The Background

The Background.

Thanks to those of you who stuck through post #1 to see how things transpire! Here’s the story of how we got this property.

As I said in my first post, I had lived in Florida and now live in California so I could not go see properties on my own. I had found a few realtors who were sending me properties through their automated alert systems. I had initially emailed 4 or 5 realtors and one had called me back within 10 minutes. I ended up hearing from another one as well and got signed up for her alerts too but I was primarily working with the first one because she had been so responsive.

Just about every day I would email her asking about properties that were on the list. I may have overstayed my welcome for lack of a better term. At first she was very good about responding to each of my inquiries and giving her feedback. After a little time however I started hearing from her less and less. At first I was a little upset but then thought I had maybe been occupying a lot of her time with nothing to show for it so decided I would only email her if something truly curious came up. Nothing came up. Then, one day she called me stating she had a property she was listing as a short sale that could be a great deal.

After reviewing the deal we decided to put in an offer just below her list price. She called back awhile later stating that another agent said they had a buyer who would be submitting an offer but she wasn’t too sure about how accurate that was. She was wrong and she got their offer which was slightly above list price. We increased our offer to her suggestion and didn’t get into a bidding war. I don’t have the numbers in front of me but will provide them later on the listing price. We ended up offering $65,500 cash for a 3 BR/2BA home in Palm Bay, FL that was built in 1980, 1650 sq ft. and our contractor estimates needs between $15,000-$20,000 in repairs. Our realtor says it should sell for $125,000 easily and possibly up to $135,000. Again, our philosophy is, as our first flip, as long as we don’t lose money it will be a great learning experience and a cheap education.

The process of getting the property was a lesson in of itself. As I mentioned, at first the realtor was very responsive. During the offer process the realtor was responsive as well, however once the offer had been accepted by the seller things changed. The seller had signed our offer but it had not been submitted to the bank as the seller needed to gather some documentation to submit with the offer to help get the short sale approved. We got one update that the seller was having “cold feet” and was exploring other options, then…..nothing. I sent emails, I left voicemails, I sent more emails but the realtor refused to answer any of my correspondences. Finally, I sent a very nasty email and, shockingly I got a response. The realtor apologized and insured me communication would get better.

Finally the seller realized they didn’t have any other options and submitted all of the documentation and the offer to the bank. The waiting began. Our offer was submitted to the seller in early August, we heard back from our realtor the first week of December that “the minimum NET the bank needed for the property is $76,500.” We ran the numbers and sent over our offer cancellation. This $11,000 increase didn’t leave us enough wiggle room. We decided it wasn’t meant to be and moved on and started looking at properties again.

The second week of December our realtor called and said she received an email from the bank negotiator asking of the sellers would be willing to “sit tight” if he could get the offer approved.We said we would and again, waited. This time it only took a few days and we heard back that the bank accepted our offer! We’re back in the game!

We had our home and termite inspections ($395/$45) completed and nothing too serious came back. Our contingency period has ended and we’re scheduled to close on January 12th!