All Forum Posts by: Ben Curtin

thanks for the great info Brenda, I asked my realtor if she ever heard of the appraised value of it, but she said we don't have it yet.

Thanks for the response. The reason I'm posing here is I'm trying to figure out whether or not to re-extend the contract for another 2 months this come january 18th, or to just lose hope and try to buy a new short sale. Is there a way for the buyer (as in me) to contact the bank and ask them directly if they will approve the sale? I know the price we have the house under contract is 197k (some repairs after inspection) but the original loan was something like 380k with 330k debt still remaining...

Hey guys!

I have some issues with a scenario I'm in and I was hoping to get some insight! My wife and I have been looking for our personal house for the past year or so, and we've made a few offers only to have them be rejected in favor of another offer. That is until last September.

We found our dream house. A great house, with a great kitchen and garage and yard. The house was listed at 200k and we put an offer of 203k to have it accepted! Only problem was that this house is a bankruptcy case, and our realtor said this puts it into pre-foreclosure short sale status. We were informed that many short sales take a while, and we were (and still are) prepared to wait a while before closing. So far we've had to extend our offer once, (it expires on January 18th now).

About a month ago, my realtor called me, and said she had heard back from the seller's bankruptcy attorney, and they said they were in the "final stages" and that they would be seeking an FHA appraisal the next week. Well, a few weeks had passed without hearing anything, the holidays passed, and my realtor assured me that the holidays must have slowed down the FHA appraisal process and to be patient. I asked her to contact the lawyer to see what was up, so she did.

When my realtor got back to me, she said the lawyer got back to her, and said that within the bankruptcy case,  there was issues with the financial review of the bankruptcy. So the sellers are going to appeal, which will apparently slow down the short sale process even more for us. 

However I've noticed that the house we have under contract, just appeared on auction.com with an auction date of Feb 19th 2016. So i asked my realtor, who messaged the attorney, and the attorney said that they cannot legally auction off the house, because it's a Wells Fargo file. 

Obviously I feed pretty left in the dark about this. Can anyone ease my fears of losing this house, or has anyone ever heard of a house popping up on auction.com while being under contract to purchase? 

@Ruth Bayang

we didn't get the house. Our agent let us know about 10 minutes after submitting the offer that the bank had already accepted someone else's all-cash offer, and she led me to believe the offer was lower than mine.

Oh well. On to the next one.

Great info thanks for the resources!

alright I like all of the suggestions, I was thinking a straight 182k offer, but I like the idea of 187k with 3%. And if we get it, hurray, if not, we tried our best.

Thanks everybody for all of the help!

Okay, makes sense, Thanks for the reply!

Hello, I'm in need of some help and I was hoping BP could give me some guidance.

I'm starting my family, and it's time for my wife and I to buy our first house. She's interested in a home-house in which we can live in, and have a good experience living in. (good neighborhood, good schools, good parks, etc.) I'm interested in those, but it's important for me to also build equity in the house from a financial standpoint. We've both decided we want to buy a house, that is a short sale, or REO property that needs some cosmetic updates (holes in walls, carpet and flooring needs changing, new kitchen and appliances are fine). But we want to buy a house under market value, so we can build some sweat equity while living in our home.

We've found a great 4bed 2.5 ba house in our area that's priced at 177k, and comps in the area are selling from the low to mid 200's. The Zestimate on the property is 230k (and I expect over the next few years, the value of this particular property will increase). It is an REO property that, from what we've seen, needs new kitchen appliances, counter tops, carpet upstairs, kitchen and laundry room flooring, and a new window, as well as some basic yard work (which we will do).

There is a problem though. The property has been on the market for only 6 days, and the bank is only taking offers til tomorrow night. Currently, there are 2 other offers on the properties. The bank will take the best offer, so I plan to go over the 177k asking price. So my question is: how much over the asking price should I go? And how can I calculate how much it'll cost to make the few known repairs?

Thanks for all of the replies guys! I really appreciate them all! I think for the time being I'm going to try to stick with finding a 3-4plex and utilize the FHA loan to it's full potential while I can.

A problem I foresee with mailers is that usually owners do not live in their 2-4 unit buildings, so mainly their tenants would see them. But it's a good idea that I havn't considered yet. Also, I've seen that FHA PMI cost to be an issue as well on these properties for owner occupying. My mortgage guy says the only way I can drop the PMI is when I reach 20% equity, then I'd have to refinance to a conventional mortgage (costing a few thousand dollars as well).

The question I'm having a hard time with, is: since I'm a renter, I don't know whether to invest in my primary residence first (single family house) and then look for real estate deals, or if I should try to get my foot in the door with a 2-4 unit first. 

Hello BP,

I'm a relatively new member here, but I've been interested for a very long time, and especially making money with real estate. 

I'm 24 yrs old with a beautiful wife and a soon due baby, and I have a day job as an airline pilot. I'm renting an apartment right now for a pretty costly $1200/mo.

My 10 year goal down the road is to be living in a single family home, and own a bunch of rental properties creating income for me in the Seattle area where I live. 

Now, I'm making pretty good on my plan so far, taking the necessary steps to obtain my first rental property. And I'm sort of at a standstill right now because of the sellers market. 

I have been looking at getting into a fourplex/triplex, and using an FHA loan to live in one unit, while renting out and managing the other units for a few years before buying my first single family home. But there aren't a ton of fourplexes/triplexes getting added to the market currently so the pickings are slim.

I've found this duplex which needs a little roof work, and overall I wouldn't want to live in the area which it's located due to the distance of my daily commute. But it seems like it has potential. it costs about 110k and it's a short sale, and it would generate about 1400-1500/mo in rental income. And I was wondering if buying this duplex as a NON owner occupant and learning how to manage a property without living there, is a better way to start as opposed to getting an FHA loan on a triplex or fourplex? I suppose it's all in the numbers, and the duplex+single family home for us to live in seems to make financial sense, but I'm nervous about getting into two separate properties as opposed to waiting for one bigger property to come on to the market to get it wrapped up in one mortgage.

What do you guys think?