All Forum Posts by: Corey Williams

Mike said it "patience" is key. Here is a summary of my latest experience.

My wife and I have been following a house for over a year now to purchase as our personal residence. We first saw it in February 2008 and the owners had just moved out. Moved out is putting it lightly; they left and were no where to be found. They cut off all communication with the listing agent and everything. They didn't trash or damage the house but they did take the appliances and some fixtures. We did put in an offer but since the bank did not own it yet they couldn't do anything without the owner's signatures, and as I mentioned they were gone.

So we waited, and waited. Finally in November the bank said they were going to forclose. Unfortuanately that is when the proverbial s*^t hit the fan with the economy and the bailouts started. Our county placed a moratorium on foreclosures due to the government trying to save everyones mortgage. Finally in February of 2009 the house was sold at auction.

I would say there are $20k to $30k worth of repairs to bring this property back to life but Fannie Mae has the house listed about $10k to $15k below ARV and has already turned down 2 investor "low-ball" offers. The bank is going to make some improvements to get it to FHA standards but I don't see them lowering the price very quickly on this one.

There are many different reasons two firms may partner and you touched on a couple of them. Partnerships are starting to become more common due to the boom of "Mixed-Use Developments". Retail developers are adding offices and/or apartments/condos to their developments but they don't have the experience of residential development so they will partner with a company that does.

Consult an attorney for the structure of the deal.

Delegating the tasks is accomplished in a meeting of the minds of the two (or more) companies and preparing an agreement, in writing, as to how the project will flow.

Every joint project begins with intentions of being the "Perfect" project and a win-win for all parties with no complications. Things happen and disagreements occur and when they do it can get REALLY messy.

Jon is right on with the Urban Land Institute. I have a copy of "Real Estate Development, Principles and Process" which is good if you are a text-book kind of reader. ULI is a good resource for general land development practices.

Keep in mind there are specific organizations that you can investigate for each area of land development; Multi-Family, Retail, Industrial, Health Care and Office.

For example the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC.org) is a great resource for Retail Development. Just type "multi family" in a search engine and it brings up all kinds of news and groups. It is overwhelming the info you can find.

The development company I work for buys land, rezones and permits the land for development, and builds our product on the land, which happens to be apartment buildings. Some companies, like ours, work as one company because we keep all of our communities and profit from the rents that we collect.

Most people start out as a single person or couple of buddies that get together to develop land. Typically they buy the land and design their project the way they want. Once the due diligence and approvals are complete they need to build it. This single person or buddies may not have any construction experience at all so they have to hire a general contractor to build and manage the construction. The developers pay the general contractor to do the work.

After they have developed a number of projects and have gained a ton of experience working with different general contractors the buddies can decide to start being their own general contractor. Some developers will then set up two companies, one for the development and one for the construction. In the case when you here a developer getting paid for construction it is likely because they own both companies and Joe the developer pays Joe the contractor to build the project. In general terms Joe pays himself (you would have to talk to an accountant or attorney to learn more on setting these entities up right). That may be the reason you hear or read that Donald got paid to construct a building.

There are many pluses and minuses to creating a business like this but they only become apparent once you start down the path.

Hey Tiara-
I have not been logged on for a while and I just noticed this post. This is what I do on a daily basis and I work "in-house" for a development company. Companies do exist that provide just due diligence services but they are few and far between. You will mostly find that Civil Engineering firms and Land Surveying firms provide this service. Most of the time they provide this service fairly cheap because they bank on getting the design work once a project happens. If you check out some engineers web sites to find their fee structure for this work it is typically called a Feasibility Study.

I just added my photo last night so I thought I would post here to expose my mug.

Good luck finding a Broker that understands wholesaling. If you do find one, you may find that Real Estate Law and wholesaling don't mix well.

Thanks for the advise. Back in May it was listed with a realtor so the offer was submitted through him. He was just as frustrated as we are so he did not continue his listing once it expired.

I understand your advice, but I should have mentioned that we are looking at this one as our primary residence. It would be a steel in a very nice neighborhood. It is a shame that it is being left to die a slow death. I am starting to fear the winter damage it will endure if it should reamain empty.

My wife and I have been tracking a vacant house now for about 7 months. We submitted an offer back in May and supposedly 4 others had done the same. These offers are somewhere in the black hole that is consuming the financial world right now and the house remains empty to this day.

Two weeks ago, for some strange reason I signed on for a 7 day trial of Realtytrak and saw that the house was scheduled to be auctioned on November 6th. Unable to make it to the auction, we contacted the sheriff's office later that afternoon to see what had happened with the house. We were informed that the attorney had pulled the house off the auction block and it would be rescheduled for next month.

What can we do between now and auction time to try and purchase this house? Should we contact the attorney or try and locate the property owner? Like I said the house has been vacant since April or May and for all I know the owners have relocated.

Corey