is America's largest provider of distressed properties, with more than 1.8 million foreclosure, preforeclosure, bankruptcy and tax lien listings across the United States located conveniently in one place. We deliver the latest, most complete residential foreclosure property listings in an easy, accessible format to our customers and business partners. No other Web site or source comes close to providing the same high level of timely and detailed information than Foreclosure.com.

Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Foreclosurecom/
Follow us on X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/foreclosure

Transcript

0:00 - TJones -Welcome to foreclosure dot com. My name is Tim Jones, and I'm thrilled to introduce our guest speaker today, Steve Daria. Steve, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.

0:09 - SDaria - Yeah, not a problem, Tim, I appreciate you having me on.

0:12 - Tjones - We're glad to have you. Today, we're going to discuss what real estate investors look for when buying a foreclosure. Before we get started, Steve, can you tell the audience a little bit about yourself and your real estate background?

0:26 - SDaria - I've been a licensed realtor since 2003, a real estate broker, and we've owned a real estate brokerage since 2006. We sold the majority share of our real estate brokerage in 2018, and pretty much throughout my entire career, I've been buying and selling real estate and house hacking and buying investment properties to hold on to as well. So been dabbling throughout real estate, both as a real estate investor, as well as a real estate, retail real estate agent, and broker.

1:02 - TJones - Great, Thanks for sharing your story with us. So how do you set up your search criteria when looking for investment properties?

1:10 - SDaria - It just depends on what platform we're on. A lot of times, we'll use specific keywords. You know, whether that's, you know, foreclosure, short sale, distressed property, handyman special. We utilize a lot of those keywords because we don't necessarily have the time to scout through what's available on market. And when we have basically those keywords embedded and you can do this on other sites as well. And, you know, we're provided those kinds of drips every day, pretty much every morning on different search criteria that we have set up. And then, you know, we go, we have different strategies for getting off-market properties as well.

1:52 - TJones - OK, so what are your steps when searching for distressed properties like foreclosures?

1:58 - SDaria - Yeah, we just want to make sure that there's, you know, if we're buying and flipping, making sure that, you know, the amount of money that we have to put into the properties and then the acquisition cost, it makes sense and there's a spread. So, you know, we have to dive deep in the analytics in terms of, you know, what we project the property is going to sell for. And in today's current market, you know, we're in November 8th, 2023, with mortgage rates as high as they are right now. When we're reselling properties, we have to really take a good look at the sold comps and price, usually below-sold comps and really fresh sold comps as well. In order to have a competitive pricing advantage. So it's, I think the biggest thing is just making sure that, you know, the comps and where you can reprice a property to sell it quickly.

2:53 - TJones - Ok. So after you locate the property, compare the comps, what due diligence do you perform before purchasing 

3:02 - SDaria - our due diligence period or inspection period, to make our offers more competitive, Sometimes we put a, you know, 1 to 2 days inspection, sometimes we don't put any inspection period if we've gone through the property prior to. So it's just a matter of really making sure that we understand all the renovation costs associated with it to make, to bring it up to par, and then obviously back to comping out the properties and making sure that we're buying correctly.

3:31 - TJones - Ok. And how do you make sure there's no issues with the property that could affect the overall purchase? 

3:41 - SDaria - Just extensive inspection. You know, making sure the, the big things are, you know, foundation, roof, HV, AC, the bigger ticket items, septic. And we wanna make sure that the bigger ticket items we're accounting for and it's important to ensure that, you know, you're budgeting correctly for the, the remodel if you don't account for certain things that can really throw your numbers off. And, you know, you can lose money, and you know that will put you in a bad position. We don't do any appraisals, but yeah, traditionally, we're buying properties where we do have the title company, do title search, and title insurance as well. Whether that be, you know, an active property for foreclosure or short sale or just an off-market distress seller. So, we make sure that title insurance is, it is added if, in some cases, you can't have title insurance but you definitely want to do the title searches or have a title company do an extensive search, to ensure that you have a clear title and nothing else comes up on chain of title.

4:50 - TJones - That's great information, Steve. Thank you for giving us an overview of what you're looking for when buying a foreclosure. Well, that's all the time we have for today. Don't forget to sign up for our free email alerts on foreclosure.com until next time. I'm Tim Jones, and thank you for watching.