All Forum Posts by: Mark Elliott

hi matt. i have had some experience with hubzu, none of it good. i bid on a property, the only bidder. my bid did not meet the reserve so they countered my offer with an offer $8000 above my offer. i accepted. thats where the trouble started. i immediately got an email from hubzu confirming the offer and was told i had 2 days to sign all the paperwork and get it and the earnest funds back to them. the problem is, they never emailed the paperwork with the email. i went thru hell just to get them to email these to me, after several emails from them telling me that they were going to cancel the sale and relist the house if i did not meet their demands. i called them directly only to be sent to some clearing house in india that handles their work for them. it made matters worse that the people i was trying to speak to there could not be understood due to their strong accent. i finally had to ask to speak to a manage, who had an even worse accent. i hire an attorney to deal with this. after several attempts to get them to understand that they now had to deal only with my attorney, they finally got the picture to deal with just him. we finally got all the necessary paperwork from them to close, after several more threats to cancel the deal. we filled out all the paperwork and faxed it back to them only to have them tell us that they received only 1/2 of the pages, not once, not twice but 3 times. they received 1/2 of the paperwork 3 times?????? again, another threat to cancel the deal. finally, we sent all of the paperwork, the earnest funds and everything else they needed to them. a couple of days later, they cancelled the deal and relisted it. they did send my money back but they ultimately sold the property after several relistings for $4000 less than they had it sold to me. do some research on biggerpockets for hubzu and see what other people have dealt with these morons. i would run in the other direction. i finally bought another rehab house on auction.com and had no issues with them at all. 

hi brandon. i am a home inspector from the western new york area. some of the problem properties that you do not want are those with structural issues. look at the roof line, the very top of the roof. look for any sagging in the roof line. while inside, get a feel for the floors. do any of them angle toward any direction? if so, walk away. look at the side of the building. do you see any sagging areas in the siding or any areas bubbled out in the siding? if so, walk away. thats internal water damage. foundation issues too. pay close attention to the foundation. any crumbling areas or walls bulging in? those are serious issues. think of yourself as a house. it all stands on your feet ( foundation). any problems with your feet will show up in your posture. works the same for a house. 

both replies are right, stephen. you have to find the owner, make an offer and close the deal. make sure the offer includes the back taxes. i. e., if the house is worth $10,000 and they owe $5000 in back taxes, offer $5000 plus you assume the back taxes. he is a trick not mentioned yet. some, not all, local governments will allow the owner to make a payment arrangement on the back taxes. you simply just have to go into the treasurers office and ask. here in western new york, there is one local that will allow you to put just 25% down and make payments for the next year and a half. you do NOT have to tell the current owner about this. if you structure your deal to include you assuming the back taxes, you are not stating that you will pay them up front, you merely stated that you will assume responsibility for them. check with the local authorities and see if you can work such a deal

hi chris. sounds like you are off to an " ok" start. the key to this real estate investing is to use other peoples money ( OPM). my advice to you would be to take out a home equity loan on your primary residence and leave you money ( savings) right where it is. sure, you would have to make increased payments, but if you do your homework right, you will be able to afford it. it does nothing to decrease your balance sheet. you will still have your $10,000 savings and owe an additional $10,000. thats a balance. you then use that equity loan to invest in rentals. the income from the rentals pays your home equity loan. you then take out a home equity loan on the rentals and continue on. thus, using OPM.   good luck

you can have a look at your credit report , all 3, at www.annualcreditreport.com. it is truly free. there, you can dispute anything on there. by law, the credit reporting agency has 45 days to verify the reported item. if they cannot verify it, they have to remove it. most creditors will answer them back, some will not. those who do not answer back, the item will be deleted. give it a try. if they verify it, then, by all means, please get the statement saying they will delete it upon payment, before you pay it

thank you all for the replies. i am glad its them and not just me and my " wonderful" personality.......lol.  at this point, the house is still on the auction block, and i am still waiting for a call back regarding why, since we have a signed valid contract, they are re-listing it. i may grow old waiting. i will keep you all posted as to what is going on. at this point, i would highly recommend auction.com over hubzu any day

has anyone else had any experience with hubzu.com? i bought a house thru them on line here a couple of months ago. almost instantly, they were sending me emails about how i had 24 hours to sign the contract or they would re-list the house. they hadn't even sent me the contract to sign yet. next, they send me a threatening email that i would have to sign their contract immediately or the would re-list the house. i sent back an email informing them that i needed them to send the contract for me to sign. 

