Obstacles in real estate

[Logan Turner]

Here is a story with lots of nuggets. But the take home.. there will always be obstacles. Charge through them. We had a delay in closing and for a minute didn’t look like this house would get closed at all. I cancelled the hard money loan and appraiser and opted to just close with personal funds. That however, wasn’t the obstacle. Apparently 10 years ago when the seller purchased the house, an attorney filed the purchase contract with the county. Purchase contracts don’t get filed. Only notarized deed of trusts and promissory notes. So the title company, in order to offer title insurance, needed this document to be released from the county records. Well they needed the sellers signature and the person she bought it from 10 years ago. We had to skip trace them and found out they live in Houston and have dementia. The person with the POA agreed to sign but was hesitant. Then the title company said they needed the original POA document mailed to them and they would mail it back. The POA in Houston was skeptical. After a few hours of phone calls we finally resolved it. Also, there were about 5 different liens on the property. So the wholesaler went to the county courts office and researched each lien, and verified pay off to bring it to the title company. He definitely earned his 5k assignment fee. This deal probably would not have closed with out his tenacity. So I sent him an additional $500 after we closed as a thank you. On top of all of this the seller was threatening to refuse to close and was distraught because this delayed her moving out and she needed the funds to pay some credit repair company she had wrapped up her debt with. So I actually wired her $1500 before closing to assist her. But I made her sign a lien document that I could place against the house if we couldn’t close because of the above craziness. To cover myself. Also, I later went to title and told them to adjust the HUD closing documents to show I paid an additional $1500 to be credited towards my side. About 7 days ago we officially closed and seller moved out yesterday. GC is starting rehab on it Monday. I’m having Property manager walk through it to give me any last minute suggestions on layout or repairs before we begin. Not always normal for deals, but on paper this will be my best deal yet. Just know there are lots of little obstacles in real estate. But getting through them is very worth it.