All Forum Posts by: James Fleisch

@Greg Scott

Home price is $47,000 with $12,000 down at closing and $5,000 monthly for 7 months. The buyers both run a home business and own 3 other properties and supposedly had to relocate to wife’s hometown to care for an elderly mother. They want my house because its large and has room for home business. I only paid $16,000 for the house 3 years ago but would prefer to not get into a foreclosure mess. Lawyer says its fine but didn’t really explain the foreclosure process or give me any idea how much it might cost. I’m getting credit reports Monday that are supposed to be stellar along with some proof of income and cashflow. Just trying to make sure I’m not missing anything and if it goes bad that i can still come out ok even if it takes a year.

Thanks!

I own my home outright in Illinois. Its for sale by owner. I got an offer for full listing price with 25% down and the remaining balance payable in 6 monthly payments.

My attorney says he would prefer to structure it as a contract for deed but the buyers contract is written to give full ownership to the buyer immediately and I would be the mortgage holder. Attorney says current contract is fine because illinois law gives ownership rights on contact for deed sales after 20% of the principle has been paid. If the buyer defaults then i would have to go through foreclosure process either way.

I’m still learning and this would be my first home sale without a realtor and I want to make sure I’m not making a raw deal. I paid for some background check info on husband and wife buyers (sale is in wife’s name only) I discovered a default about 12 years ago on a home loan and the husband owes the IRS $800,000 plus. I’m waiting on a credit report but buyer says credit is over 700 on both. Buyer says irs deal is completely in accurate and he is working to get it fixed.

Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated!

Illinois has the highest real estate taxes in the nation.  The upside of this is that there is a robust tax sale listing for each county.  ILtaxsale.com  handles nearly every counties tax sales.  I'm posting this because I recently placed a bid for the first time and I'm waiting to hear the results.  The way I understand it, if no one buys the back taxes after 3 years the county has claim the property.  I believe they do some research to look for liens and anything they think is not free and clear is removed from the listing.  The remaining properties are then listed at auction usually once a year. The county I live in wipes out all the back taxes and you bid by writing a check in the amount of your bid. It is a sealed bid.  If you are the winner you have 30 days to do a title search and if something comes up you get your money back and if not ownership is transfered over to you after 90 days and taxes don't start until the next year.   Do any of you have experience with this sort of a tax sale?  It seems pretty straight forward but is there anything I may be missing?  Do any of you in other states have similar types of county tax sales?

Thanks,

James

After 14 years of marriage i finally ended my marriage last Fall. I'll spare you the ugly details but i spent a full year expecting to not only lose everything but also to be saddled with alimony payments far beyond what i could afford for 8 additional years. When the dust settled i did lose everything but avoided ongoing alimony payments. Here is the good news.... while i was waiting for the divorce to finalize a home came up for sale through a local realty company. It was a bank foreclosure. Due to the previous owner painting everything brown inside and out no one wanted it. Every month the bank dropped the price by 10k. They started at 70k and i had my mom offer them 13k after they lowered the price to 19k. I got it for 14k. The home is large and much nicer than you might expect for the price i paid. My mom quit deeded the property to me post divorce to get owner occupied tax credit. (I still owe her 14k and 10k for a divorce loan I'm otherwise debt free) 6 months later the house was hit by a hail storm and now I have a check for 20k and they will give me 20 more if I make any of the repairs none of which are necessary. Now I'm sitting in a position I couldn't have dreamed of being in a year ago thinking about splitting this house into a triplex and buying another triplex. Mainly I'm using this website to get ideas on how to rebuild what i lost. I'm in Central Illinois and love learning about ways to make money. The podcasts on this website are a goldmine and give me so much to think about. Its hard to find friends that are interested in financial freedom. I'm glad to be here.