All Forum Posts by: Christian Malesic

Are you talking state or federal?

I know they have been working a federal bail out, but
I do not think it has eviction language. Usually, that is the state landlord tenant law.

I have been to these auctions (sheriff's auctions in PA) prepared to buy, but the price was too steep for me.

So... I do not have a feel for it. I hear they are pretty easy. Maybe the easiest or, at least, toward the top of the list.

Any thoughts from others?

Very eye-opening comment, Wheatie.

I would say REOs are a real pain, but then I have little experience with short sales and pre-foreclosures.

See, I believe REOs are much more complicated and involved than straight-forward property purchases.

Based on my own experience and posts from BiggerPockets, let us put it this way:

(from easiest to hardest)

Normal purchases
Wholesales
REOs
Pre-foreclosures
Short Sales

I have not noticed any difference between Freddie, Fannie, and other REOs.

Now, I certainly am not the total expert compared to others around here. I have done one Freddie (as explained above), one Fannie (on which I had to deal with an unethical Realtor who was reported to NAR), and about a half dozen REOs (most of which I acquired).

REOs are not for the faint of heart. The process is often longer, there is less communication, less negotiation, less personality, and an overall feeling of helplessness. I certainly recommend an REO NOT be an investor's first purchase. Newbies, get some experience under your belt or load up for bear.

Only that: if they do bad business - you do bad business.

If they are foreclosed upon - so are you.

It can be great, if all goes well; BUT....

A whole lot of IFs are out there.

The property acquisition has gone well.

We closed a day early on 20 May 08 and had the workers in on the next day. Our budget was $25k in rehab costs. We came in over, but close at just under $26k.

We have two of the three units already rented (as of the last week of June) with tenants moved in and settled. The third unit is still available. It is a 3rd floor, 1 bedroom. We have not even advertised it for the last two weeks as we have focused on re-renting some of our other vacant units instead.

We actually tried an OPEN HOUSE, much like the Realtors do. We made fresh cookies on site, put balloons out front, had signs posted for over a week, and ran a large classified ad. We set up tables and chairs for folks to complete applications and had bottled water in the frig for those folks to have while signing.

A lot of neighbors came by during the open house. We saw that as a positive as they were mostly homeowners who were proud to see the long empty building purchased and fixed up.

Johnston19,

I was referring to listing agents of REO property. In fact, almost all listing agents are this way. They are trained to do so AND have a duty to their owner to get the highest price possible. Do you agree?

I read the article. Ms. Kennedy is in tax strategy planning. In a lot of ways I believe the article is a slightly veiled attempt at using trust funds to protect assets. This is an age old argument that many sophists have poured plenty of rhetoric upon.

I have attended two seminars pumping this method myself (the first knowingly, the second after having been tricked into believing I was attending an educational session on financing).

As to your questions, I am not sure if Sub Chapter S Corporations are in the same boat as LLCs. If they are not, the corp. is the straight-forward answer.

It would take some more digging through Freddie's press release to determine. Let us let this thread hang for a while to see if anyone else in the know picks up on it to give us further insight.

If it is not too much to ask, can you give us your source for the article?

No change.

Realtors are always like that. If you are serious, get a buyer's agent and submit the offer in writing. By Nat'l Assoc of Realtors (NAR) standards, which is carried over in many of the state associations, Realtors have to present all legitimate offers.

Having said that, you may want to read a bunch in this forum as the chances of your offer being accepted is quite low, though possible. Use the search function in upper right, or just read all of the posts in the REO forum (there are not that many really and a lot of good learning contained therein).