Should I take this deal?

[lexde]

In short, there is a piece of property that a family member owns that is “not worth the hassle”. I don’t doubt it — it’s a lot in a seedy trailer park full of questionable folks. No trailer there anymore, it was removed, and the owner has defaulted on the property for ~2 years.

In short, if I pay the $900 outstanding taxes, they will title the property to me. It’s worth 10-15k. Not much, but not nothing.

There’s also a title issue, and I will have to bring a quiet title action to get everything fully titled in my name. I’m an attorney so I’m sure I can figure this out. My family member has been paying taxes on it for ~20 years and it’s definitely ours, but quoting title will make conveyance a lot easier.

Overall, it’s $900 for a potential 10-15k return. I could do lease-to-own if I wanted to be a scumbag and foreclose & keep the money if they don’t pay, but that seems like more trouble than it’s worth and I don’t feel comfortable doing it anyway.

I could also buy a sh*tty trailer and collect $400-609/mo on it but risk a tenant destroying the trailer so that’s really not an attractive option.

Thoughts? Family member is willing to just let it go (they have a lot of emotional turmoil wrapped up in the property), so it seems like free money and a decent way to pay down my loans if I can find a buyer.

[maizefolk]

How confident are you that the lot really is worth $10-15k, and what evidence are you basing that assessment on?

It seems like the worst case scenario would be paying the back taxes plus doing all the work to get the deed in your name and finding out there were no buyers interested in that particular lot, so the valuation is the biggest X factor.

[lexde]

How confident are you that the lot really is worth $10-15k, and what evidence are you basing that assessment on?

It seems like the worst case scenario would be paying the back taxes plus doing all the work to get the deed in your name and finding out there were no buyers interested in that particular lot, so the valuation is the biggest X factor.

The property appraiser has it at 21K, so I'm assuming that it could be sold for about half that. It's a lot in a trailer park and most of the residents don't speak English, so I'm really not sure if it's worth keeping or attractive to anyone. Seems like a headache, I understand why the person who owns it now isn't super keen on keeping it.

[JAYSLOL]

If it were me, I'd still try to get it sorted out and sell it, sounds like a relatively easy $4-$8k after all is said and done. 

[Llewellyn2006]

If it really is just a case of $900 and some of your time for a potential $10-15k then I think it's worth a shot. Even if you only got $10k that's still not bad. All of this is assuming that there are no nasty surprises that you don't know about.