All Forum Posts by: Tom V.

@Justin Williams : How much do you make on an average flip in dollars and as a percentage of your total expenditures on your projects?

Once I read in an in-flight magazine that you get what you negotiate.

I don't think there is a 'right' answer. Who is the relative? Do you want to work with them again? What are their expectations? What are yours?

Family is more important than a real estate deal. Keep your priorities straight.

Hi,

I have purchased a couple of houses in California and found myself in the same situation. In my experience, your best course will be:

-Wait until you receive your trustee sale deed in the mail and record it before reaching out again. Typically this is 10-15 days in California. Once the deed is recorded there is no ambiguity. In between there is time for shenanigans by the owner or the owner's lawyer. (Gut wrenching days to wait after the crazy auction lady took your cashier's check, right?)

-Once you record your deed, bring a copy of it with you and either try to speak to the occupier, and bring a polite but firm letter and post the letter and a copy of the deed on the door. "Dear XYZ, in an auction on ABC date, my company DEF purchased the property at 15 Magnolia Lane. I need for you to contact me at 123-4567 or at youraddress(at)email.com at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your plan to move out." When people see the trustee deed and your letter, they pretty much know the game is over.

-If you don't hear from them, you need to post more formal notice (3 days to quit for foreclosure) and consider legal options.

I have hired a lawyer to draft cash-for-keys agreements for me. I may have been overcautious, but I know from a title insurance perspective I felt in better shape with a professional document releasing all claims from the prior owner than something I cooked up myself.

Don't forget to play nice and be empathetic. Your worst case scenario now is that the occupier flushes a bag of concrete down the toilet or burns the place to the ground. Try not to set anyone off.

People do need time to move and my experience tells me people who are in foreclosure often crawl into mental shells of denial to protect themselves emotionally. You have now become the embodiment of the change in the their lives they have been dreading for months (probably years). Be cool. Treat the person decently and think about how you can solve their problem. You might want to offer to pay for a moving truck and 2 months of storage for their stuff as an opening salvo instead of cash for keys.... If you got possession in 30-45 days after the auction, that would not be a bad outcome as far as I am concerned.

The forums at foreclosureradar.com have a lot more foreclosure-specific advice.

Congratulations by the way! Hope it was a good deal.

306K mortgage

17K delinquent payments

7K contractor lien

35K repairs

40K for the sellers

---------------------------

405K vs 475K comps

$100K down

Do you understand that the bank could call all of the mortgage due if she signs the deed over to you?

How confident are you that the repairs can be completed for 35K?

Do you have $99K to put down?

Here is my advice on the best way for you to invest:

Start your investing career now.

It is not unusual. The thickness of the underlayment matters and whether you installed over concrete or a wood floor.

@Chris Hanratty :

This is how you start investing in real estate in your situation:

The best financial investment with no money down.

@Joshua Dorkin I think if you are representing the seller and the seller's financial interests you have a fiduciary obligation to chase down every possible buyer for the property and seek the optimal outcome for the seller. That obligation is the very nature of acting as an 'agent' on behalf of the seller. If a potential buyer is interested in your listing and she is not represented by a buyer's agent - you still have an obligation to engage her. Aside from 'getting both sides' of the commission, you have an obligation to your client to chase the buyers.

Zillow can almost put listing agents in an untenable position if they say, "You signed a contract to sell this house and we have people who are interested in it. You have an obligation to get these leads." Why can they 'almost' put agents in that untenable position? Because it approaches extortion. At least I can imagine a reasonable agent feeling that way.

Maybe this change just means that a listing agent needs to sit down and explain to the seller how a good part of the commission he is paying goes to fund this advertising.

As far as changing the way real estate is marketed, if more traffic is driven to Zillow and Trulia and Redfin, and fewer dollars are spent by agents on glossy real estate magazines (whose ads are as much about the agents as they are about the property) then the perceived role of real estate agents is reduced. That might be a net good for consumers, but is likely to make it more difficult for the part-time or casual agents... The same thing happened to part-time or casual travel agents 10-15 years ago. That was one of the points raised by the original article.

I am not 100% sure what the right answer is, but it does bear some thinking about how incumbents in and industry (agents) ought to be engaging a big third party like Zillow. At some point, the right move is to tell Zillow to pound sand. It sounds like that's what @Bryan L. 's company decided to do. Will they still sell houses? I bet they will.

If she had good credit and you still have a strong relationship with her, then maybe you have a shot. Most people live month-to-month, so I would be willing to accept a payment plan rather than unrealistically expecting everything to be paid at once.

Good Luck!

"Do some basic landscaping - removing the overgrown shrubs and trees, paint the outside, list it for rent and see if you get a good response. If not, then increase your budget, but I suspect the minimalist approach will get you rented up and on to the next property."

What Dave said. Save your rehab dollars for something else. Water the grass and invest $10 in some pruning shears from home depot and some sprinklers. The house itself doesn't look too bad. Rock and roll.