Help needed on first flip

[John Baskin]

I'm involved in my first flip --I purchased it on May 4th and finished re-habbing a couple of weeks ago. Having received a pre-approved offer at nearly list price (FHA), I was informed by the buyer's realtor that the offer would have to be retracted since I had not owned the property for 90 days yet. Can someone explain how this works, if there is any strategy or work-around? Is renting it for the next six weeks to this FHA buyer and having him purchase it after the 90 wait period a viable strategy? This first flip has been nothing but aggravation from the start with my former listing agent (now I'm licensed and listing it) giving me bad info, to my contractor taking twice as long to complete the job to THIS. I have a hard money loan out on this property at 13% and don't know whether to drop the price to pull-in a bigger pool of buyers and hopefully sell it sooner---thus paying off my loan sooner. Or whether I should be patient (its only been on the market for 2 1/2 weeks), leave the price alone. Very frustrating and depressed. Any advice or words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated.

I bought it as a foreclosure from a wholesaler for $83K----put $10K into it for rehab and asking $119,900 (arguably a rich number...but not so rich that it prevented me from getting offer in two weeks)---if I didn't have to deal with this FHA non-sense. Main question is if its logical to try and lease it to the buyer for 6 weeks (until the 90 day FHA requirement passes) and proceed as before.

[Mindy Jensen]

First, check out the comps to make sure it is listed properly. 

Next, this FHA business. FHA requires the title to be seasoned, and you cannot sell it to an FHA buyer before those 90 days are up. In your listing, do you have the option of what kind of financing you will accept? Just say no FHA for the first 90 days. There is no way around the FHA seasoning. BUT not all buyers are FHA buyers. You could still, potentially, get an offer from a non-FHA buyer.

I'm not a fan of renting to a buyer before closing. What if they turn around and say "Fix this or that or we won't close." Then you have to go through an eviction process, or fix this or that. They may ask you to take money off the price and they will take care of it. You don't want them in the house before closing. That is my take on that.

And lastly, let's talk about that contractor. They will never finish when they say they will. Ever. Sorry for such a downer bit of news, but best to know that now for future deals.