All Forum Posts by: Jonathan C.

Thanks everyone-- extra thanks to J Scott for pointing me to that article.

I'm actually a licensed agent so I'm selling my own properties, and I won't accept an offer unless the buyer is pre-approved. I'll give a run down of 2 of the recent reasons deals have fallen apart even with pre-approvals.

1) lender didn't pull CAIVRS until the end of the loan process and, when he did, he found buyers had another government insured debt they defaulted on (I actually got a copy of the desktop underwriting for these buyers)
2) lender told me over and over again it isn't a problem for their bank to loan on properties owned less than 6 months where sell price is greater than 120% of the purchase price, until file was actually sent to underwriting- again at end of process- at which point underwriter told them they cannot do the loan

And this is after pre-approval and verbal confirmation lender pulled credit, verified income, cash to close.

So I don't seem to have a big problem in finding good rehab projects to buy, I don't seem to have too much of a problem getting those properties renovated on time and on budget (more or less), don't have a problem getting a contract on them, but I'm having a terrible time with what happens after all of that but before settlement- with probably 1 in 3 of my deals falling apart prior to closing.

I've tried to do different incentives and stuff for the buyers of my houses to use a lender who I know can get the deal done, but I haven't had success with that. I've actually had buyers who would rather walk away from the house than change lenders (which seems crazy to me).

I call the buyers lenders and do my best to make sure the lender has fully vetted the buyer- that they've pulled buyers credit, verified their income, etc (of course I've never had a lender tell me they haven't don these things)- but that doens't seem to have helped either.

I feel like I'm missing something here- does everyone just deal with the fact that 1 in 3 of their houses aren't going to close and you're going to lose at least 5 or 6 weeks because of that? I can't imagine that's the case. You guys must have figured out how to get buyers to use your lender or some special qualification you make the buyers lender provide you so that you know the deal will actually get done.

This is currently, by far, the most stressful part of the rehabbing business for me.

Any ideas?

There we go-- thanks, Bryan... yeah I hadn't heard of the 91-180 day restrictions, but there you go... guess they are an FHA restriction and not some weird requirement of this particular lender.

Thanks everyone

One other question on this... the lender who the buyer is using also told me they have a rule where if the property is owned more than 90 days but less than 180 days (so 91-180), and being sold for 100% or more than what it was purchased for (so bought for 90k and sold for more than 180k, for example), that they need 2 appraisals to be done in that case as well.

I wasn't able to find this on the FHA site-- curious if anyone knows if this is an FHA rule or not? I'm wondering if it's just the lenders rule...

Thanks

Nice, thanks.

Another one that's pretty good that I've used before when I've needed permits is:

www.gliffy.com

Property A I listed January 14, 2011-- was lucky with that one: sold in 7 days pretty close to list price
Property B I listed December 27, 2011-- sold in 32 days at a pretty strong price

Just wanted to let everyone know how it went for future reference.

Overall my take away is to list properties as soon as they're ready even if you're not in a traditionally strong time to sell.

Old thread but I have a similar question and was hoping to get some help.

I have a renovation I did under contract to be sold. The buyer's lender informed me that there is an FHA case number attached to the property. I have owned the property for about 3 months and didn't use financing, so I'm guessing it's either:
a) a mistake or
b) from someone who tried to buy property before me using an FHA loan

Buyer's lender is reaching out to the lender associated with the FHA case number to get more details, but I'm wondering if there are other things I should be doing to make sure this doesn't hold up settlement.

Thanks in advance, Jon

Thanks guys

Hi- apologies if this has been asked before, but is FHA 90 day rule from the date the property was purchased (settlement date as shown on HUD), or the date the deed was recorded?

Thanks, Jon

Thanks everyone. I think I'll go with the majority on this and list them both now.