Need wisdom on a flip.

[Kevin Bennett]

I could use some help with a real estate challenge.

I have a contract on a house. The owner bought it a year ago for $97,000. She decided she wanted to downsize to a condo so she could travel more easily. She agreed to sell the house to me for $67,000. She says she has plenty of money and is more interested in simplifying her life than in getting top dollar for the house. Our closing date is on or before August 31.

I have found a buyer willing to pay $102,000 for the house. They would like to close by August 25. I had hoped to simply do a simultaneous closing like I’ve done in the past. However, their realtor tells me that this will raise a red flag with the lender. She says she cannot even write up a contract for me to sell the house until it is actually in my name. The best solution, she says, would be for the paperwork to show the buyer buying the house from the seller, and then the seller and I would work out some other way for me to get paid.

Can you help me figure out how to get this deal done? Even though I told the seller I was buying the house as an investment and planned to make money by selling it quickly, I would prefer that she not know how much I’m selling it for. Similarly, I would prefer that buyers not know what my purchase price was, at least until after the sale.