How do you underwrite a $28k ask on a $71k balance in a town with no comps?

Also pay someone to look inside, or at least walk the outside carefully and photograph it. A 1968 house that stopped being maintained when the payments stopped can have $30k of roof, furnace and water damage sitting in it. That's the number that kills rural deals, not the comps. I've walked into two where the ceiling was on the floor.

Verity's broker is right and there is one thing to add. In a town of 4,000 the question is not just what it is worth, it is how many months it takes to sell at that price. Operators working small markets like that often see 180 days on market as a normal answer. If the note is ever owned outright, the money sits.

I'm starting from zero so I'm just following along, but the four-years detail stood out. He held it while it performed and is selling now that it doesn't. So he's selling you the work. Which is fine, that's the whole strategy as I understand it, I just think it means his "sounds honest" story and a low price are the same thing.

Anchor, on the sale price question: recording practice and whether prices are public varies by state, and roughly a dozen states don't disclose them at all. So instead of trying to figure that out from here, call a title company in that county and ask what they can pull. They'll tell you in one call whether you're in a non-disclosure state and what they can give you instead.

The thing that breaks in small portfolios out in towns like that is nobody local will service, manage, mow or fix anything for a reasonable price, because there is nobody there. Before valuing the house, find out whether two people can be hired within thirty miles. If not, $28k on a $71k balance stops mattering.