68 note investors are starting the 7-Day Note Investor Challenge together this week. If you're in this cohort — introduce yourself below: - What's your name? - Where are you located? - What got you curious about mortgage note investing? Let's go. Day 1 email is in your inbox. 💪 If you're joining late you'll get Day 1 as soon as you sign up: FIXnotes.com/challenge This is a FREE challenge to teach you how to analyze and value non-performing notes.

Hey everyone, I'm Ben. I have a background in fix and flips and have been primarily focused on originating seller-finance contract for deed deals over the past few years. I'm interested in adding seller financed notes to my business and own only the paper, not the property. Looking forward to getting to know and collaborating with others here who are active in this business. Cheers!

This non-performing first mortgage was purchased in February of 2024 in Youngstown, OH in a pool of 13 loans. The property was valued at $40k. The 1st mortgage unpaid principal loan balance was $28,300.55. The loan was purchased for $3k. This discount was do to the property's condition, it being in OH (most legal cost & fees are non-recoverable in OH) and some owed property taxes. During the foreclosure process is when we realized that the property may be vacant and that this deal wasn't going to get resolved through the borrower. The goal at this point, was to get the property to the foreclosure sale and hopefully have it purchased by a third party at the foreclosure sale. It took a little over a year to get from the demand letter stage to the foreclosure sale. At the sale we placed a bid of $27,334. At the sale there wasn't any third party bidders, so the property reverted back to us. It took the county another 4 months to confirm the sale. At this point, in order to get our deed recorded, we had to pay all the owed taxes and the fees associated with recording our deed (post-sale cost). That amount was $8,880.84. It took the county another 2 months to record our deed. In February of 2026, we finally got our recorded deed. You need the recorded deed, to be able start the eviction process and get possession of the property (the REO). At this time we hired an REO management company, that handles are REO's. The REO management company sent an agent out to the property to determine if the property was occupied. The agent determined that the property was vacant, so the agent rekeyed and secured the property for us. Since the property was vacant, we didn't have to go through the eviction process. The eviction would have cost us another 2 months and $600. The property was full of junk and not in good condition. The agent hired a junk removal company to remove the junk. We asked the owner of the junk removal company if he was interested in purchasing the property as is (junk and all). He was interested and we agreed to a purchase price of $26,500. At this point, it really wasn't about making a profit. We just wanted to get our money out of the deal and be done with it. As a note investor, it becomes more about the note portfolio, than the deal itself. We sold the REO in April of 2026.