All Forum Posts by: Mark Fedorov

Unfortunately is seems you are getting into a dual agency agreement, so you no longer have an agent representing you, instead the agent is representing their own interest (that you are paying 6% for). 

If the realtor is not listing pictures, other realtors are not going to come to see it. Why have an open house if the listing was not complete?

Why are you having an open house if the bathroom still needs work?

If the buyer wants you to pay closing costs, then they do not have a lot of cash (ie: may not get a mortgage), so your realtor knows these people do not have cash so she is saying don't counter with them paying closing costs.

Go to Zillow.com.. that will have an estimate of the price of your house, it may be wrong but it is something. I don't believe the lack of comps story.

This does sound fishy, but I assume that you are locked into the realtor and you signed a contract with them, so you can either say yes and negotiate to the best option or don't sell until this contract expires.

At a minimum, ask for the commission to be cut to 4 or 5% since they have dual agency, use that money to hire a lawyer to help you with the transaction.

It depends on how you bought the house and if it were active of passive income, as long as you have the income to offset the loss, you are fine taking it in one year, actually, most people would want to take that in one year, (and the soonest year possible). Why would you carry forward a loss, if you have the option to get cash back (or pay less cash to) the government now?... 

I would think that your first conversation would be with the bank, sit down with the owner, get on a speakerphone and call the 800 number and don' let them tell you no. 

All I have for lawyers are bad ones. But your life will be easier if you find out if the house is in Northampton or Lehigh County , and pick a lawyer in the same county.

It has happen to me that I went into a bank for a equity loan and the bank guy is pushing an equity line of credit... you should get a term loan at about 4%... if not check out another bank or credit union. 

The only other option would be that you start saving what your payments would be, if you get an 80% LTV loan on your house, that is $120K at would be about $570/ month... if your place is kicking that out, put it in savings.

The deal will be what ever the two of you can both live with. I am sure there are standards (which others can comment on) however at the end, you have to give him enough of what he wants and he has to give you enough what you want to get the deal done.

I suggest that you write down how you want the arrangement to be laid out, then talk to him with the goal of seeing if he is interested. If he is interested you can hammer out the details.

No one will stop you from owning multiple properties at the same time, however they will want to get paid. If you have the money or the access to a loan, no problem.... the money is the on thing that prevents most people from doing this too much.

 ... Thanks, I worked for a fortune 500 company in the finance Dept and they always told me, when I was planning a deal to never do an installment sale, because postponing the tax payment was against the rules. however after a quick search of the IRS web site I see clearly you only pay taxes on the profits you receive in the year that you receive them. Is that different for a C corp?

If you can get him to do close to market rate, oh hell yes! You can save a TON of money from bank fees etc.

Spend the money to have your lawyer review (or offer to write up) the note and mortgage. What your seller does not understand is that, if he does his taxes legally, he will still have the cap gain hit, but that seems to be his problem, not yours.

Still do the title search.. no matter what.

I may be in the minority here but I do not think wIth a 80K investment, and a cosmetic work you will  make 15-20K profit.

I am thinking like $5K... buy something for 60K, put 20 into it sell for 90, net 85 after MLS fees.

Do the math to figure out the costs of the repairs and how much more the rents will be, do you still make a profit? if yes, the banks will lend to you.

Also, from what you wrote I don't understand what the problem is, if the building is work say $120K now and it needs $60K of work, you can get a mortgage @ 80%LTV and have $96K in your pocket for the repairs... if you cash flow can handle that payment when 90% occupied (say 10 or of 12), the bank will not have a problem giving you the money.

The good news about this is that after you put the $60K into the place and raise rents the value will go up, and in 5 years you can refinance and get more cash out for your next property

Also, you say; I have approached my local credit union for a commercial refinance loan but I'm almost certain the appraisal would come in too low for something like this.

Why not wait for the loan people to come back to you with a response before you worry about things you can't control.