All Forum Posts by: Geri Johnson

TM Cobb should have the best windows and pricing for your situation. If there is a Dixieline near you they will probably have the best pricing or connection with TM Cobb.

Matt still confused. Sometimes the term investor is used to mean the person holding the loan note that took back their collateral. But we mean it as a 3rd party that purchased through an auction or other means. Did the judicial decree returnnitnto lender or did someone acquire through the process?
I'm not personally familiar with the process.

The ones I mentioned above are focused on West Coast and would not be helpful in other areas. These sites ate subscription sites and they are for tracking pre foreclosures and foreclosure auctions.

Make sure that your offer ans contract clearly states free and clear title and you give yourself a contingency period to review the title report.
Had a colleague suffer through a lis pendens on a property purchased at auction. Lis Pendens got recorded one hour before Trustee Deed. Case dragged for one year and judge wouldn't let bona fide purchaser evict until case got thrown out.

County Records and Foreclosure Radar are the best services for serious foreclosure buyers. Foreclosure.com and Realtrac are inaccurate and old data.

I believe the issue is that the property was purchased by an investor -the bank is not holding it. Probably purchased at foreclosure auction. I can guarantee that the bank is not going to put in 100k of repairs.
If it is owned by the bank then you might have a chance to buy it in current condition but you will have to wait for it to get listed by the agent. Make sure he knows to call you.

If an investor bought it you will have a hard time buying in current condition. An investor buys property with plans to renovate and make highest profit potential. What you see as 100k in repairs is usually a lot less for an experienced crew. Selling in current condition usually brings a much lower return.

One more thing... Prominent Escrow charged a bunch of fraudulent Processing Fees that they tack onto the escrow fee, probably to make up for the low pricing they are giving Bank of America. They charged a $350 Processing Fee. When I finally got through to a human to ask what the $350 processing fee was for an all-cash transaction she bumbled around and explained that they research all of the permits and code violations for the property as a 'courtesy' for me.

When I said "Gee, I would love to see all of the information that you got" I was told that it was internal only and they couldn't give out the information.

Donna, I just closed an escrow with the exact same types of issues.

In order to make my offer as competitive as possible I used the REO Listing Agent as my buyer's agent for an REO purchase. Obviously, he is going to work the hardest to get my offer accepted by the Asset Manager.

I was forced to use the REO Lender, Bank of America/One West selected services, which are different than the ones you are using. I was stuck with LSI Title andProminent Escrow Company in Newport Beach. It appears that Bank of America throws their business around because they are not the same title/escrow in your transaction.

Needless to say, Prominent Escrow was the worst organization I have ever worked with. They would not speak directly with me, even though they are paid to be my representative. They sent all communications, including Escrow Instructions, to the listing agent. Well, being an REO agent, he was either too busy or non-responsive and I missed getting several important things delivered to me.

Then there is LSI Title who shouldn't even be in business. One day before closing, the Prelim Title finally gets to me and there is a crazy driveway easement on the title that did not show up in my own title search. I asked for an easement plot map and they said it would take 5 days, I would have to pay for it, and did I want to hold up escrow for that? Then I asked for a copy of the recorded driveway easement and, you're not going to believe this, they said they didn't have a copy because it was a 1963 document and I would have to go down to the San Diego County Recorder's Office and get it myself. Then I was supposed to scan it and send it to them. Can you believe that this place calls themselves a title company?

So, I called Fidelity National Title who I have a relationship with and gave them the recorded doc # and I had a copy of the doc within 15 minutes in my email. I then asked them to review it because I could not make any sense out of it. They quickly responded, via email, that the Document was for Lots 13/14 and my property was Lot 11. The entire thing was not even related to the property.

The worst service from both of these groups, stay away from them.

Geri

Your first time you want to keep it simple. You can do your taxes in Turbo Tax or some similar entity next year. If you are using day laborers to dig ditches, landscape, clean, etc. just use a bunch of different ones so that you don't pay any one person more than $600.

For laborers that you pay more than $600 then you will need to file a 1099 when you do taxes (Turbo Tax or Quick Books can do the 1099s), but you need their SSN and other information (W9).
If you are paying a company, such as ABC Glass Company, or XYZ Window Company then you do not have to do anything for taxes. You only have to 1099 independent workers who do not have a legal company entity.

I think staging is important and I am in the Southern California market. I tend to stage proportionately to the price range that I am selling. For example I just sold a 1 bd/1 ba condo and I only did light staging because the profit margin did not support full staging.

I use a loyal local real estate agent to help me find deals and list my properties. If you are going to use local agents to sell your listings you need to shop for the agent who is going to work hardest for you. In our market, many agents provide staging as part of their service. So, I leave the purchase, storage, transport and setup to my agent. I buy things along the way that I like (such as art and accessories).

I have my first painting that I bought to decorate my very first property. I call it the 'lucky painting'. Many times I have buyers put items into the contract, but I have kept my hands on the lucky painting! Once I accidentally granted my personal patio furniture (that was moved into the property for staging) in a signed contract and had to try to negotiate my way out of that one! Ended up having to give a $1,500 credit to buyer so they wouldn't take the furniture.