All Forum Posts by: Al Fernandez

I wasn''t suggesting to bypass the listing agent or listing fee. However when listing a home there are typically 2 fees, the sellers agents 3% and the buyers agent 3%.

What Im suggesting is , if you found the house yourself via zillow or other means to contact the seller directly and offer to work with their realtor. However, let them know that you want to split the difference of the buyers 3% commission since you are representing yourself as the buyer .  Everything is negotiable. Fees and prices can be discounted multiple ways. Clearly the seller was willing to pay 6% commission . but now the seller is saving a little money by paying 4.5% commission vs 6%. So the buyer saves 1.5% , the seller saves 1.5% of the negotiated price, and the selling agent is still getting their 3%.

I have seen deals where the selling agent has made the deal work by reducing their own commission to get the seller and buyer to come together. There are ways to get it done legally.

Contracts that would require the listing agent to get both the sellers and buyers agent commission when the home owner produces the buyer or a non agent represented buyer comes along  only shows that contract is to protect the best interest of the listing agent and not the seller. I would advise nobody to sign such a contract which is clearly prohibitive towards the sellers best interest and solely beneficial towards the listing realtor. At minimum atleast the buyers agent commission should be significantly reduced if the seller or a non represented buyer comes along.

Another option is to hire a buyers agent that is willing to split the 3% commission with you. 
I know its not popular with realtors but technology is changing the game and giving the buyer and seller more power when it comes to real estate.

I find that credit unions are the best places to start if your finances are in good order. At-least with my credit union they have always have been able to beat the independent mortgage brokers and all the online companies in rates and closing costs. More importantly they are very upfront right from the get go. The only issue I have seen with the credit unions is despite having great credit history ,scores, and finances they typically have more limitations with their rules.

For example I have a property that I purchased for my parents and therefore produces no income. My credit union wont allow me to refi it as a secondary home because its within 50 miles of my primary and occupied, but they also wont let me refi as an investment property because its not income producing. In the end it didn't really matter because they are so busy they stopped taking new refi until an unset date.

Also right now due to demand and uncertainty in the market it appears that the rates are artificially higher than they should be with the lenders that are still doing Refi , despite how well your finances are. 

I have approached the direct seller a couple of times where I felt the realtor was not on the up an up or when I wanted to represent myself with no buyers agent where we could split the 3% buyers agent commission. No law says that you can't do that . Use zillow  and the local property appraiser sites to get the home owners name then do a little online searching and you can get their email ,phone number, and primary residence home address.

it has a 50/50 success rate for me so far. 

Yes and NO, everything is negotiable.

We put an offer on a "as is property with right to inspect" and after inspection we found 40K in damages and sent the inspection report with the associated cost to fix each of the issues discovered and sent it to the sellers agent .

The Sellers agent initially told us the contract was as is. We responded with that we understand, but if the seller doesn't come down in price by 40K for the repairs then we would like to void the offer.Long story short they accepted the counter offer to drop another 40K in price.

So its doable and depends on the market and the desire for the seller to sell.

if its for medical use she may not have to legally disclose to you that she is smoking it.

However, If the tenant is not cooperating then I would have the neighbor  call you or the cops immediately when its occurring and try to keep track of the hours and days it usually occurs to inform the cops and hope of catching them in the act.

 Is medical MJ legal in your state ,does the tenant have a valid prescription, and do they legally have to tell you what medication they are taking?

Would having a legally prescribed MJ prescription superseded the "No smoking clause"? Curious how this turns out. Might be worth looking into the legality of it all if its legal in your state. 

Originally posted by @Mark Weinstock:

With these category 4 and 5 hurricanes becoming the new normal here in Florida thinking about selling my house while I still have one and building a container home their virtually 100% hurricane safe.Having some troubles finding a piece of land in Broward County to build it on. Anyone specialize in land or maybe someone might have some suggestions how I might find ?

 Why aren't you looking at concrete versus a container home? I think you are going to be hard pressed to find a lot that will allow you to put a container home on that doesn't involve acreage and outside of city limits with very loose county regulations.

It reminds me of the HGTV shows about tiny homes. Have you ever noticed that just about everyone of those shows they build the home on their family or friends lot in the boonies . It doesn't appear that county ordinances are keeping up with the latest alternative building trends. Not even campgrounds allow you to have a tiny home.

Goodluck as I'm always interested in alternative building methods and trends.

Both.

I would contact the owner and let them know that you have no problem using their listing agent. However, you would like the 3% buyers agent commission or at minimum to split the commission in half , or take it off the agreed purchase price .

Instead of cashing out have you considered taking a loan against it. 401K differ between companies so you may want to look at your options.

Typically the interest you pay is to yourself and their is no tax hit or penalties. You just want to make sure that when you take out a loan that the market is high , because they have to sell your stocks to give you the loan. This can be a good option if you time the selling and buy back properly.

If you are cashing out then as others have said ,you will at minimum take a 10% early withdraw penalty right of the bat. Also depending on your current tax bracket that could also hit you pretty hard come April.

I'm not so against doing either one and depending on the market and timing it can be a great investment.

However. make sure you understand the pros and cons and the best timing to do it, before pulling the trigger. Also make sure the property/investment is worth it and don't waste it on non investment type expenses.

 Since its a jeep, I would recommend that you jump ship now as its likely to only get worse with more issue. Sometimes even the same issue. I have owned several of them and I love to drive them but they are POC and unreliable. My wife and I have to keep reminding ourselves every time we go car shopping to avoid them, because they are tempting.

Just about everyone I know that has had one, feels the same.

Last time I checked consumer report had Jeep listed with the worst reliability rating but highest customer satisfaction. If you owned a jeep in the past would then you would understand why that is. They are just fun to drive.

Also I can't express enough to go and register on consumer report. They have been right on the money with the issues I have had with prior cars.