ingress / egress situation on REO

[Daria B.]

Hello BP,

I looked at an REO and found there is an ongoing "situation" with the easement of the developed properties.

This  property has homes that date back to at least 1959, the subject property was actually built in 1959.

Apparently, the developer (appears to not be one of these large development corporations but a family that sold off lots) who developed the neighborhood passed away had part of the land titled to his wife who at some point passed away.

Please see below from my realtor, he and I have had conversations about this.

First a little on the home that has dropped in list price twice since last year:

• 2 other offers presumably are waiting in the wings.
• I looked at the exterior and did all my analysis and number crunching, asked PM what rent could I get for the area.
• my offer: 112,500 ( almost 88% below list roughly 15k) 
• 20% down / 30 term / 4.5% (90k note)
• 1,250k rent
• all expenses: tax (trim value 2,156), ins (1,000k agent said this is likely to be much less),r$m and capx accounted for in calculations.
• cash flow $156
• cap rate 6.5%
• coc 7.6%
• rent-2-value: 1.1

New roof (2010), new upgraded kitchen (2014/2015) by Homepath I suspect whose name is in the seller description, cul-de-sac, nice area I've driven over a few times different times of day/night. Not far from the university and vet school.

What my realtor found out about the easement:

Regarding the ingress/egress situation, here is my understanding:

Apparently the fellow who developed that neighborhood had that part of the land titled in his wife's name. At some point she passed away. She had heirs, but as I understood it over the phone, it sounded like this property never went through probate and a legal transfer of ownership hasn't been recorded since her passing.

I understand that attempts have been made to get the local authorities to change the designated use to an easement. I'd like to take another look at the county's online maps to see if they will shed any light on this and when I do I will let you know. I certainly don't think it will be before noon tomorrow if I do learn anything more significant.

So, here I am with what appears to be something that may drag out and wondering to myself if it's worth it. My numbers, according to the realtor comps and the PM in their experience quoted a rent that does seem to work.

Although my realtor is trying to get more information, I found that the REO agent is less than forthcoming. If asking the right question still doesn't get the person to answer, where do I go to find the details of this easement?

As of late, I am still scouring the appraisers and public records for information on the properties in this tiny developed area.

• Has anyone come across a situation like this where the legal transfer of ownership has not occurred?
• Where else do I search for answers? I looked in public records and the property records.
• Court search requires a name and no hits since I haven't figured out the family name who developed the property.

Thanks for your time...

-Daria