i finally got that, signed it and faxed it back to them. they told me that they got only half of the document, so i had my agent send it back again. they informed us that they got only half of it again and threatened to re-list the property again. i called them, only to find out very few people there can speak english and those that could, couldn't speak it very well. 

after several heated phone conversations and emails, i finally had to get my attorney to call their attorney to get an extension on yet another contract they needed me to sign that they failed to send to either me or my attorney. after that, their attorney kept sending me information when they were specifically required to contact only my attorney.

finally, i got the proper contract, signed it, sent in a cashiers check for the requested deposit, and assured myself, my partner and my attorney that everything has been completed. now we are awaiting a closing date. after a couple of weeks goes by, i notice that hubzu.com has, in fact, re-listed the house on their website again!!!!  i have called the document processor, his manager and even contacted their attorney looking for answers. no one has called me back yet. 

has anyone else had these issues with these people???? looking for advice. should i tell them to take a hike and take my business elsewhere??? i have purchased another house thru auction.com and have had zero issues with that closing. advice please!!!!!!

boy, do i agree with adam. hubzu is the absolute worst to deal with. i have been fighting with them for nearly a month now on a property. i was the only bidder. my bid was well below their reserve price. when it ended, i still had my original low bid. they countered with lowering their reserve by $4000. however, they would not let me counter with anything else. it was a take it or leave it situation. not a good way to deal with your only bidder. i bought it. since then, they have sent me a purchase agreement to sign, which i did. my partner was out of the country at the time, so i notified them of the date he would be back and asked if they could delay things a bit. all of a sudden i was getting threatening emails from the about cancelling the sale. i got permission to sign my partners name and send the docs over to my agent. he faxed them in. i still got threats from them. i had my agent refax them again. both times they claimed that they got only 1/2 if the doc. and again, another threat to cancel. they told me i had 2 days to sign he " contract" or hey were cancelling it. they NEVER sent the contract to my attorney or my agent. we had to beg them for it. it finally came, we signed it and sent it back in. they got back to us stating that there was a signature missing. we asked where as no one could find it. they literally sent my agent an email back that said " find it yourself". then another threat to cancel the deal came in. i finally had to tell them that i would sue them for breach of contract before they gave us a little more time. at this time, i am still getting threats to cancel, but they have never set a date for closing. do NOT deal with hubzu. you can't even understand their agents on the phone anyway. i have bought one deal thru auction.com and they are fantastic, no issues. they are the site you want to deal with

yes, i would put it on craigslist for dirt cheap. that way you are sure it will be gone. make sure you put in the ad that the buyer must remove it, then you have no cost in removing it yourself. it adds no ARV to the house. a usable patio would add more value and appeal to many more perspective buyers

sounds like the numbers crunch ok. that leaves the question of why the current owner wants to sell. if the numbers work that well, then why is he not wanting to stay? if they are older and want out, thats reasonable. 

however, your numbers indicate a $6250 profit per month, which is good. a good rule of thumb on any rental is a 25% LOSS  each year, i. e. 25% of the time, you will not be receiving rent by either tenants getting behind or a vacancy. you need to factor this in. could you still make the monthly payment with a 25% loss? personally, i would go with a little longer financing to have that cushion should you need it. at anytime, if you have 100% income, then pay a little ahead to drop that 15 years down closer to the original 10 years you wanted. at least then if you do find yourself in the 25% loss category once in a while, you can still pay the minimum and still have the knowledge that you are ahead of the game anyway