Do The Good Guys Ever Win In Real Estate?

[Miguel Sanchez]

A Good Day To All,

I am a military veteran utilizing the VA loan to purchase my first home and I must say this has been a nightmare to say the least. I have come to learn that this business can very much be shark infested waters.

Let me start by saying that I first came across this community (BiggerPockets)abouta year ago and really dove in. I listen to the podcast often, read forums, etc. Back in March 2017, I gained the confidence to try and go through with my first purchase and have not looked back since. I was pre-approved for a good amount and started to look at deals and familiarize myself with my local market. I work a full-time job and only have time for on sight visits after about 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm ET Mon-Fri. Whenever I had 15-30 mins to come up for air at work, I would be looking at deals on the MLS to try and set up appointments. This method was great and extremely efficient, I was looking at 4-7 houses on the weekdays all within a 35-50 mile radius. When I was not looking at houses, I was driving around looking for houses that might have not been online.

So now that you have a visual on my process, let me touch on where things got tricky. Many folks are not familiar with the VA Loan, while I wont highlight all of the features, I will touch on the one feature that has caused me to lose out on deals,100% FINANCING. My offers are often rejected due to this and its extremely annoying!

Last Friday I found a beautiful duplex with afinished basement (House Hacking Opportunity), I did the numbers and all seemed good, so I submitted an offer that same night, and it was accepted. My attorney sent over the letter with terms immediately and waited to hear back. After accepting my offer, the seller and his team did something extremely unethical and terminated my contract because my deal was 100% financed. The listing price was under my pre-approved ceiling so I even offered to go $5K above asking and put closing cost in an escrow account and they still terminated my contract. Can someone help me here? I have never heard of anyone encountering this problem and don’t really know what to do.