All Forum Posts by: Gail W.

@Kenneth Garrett

Thank you I will definitely check with the city, thats another thing I had not thought of.

@Benny Nahmani

Thank you. The bank will do a title search, but with that language in the contract my earnest money is at risk should a lien come up. My options are to satisfy the judgement or not close and lose the 8% of purchase price the bank requires for EM.

@Wayne 

@Wayne Brooks

Thanks for the response. I have never seen a contract to purchase like that before, 11 pages. I also was not aware that liens and judgements would be removed.

I am trying to buy a house that was in foreclosure and is now a REO. We agreed to a cash sale as is and the agent sent a contract to purchase. The problem is there is language in the contract addendum that says the bank is not responsible for any mechanics lien, materials lien, or tax liens which were present before the bank gained possession. This is my first REO and the agent is telling me this is a normal contract for the bank. Is this the way most REO's are sold?

Unless you inherit owning land is a lifelong journey. I live in the midwest so the market here is very different, but I can tell you how I started. I saved a down payment for a piece of ground that consisted of 135 acres total, 100 acres of that was timber. I sold enough timber over 3 years to pay the payments on that piece and a little more. Then I sold the whole farm and bought another one, 147 acres 86 tillable with the balance in pasture. I bought some cows and rented the ground and lived there, selling 18 years later because of divorce and buying the house I live in now, 70 acres of mostly tillable ground and banked some cash. My ex did quite well in the deal.

The first piece I bought was marginal land and sold for far less than I paid for the next. The next piece was even better land from an income point of view. I know your part of the U.S. is not the same but maybe you could figure out how to move forward taking equity from each transaction and some money from your W2 and build your own empire, hoping your inheritance would be just a small part of it.  

@James 

@James Wise

I am not a Realtor or even a Real estate agent. I also am not very experienced at REI. These were just my thoughts and I believe I need to leave this to the Pro's such as yourself. I just don't personally like the Zillow model that seems to be even more distant as far as service is concerned, and I would not like to see that model gain a foothold in this industry.

My point goes to the sustainability of the business of "Realtor" as a whole. I can see how experienced investors over time can acquire the knowledge and expertise to become jaded as to the professional abilities of some newer agents. On the other hand if regular Joe pays a broker $6000 to sell his $100000 house, I can see where they might question the value of the work the broker did especially since most of the work is not easily seen, but add to that the difficulty of doing business with someone who won't communicate, or just seems far to busy to be accessible to you, and you are setting up a situation where many don't believe they need such services.  

@Robert Whitelaw

@Robert Whitelaw I started a thread asking how I can get noticed by Real Estate agents and I got some very good advice there. In a nutshell the responses were how to provide evidence of value to them. Which was what I asked for.  However you have given me a list of metrics to use when interviewing agents. The things that matter to me. I wanted to thank you for that.

I feel that if agents and brokers continue with the mind set that their own bottom line is the only way to measure success, and they are not taking into account the clients perception of value, this is most detrimental to the industry in general.

My thoughts have been the same as some others on here that I need to get my license so I can get the MLS and make offers on my own. I don't really want to do that. I would much rather find an agent who will do the work for me, but I have no interest in doing the work so that the agent can be paid their commission. I don't see the value in that.

Thank you for the responses. Some really good advice here, and just what I needed I think. 

I can tell you not all BRRRs go according to plan. My first one I went 40% over budget, and 4 weeks longer than expected because of hidden problems, and failure to account for wintertime holding costs. This despite the fact I have been in construction and building maintenance my entire life. The good in this story is I bought the house right which allowed the deal to still cash flow although not as much as I would have liked.