Spotlight on Wendy Sartain, Roswell NM
Filthy Riches Student
I am so excited! I not only bought my first Filthy Riches house for a total of $6,000 but I sold it less than eight weeks later for $25,000. I was truly skeptical that this would work but with the Good Lord’s help it did.
It all started when I was out driving for dollars and came across this overgrown piece of property. I contacted the county and found out who owned the property and sent him a letter asking him to call me because I was interested in buying him home. To my surprise, I actually got a phone call about a week later. After speaking to the owner for a while, he told me the property had been vacant for 4 years since it was foreclosed by the bank. He also let me know the property was going to be sold at auction for back taxes. If I was willing to pay all the back taxes, he would sign the property over to me. I thought this would be the easiest deal ever made. Was I wrong!
While I was doing a title search of the property, I found that there was a lien on the house for $55,000. The bank refused to release the property until all the money was paid. Apparently in the state of New Mexico, you can buy a property at a tax sale auction, but you assume any liens associated with the property. Now my deal was not looking so good. I decided to try and negotiate with the bank. I got a contractor friend of mine to give me a bid on what the house would need to be livable again and sent the bank an offer letter to settle for a fraction of the price. For some reason Larry’s $5000 price point sounded good, so I offered them $4,800 as a starting point. To my surprise, they accepted within hours of my letter. My husband almost dropped to the floor when I told him they had already responded and accepted my offer.
Once I got the official acceptance offer, I went and paid the $1,200 in back taxes and headed for my local title company to start the paperwork. The only thing I actually did to the property was change the lock on the house, clean the yard and board up a few windows. Since it was getting close to Christmas and I would be leaving town for the holidays, I decided to list the house with a realtor. We listed it for $29,000 as is. A few days before Christmas I had a cash offer for $25,000. I jumped and said “Hell Ya” We closed on January 7 th . What a great way to start the New Year!
