All Forum Posts by: Marc M.

I have an unusual request: I have a primary residence under contract and my lender has offered to kick me $1k for a home warranty.  Since I had a very experienced construction buddy check out the house and address any concerns I had, the home inspection is now a formality to obtain the home warranty.  The major systems are older and there is the very real possibility they could fail within the next two years.

In essence, I'm not looking for someone to go through the house with a fine-toothed comb and search every nook and cranny.  Ideally, I'd prefer a less expensive inspector that could do a quick inspection, test the major items and put together a report.  

Does anyone know someone that might fit the bill?

Too bad you're not in my area, I'm looking for exactly that right now.  I've had a buddy look at the main components for me but now that my lender is kicking me a $1k credit for a home warranty, I need to get a formal home inspection that says everything is working.  My mind has been put at ease that the home doesn't have any major problems so it's really just a matter of going through the process to get a report and this would be be perfect.  

Not that it matters necessarily, but this is for a primary residence.

 Yes, can you elaborate Tracy?  I don't know that I've read anything damning against the agent so I'm curious what your reasoning is for advising the OP not to use him.

Keep in mind that FHA loans are designed for owner occupants but I believe you can still qualify up to a quad (someone correct me if that's wrong) as long as you live in one of them. You'll be signing papers attesting to the fact that you'll be an owner occupant and your mailing address will need to remain the property address, at least for the mortgage.

You certainly could use FHA as an investor but then you're getting into dicey territory since, you know, it's fraud.

@Brent Coombs Good point.  I definitely ran comps based on the SF without the conversion so I'm think I'm good.  Hopefully I can cut some drywall and the inspector will sign off on it.  Guess there's only one way to find out!

@Gerald Harris I'm doing FHA financing as I plan to use the remainder of my funds for flips. I'm walking in with a fair amount of equity so I think it's worth keeping the deal if I'm only looking at the expenses for permitting.

Heck, I may do that anyway. Should just be a matter of ripping down drywall so inspectors can see what's behind it, correct? Since a permit was never pulled, this would be an easy way to add 400+ SF to the house, which should improve my comps a bit. Good thinking! :-)

So I'm under contract to buy a SFR that had a two car garage converted into living space but a permit was never pulled - yes, I knew about this before submitting the offer. There is a 12 day inspection period that I can back out but at this point, I see no reason to unless the home inspection turns up something major.

I'm not particularly worried about it but I'm looking to get some feedback on how this could potentially come back to bite me in the future. So far, it seems like a stretch that it would be an issue with the county. Is there anything obvious I'm missing that I need to take into consideration? 

Thanks in advance!

Marc

 Maybe I'm unique but if I ever had to present a client with an offer containing a contingency that the buyer had to view the property in person, I would advise them to toss it in the trash.  That tells me they're blindly submitting offers just to see what sticks and aren't vested in buying the property, whether that is actually the case or not.

 Just shoot me your credit card #, date of birth, bank account info, SSN and we'll get you RSVP'd.  :-)

On a serious note, welcome to BP!  Most meetups are generally open to anyone, and some cost a few bucks to pay for the rental of the room.  I attend the monthly Gaithersburg meetup which may be somewhat of a hike for you but well worth it if you can stand the drive.  

There is a meetup section here on BP but I've noticed that not all meetups are announced every month, or sometimes even at all.  Your best bet would be to try to reach out to people you see talking about them, like Carson above, and get the details.

Hope to see you around!

 This made me LOL.