I bought a Freddie Mac OO first look house now Kroger wants to buy it (can I sell legally)

[Jered Sturm]

My wife and I just bought a Freddie mac home steps house during the owner occupied period. We closed last thursday. I needed about 3 weeks to paint and do some work to the house before moving in, so we have not yet moved in. I have however already signed a lease on my current home to rent it beginning December 1st so i was planning on being in to this new house on or before December 1st.

This evening I had a agent of a commercial developer came knocking on the new properties door while I was doing some painting. He said they would like to make a generous offer of 2 times what I paid for it. after talking to several neighbors this evening I come to find he has been negotiating deals with all surrounding houses. So my question to you is am I legally able to sell it so soon? 

I signed the lengthly owner occupied addendum Freddie mac provided. 

I will be running this through my RE attorney tomorrow, but love to hear the advice of this great community. 

Something to note is I do not have a mortgage on this property. 

[Joel Owens]

Hi Jerry,

Years ago this is what I used to do for developers before transacting existing commercial buildings. Example instead of assembling land for a Kroger I now have clients buy an existing building with a Kroger and smaller tenants for 8 million etc.

I get paid much faster than land assemblage.

I am surprised they mentioned Kroger already. Usually they keep that quite until Kroger has signed on to be an anchor. Shopping stores get mad when it gets leaked to the public and news papers pick it up and then the deal doesn't happen and it makes the community mad at that national company etc.

Right now if the land isn't locked up they do not have anything yet. Buying your house is generally way far off. They want to put a contract on it now for a set price. Selling for double what you paid has nothing to do with it's actual land value. I would ask for a copy of their site plan and see where your parcel is going to be in the new development. Key pieces are worth more. Do not just hope an attorney can help you with this. If they have no development experience the developer will eat them alive. The developers goal is to not go hard with the money until the very end where certainty of the project is high and they are fixing to go  to closing. Also a ton of outs will be in the contract including very subtle language to extend the contract forever if the developer needs more time.

The contract will usually stipulate that you cannot not talk to anyone else besides your legal counsel of what the property is under contract for or the purchase terms etc.

How much land does this house sit on?? How many other parcels will they need to assemble for the success of this project total?? You really have to have someone experienced drill them on where they are at with this project.

For example Kroger might want this site bad or it might be one of 3 sites they are looking at. Is the developer wanting to use TIF funds to offset development costs?? If so that creates many more approvals and obstacles to buying your property. Usually they are not buying your property right away but 6 months to 1 year from now etc. Those projects from start to finish assembling the land to build out generally take 3 to 5 years for the whole process.