All Forum Posts by: Don Sheppard

You could, after closing the house is yours to do with as you wish, but why would you want to sign a lease with someone who already could not afford to make the payments on the house causing the foreclosure to begin with.

Yeah, I don't see inside main shutoffs here either.....figured that must be a georgraphic thing. But, here we have the city shutoff right at the meter typically down near the sidewalk/street and then a shutoff right where the water main comes into the house.

Just wanted to see this restated.....you may have found a way to replace that one hot water valve leak, but I would be very sure to find where the main shutoff for the house is and be sure that it works. I've ran into LOTS over the years that no longer shutoff the water and needed to be replaced. There's only been one time that I could not find a shutoff....someone had used the city main at the sidewalk to shutoff the water, removed the house main shutoff valve and connected it directly instead of just replacing the valve :shock:

Definitely no replacement for looking the house over in person. Walk through every bit of it. I am a contractor so I can pretty well do my own inspections and know what it's going to need. I still like to call my brother out (structural pest inspector) and have him do an inspection as well prior to actually signing a contract to buy....I don't crawl under the houses when I'm out viewing....
And I know my market pretty well also and what houses are worth in different neighborhoods.......and what neighborhoods that NOTHING will even sell right now unless it's in full rehab shape and still WELL under what the comps are saying.
Even pictures don't tell the true story, I see pictures on MLS that look great until you see the place in person, and start noting all the defects. An REO that I'll hopefully sign the contract for today, looked much better on MLS than it did in person. The kitchen cabinets looked like pretty nice oak cabinets in the pictures and was noted as having updated kitchen, until I saw them in person.....they are definitely getting replaced. The master shower that someone just retiled looked like it just needed a surround installed, MLS even noted that surround was in the garage.....In person the shower pan was shot so that gets pulled out along with that tile, and the surround in the garage.......was the old crusty one that was removed.
So yep.....due diligence is much more than just finding comps and listening to someone say it's just cosmetics.

Every Saturday my local paper has a list of recent sold homes for the county, listed by city, basically everything that closed escrow that week. Not bad for watching trends.

http://realestate.yahoo.com/Homevalues
This site doesn't seem too bad either, they appear to keep pretty up to date.

May not be in this case, but believe me, there could be child support case liens in place and nothing even owed/all support being paid regularly and on time. You'll want to get ahold of the child support agency (county) that holds that lien to find out the status of the case. If it's paid and current there shouldn't be a problem getting a release....if there are arrears on the case, they will very likely want all of their money.

I would definitely replace the tub....any patch jobs are not going to hold for any length of time.
It's pretty common for those to not be completely supported across the entire bottom of the tub. They will often just have the front and back edges that actually have wood supports underneath that sit on the subfloor. That's why I typically like to pour a mortar base for them to sit on when installing that type.....or even better I try to avoid those types of units.
I've removed plenty that others had previously attempted to repair in a variety of ways , including foam underneath to try to support it for a patch job.......none of those patch jobs ever held.

Guess that would depend on the condition of the vents, but usually they are cheap enough that new vents and roofjacks get replaced just for peace of mind. What kind of vents are these anyway?
Here, I have ridge vents installed with new roofs. Cleaner looking and they run the entire length of your ridges so you get great ventilation.
That first company does sound a little fishy with the way they bid that. Definitely get the other bids before making a decision.
Roofers just like most any contractor can vary a lot in price for the same exact thing. And no surprise, some contractors aren't exactly the most straight shooters.
As a comparison......my last roof cost me $8000 (because I don't do roofs :roll: . It was an overlay removal, $900 worth of dryrot replacement (part of why I dislike overlays), ridge vents installed, and prepainted gutters downspouts on a 1300 sq ft. home single story. I had three bids even though I already knew which roofer I was going to use (there were already roof bids made before I purchased the home. One was a few hundred less, and the other was over $1000 more. That's here in Calif. The guy in the middle happened to be the roofer I deal with regularly anyway.

How long was that leak happening? Mold takes a while to grow, so it kind of depends on how long the leak was happening. You could remove the insulation from around the leak area (inside the attic area) and check the wood members and top of sheetrock for any mold. Besides it's a good idea to replace insulation if it got soaked.
You should be able to ask the roofer's for references, addresses of other jobs. Contact those owners and ask if they were pleased, how the job went, any problems they had. Drive by those as well and see what the finsihed roof looks like.
Seems strange that the cheaper one is the one going to strip the roof and the more expensive one is doing an overlay. I've never been a fan of overlays but that's just my weird quirk. Overlays should save you money though.
Honestly.....I think I'd get a third bid as well considering the price difference here for an overlay vs. a strip/reroof.

There is only a 1st mortgage. ASC America's Servicing Company has that. I did have a title search ran prior, the title agent is a friend of my realtor who is a friend of mine, so I snuck it through without having to pay 8) and I don't expect any surprises there. Having friends in the business sure does help. But yeah, that's probably good advice for me to go ahead and have that all done more officially since it looks as though the offer may be accepted.
I expect their negotiator to be a negotiator and ask for more, but I'm thinking since I heard that the offer meets their criteria that I may stand firm on my price even though I still had room to offer more if needed and still meet my criteria.