All Forum Posts by: Karin Crompton

Hi, @Rayna Acampora - welcome to Bigger Pockets. This site is a tremendous source of information and networking.

What kind of investing do you do, and what does the term "investor-friendly agent" mean to you? It's kind of a catch-all phrase that means different things to different people. (I might also turn it around and ask whether you are an agent-friendly investor! ;-)  )

@Steve Dove thanks for posting this question, as I hadn't seen that website before. I think this is a fascinating question and hope some others chime in. We, too, have had overwhelmingly positive experiences with guests staying at our vacation rental in New Hampshire the past 5 years - but the 2 or 3 bad ones unfortunately dictate how we need to handle everyone else. I remember specifically thinking after one particular group last year that I wished I had a way to warn other rental owners.

I do wonder about the legality, so to speak, of the guestchecker website and what happens if someone finds out they're blacklisted and then goes after the site and the owners. Are owners' names made public in the reviews of renters?

On the flip side, guests can leave reviews and say pretty much anything they want on any number of sites, so why not have a way for owners to leave reviews for guests? I recently rented a place through airbnb and learned that they do have this service; the owner left a review of me, as a guest. I thought that was a brilliant move by the airbnb folks. Similar to the way ebay has ratings, now I, as a "buyer," come with reviews and ratings when I go to book another place on airbnb. I love that move.

As for vetting guests, I know one owner who gets the name and copies of drivers licenses of everyone who's staying in his rental and puts those on the lease, similar to the way you might do so on a long-term rental. It's not totally foolproof, but he feels it has helped weed out some bad renters.

Ditto what @Bill Jacobsen recommends. I read that book prior to us buying our first vacation rental and it was like my Bible. Karpinski was spot on. Times have changed in the 5 years since we bought our rental (more websites, more competition), but I would still recommend it as a great place to research the basics.

Thanks again, everyone. We are pretty much stuck with the AB then BC arrangement; the contract can't be assigned and we can't add a name to it. But I appreciate all of the creative thinking here!

We put in a request with our HML to do the transactional funding and hope to hear what they have to say today, and are pursuing other avenues as well. It still seems to me that it's a pretty standard move, with contracts in place ... but we'll see what all of the other moving parts say!

@Account Closed - yes, that about sums it up. We are the buyer, but the seller needs to close his part before selling to us, and our attorney says we can't use our HML funds to close his transaction w/his seller. (I imagine we could if the HML agreed to it, we just haven't gotten to that step yet.)

We have almost everything in place - Purchase and Sale agreements for each of us (AB and then BC) and our HML has approved us. Just this slight snag with the AB portion. And as I mentioned, this guy isn't a "professional" wholesaler, just someone who had an in to a great deal. We're paying the standard closing costs, etc; I imagine we'd pay the transactional funding fees as well, just hoping the lender doesn't whack us for 10 minutes of their time!

My business partner is calling our lender today and I passed along your comment to her. It seems pretty doable to me, hope everyone else involved agrees. Thanks!

Thanks, @Wayne Brooks - I was hoping my hunch was correct re: the HML, that "his money will already be there anyway." And I'll double check, but I don't believe there are any judgments outstanding on the wholesaler (and long story short, he's not a professional wholesaler so he wouldn't have figured it out; I use the term 'wholesaler' loosely, as he's basically a guy who had an in to some great deals and we've been the ones to do all of the maneuvering here).

Thanks, all. I figured I'd be scrambling for the transactional funding, w/the hopes that the HML might add it into the mix.

Thank you also, @Michael Noto - I will message you. It might be too late for this transaction, but I know this situation will come up again.

@Ted Akers what kind of lead time would a transactional lender need?

Hey all,

I'm having a bit of trouble sorting out how to complete a double closing here in CT. To attempt to summarize, my attorney tells me we can't fund the A-B with the B-C money. We are using a hard-money lender (HML) in this situation. I should add that the contract cannot be assigned, so the A-B does need to take place and can't be A-C.

I believe my attorney's primary issue is that we can't do B to C funding as a first step b/c we don't actually own anything at that point. Also, that that money can't be used for the A to B transaction b/c our lender has not agreed to loan to the wholesaler, only to loan to us.

We've done this a couple of times in the past in cash transactions where we brought the cash. It was clunky. Our attorney drafted a note saying we were making an unsecured loan to the wholesaler; we did A to B that way, and then the funds were immediately paid back when we did the B to C closing 10 minutes later.

This time we've got the hard-money lender. I haven't yet contacted them, but I imagine they've been in this situation before and am hopeful they will have an easy solution (probably at a price). After all, we have an agreement w/the wholesaler and the HML has agreed to fund us. All we need to do is smooth over the first part - the wholesaler buying from the seller - that has my attorney hung up.

I understand the laws vary by state, but is there something I'm missing? I swear I've heard other investors in CT talk about doing double closings all the time, though I've never gotten the nitty-gritty details. Maybe it's always this clunky.

Any suggestions?

Hey, @Vonetta Booker hang in there! The REO market is definitely a lot different than it was a year ago, even 6 months ago. I see it in SECT as well - multiple offers, properties selling for higher than asking price, etc. And then every once in awhile a good one slips through the cracks.

I think you have your answer already, backed up by the responses here: keep marketing and talking to sellers, and the off market approach will start to pan out for you. How long have you been doing the direct mail? From everything I've seen here, you should go into it expecting nothing to happen for at least 6 months - and then the snowball effect kicks in. (So long as you've been consistent and have worked on your skills in talking to this segment of the market.)

I am so in. Can anyone help me find my way around (message me)? I assume I'll take a train in.

Thanks for organizing, @Darren Sager !