A year watching one buyer's four houses, and the fourth never got a tenant sign

I'm still building a list rather than buying, and one of the things I do is drive the same six streets on Sundays. Last spring a guy started buying on one of them. I could tell it was the same buyer because the dumpsters came from the same company and the front doors all got painted the same dark green.

House one, three months, dumpster gone, blinds up, kid's bike on the porch by August. House two, same pattern, maybe ten weeks. House three took longer and had a roof crew on it in July.

House four never finished. Windows went in, the yard got cut a couple times, and then it just sat with a lockbox on the door from September to March. No dumpster, no trucks, nothing.

In April I saw a truck there and I knocked, which I don't normally do. He was fine about it. Told me house three appraised under what he needed and he ended up leaving most of his cash in it, so house four is sitting until he can get money loose. He said he wasn't in trouble, he just ran out of the thing that makes it repeat.

He asked me what I do and I said I mostly drive around and take notes, and he laughed and said that's what he should have spent last year doing.

The green doors are still four for four. Three of them have people living behind them.