All Forum Posts by: Lenna Groudan

We have had a house listed with a realtor.  We started at $254 looking for an owner financed deal but ended up getting the house under contract at $227 with traditional financing.    The buyer has not been able to secure financing.   We extended the sales contract once but when the buyer asked us to extend a 2nd time, we chose to not agree to extend and also to not extend the listing agreement with our realtor.   We will pursue a new buyer either directly or with a different Realtor.

The original realtor is now coming back and saying we owe them the full 6% commission because they acquired a "ready, willing and able" buyer.    We disagree and feel if the buyer was "able" they would have closed on time.   We understand the lender may be the issue but there is no guarantee that if we keep extending the buyer will close.   We also have lost confidence in the realtor, even before they tried to claim their commission.   

Is there a black and white ruling on whether this buyer meets the hurdle of a "Ready, Willing and Able" buyer given they have missed both closing dates?   Do we owe the original realtor a commission even if:

- The buyer missed two contractual closing dates?

- We, the seller, would not extend the contract further?

We've got a subject to deal under contract with a $160K loan, $215K ARV. During the title search we discovered 2 additional liens for roughly $11K each. We have the documents - they are both loan modifications that looked like they came from Housing and Urban Development. We have gotten the loan payoff amount from the lender and one of these two liens shows up as an additional expense required at payoff ($160K PLUS $11K additional). The other lien appears to have been rolled into the existing, modified $160K loan (the principle, interest rate and end-date all changed after the other lien was signed.)

How do we deal with these?   We want to leave the $160K loan in place and it is still a good deal even with the additional $11K required at payoff.   

Question 1:   Can we get the lien that was rolled into the original loan released now as it is covered by the existing $160K loan?

Question 2:  Our intended exit strategy is to sell with owner financing.   When we try to sell the home,  will carrying 1 or both of these additional liens to closing be an issue or "as expected" for a subject-to being sold with owner financing?

Question 3: Should we work to remove the lien(s) ourselves directly with HUD and the lender? We have a limited power of attorney. OR is this something the title company should work for us?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Lenna

Hi All,

   We are looking for a part-time bookeeper with QuickBooks skills to help us get our business setup and then maintained over time.

We have a small, but quickly growing real estate investing business that is quickly going to outgrow spreadsheets and file-folders!

We'd like someone in Houston if possible...

Thanks,

    Lenna

We are closing on a new investment property next week - an old home we will flip -  and we just got the survey in.

There is a very old chain link fence surrounding the property.   This fence has been there for many, many years.   The survey shows it RIGHT ON the property line.  It is not outside our lots property line but it is not inside either.

It would not break us to have to remove it but I'd like to know ahead of time if it may be a problem so I can go back to the seller if I need to.

Does anyone out there know about survey's and fences?   Is a fence RIGHT ON the property line OK or a problem?

Thanks!

Thanks Brandon!

It worked out OK - he was more professional than we had thought and we are arranging everything through a title company and all the fees will be captured and transferred via the HUD and title co.

Hi  guys,

    We are working a deal and it is our first time we have tried to close a deal with a wholesaler.  We like the deal and his finders fee is reasonable so no problem with the numbers.

My question is around when does money change hands.   

My understanding on how to do this - and how our mentors suggest we do it - is to have the wholesaler fee to be captured on the HUD at closing. That way everything is documented. I know the risk to a Wholesaler is that since no money has changed hands yet, at the last minute we could back-out of the deal and he loses his contract. This is not our intent and we are only looking for 2-3 working days to run an inspector thru the house and review the loan documents (the deal is a subject to deal...).

The gentleman we are working with wants money "up front" to secure the deal while we do our due diligence.   So - when you do a deal with a normal purchase contract and a title company, you can arrange option fees, and escrow at title companies, etc..   However, in this case, we are probably going to get asked to just cut a check.   We are meeting him tonight to see the house and if we decide to take on the contract, I am trying to decide how to address his request.

What is reasonable and customary?  I don't want to screw the guy but I also don't want to cut a check, find an issue with the house and then be unable to recover our money.

Thanks in advance for your advice...

Jeff and Lenna

 Yup - got it.  Will send in our objections tomorrow (we have 5 days from when we get the title commitment).

Thanks again!   We'll let you know how this turns out...

Guy, Chad,

  Thank you both.  We just agreed with the seller to push out closing and option period by 1 week to allow the sellers more time to deal with some of the paperwork issues.   We'll initial some paper tomorrow.  They are going to work on the Heirship documentation during this time..   There does appear to be some documentation that has not yet been provided.

We are going to use the time to get a lawyer to review the current title commitment and help us draft a formal objection (if he deems necessary) to protect us.

Thanks again.

 Hi Guy - I was trying to stay that the title company was working on getting the title insurance commitment.   It actually just showed up in the last 30min.   The title company has not said they won't insure but are saying they need either a probate or heirship as the two people on the deed inherited it from the father.  This shows up on schedule C.

OK - so our next step, to protect ourselves is to send an objection to the title company to "register" our objections in case they are not able to resolve.   Sound right?

Thanks for your help!

Hi All,  I expect this is pretty rudimentary to the realtors but we want to make sure we understand our alternatives.

We have a closing on an investment property scheduled on Monday the 17th of August.   Our option period expires Friday the 14th.   There is a realtor representing the seller.  We represent ourselves.

The title company is still working on the title so we do not have confirmation of a clean title yet.

Our Question:

If the option period expires before we get confirmation of clear title and THEN we find out there is a major, potentially unsolvable issue with the title, have we forfeited our Earnest money deposit?

Do we need to try and extend our option period to protect our Earnest Money until we can get confirmation of a clear title OR  does the standard Texas TREC contract allow you to recoup your Earnest money if we cannot get the title free and clear - even if the option period has expired.

Thanks in advance!