All Forum Posts by: Dustin Allen

@Jacob Miles

Listing agents negotiate the commission when they get the listing. They specify in their contract how much they will share with an agent who brings a buyer. Your agent taking a lower commission does not automatically send that money back to the seller. If you signed a buyers representation agreement, then you can obviously negotiate how much they get. I personally take what the seller gives me as long as it’s over my brokers minimum and I will not require my buyers to make up the difference. Be ready to go through some agents until you find someone willing to do this. Most of the good ones are not going to give you what the seller is offering them for compensation. They might be more willing if you’re offering them equity in the deal in exchange.

@Jacob Beg

Cash sale or not, you should have had a title report and that would tell you all of this. Did you not receive one during the escrow process?

@Tony Davis

Why don’t you ask your Realtor why? Quite possible that the seller has significant financing and needs their equity out of the property. Get an explanation and go from there.

@Joseph Arellano

The best thing to do is put it into your contract that they have to deliver the property vacant. If you didn’t do that, the next best might be to ask the sellers to give notice to vacate. Offering them some money to get out faster might work as well. I’ve seen others offer 3 times the deposit back if out in less than 30 days, 2 times if out in 60 days. 
Read your contract and talk to the other parties involved. 

@Michael Higgins

They make money by doing an honest assessment of what the property needs and deciding how much they could pay for the property and still achieve their goals. What they don’t do is just run around offering $100k or $200k below list price on everything they see.

@Ty Martell

Look into a DSCR (Debt Service Coverage Ratio) loan. I have seen them as low as 15% down and they look at the income the property produces not your DTI. Talk to your lender and see if that might work out for you.

@Ty Martell

Sounds like mortgage fraud to me. If you are telling the lender that you’re going to live in it, you need to actually live in it. Is that slightly lower interest rate worth going to jail over?

Can you rent the single family and move into the multi? That would be a much better idea!

@Kevin N.

If you have an appraisal contingency, get the seller to pay. They’ll have to disclose why it fell out of contract to any new buyer and there’s little chance they’ll find a new buyer to pay over appraised price. The market is turning towards the buyers favor these days so don’t be afraid to push back.

@Juan Zamora

The right price would be based on how much the repairs actually cost to get this to a condition that matches the best homes on market. Too many times, we see clients who say “Thays a lot of work, I want $100k off”. When the work only costs $50k, sellers won’t be happy. Dig into the numbers and get accurate info and pricing on your repairs. This will allow you to make accurate offers that the listing agent can explain to the client.

If you want to just shotgun offers at everything with 25% under list price, be prepared to be ignored by a lot of sellers and looking for new agents frequently. There are agents who will write these offers regardless, they are probably the less busy ones. The more experienced agents will want to know that there is at least some thought being put into the offers so that they can back it up when talking to the listing agent.

@Seth Baumgartner

Just throwing out low offers is a great way to be ignored. Put at least some effort into your offers. You should be able to quickly look at comps and know what the price range should be. No harm in shooting for the bottom of the price range or even a little under it. Now your offer is at least close to reasonable and you will be more likely to get some interaction from the sellers.

If you use an agent, this is something they should do before every offer. They will do a CMA for the property and let you know what the home is likely to sell for. They will also tire of you quickly if you are constantly making senselessly low offers that have almost no chance of success.