All Forum Posts by: Ann Watkins

Hi Al Bunch Yes I would like to attend. Thank you.

I only went by your examples and neither of those in my opinion seemed to represent comps ..." The lot price far exceeded the local market and what the target market could afford or would pay. The real estate agent defended the price by stating the amount the developer paid for the land"

Comparables have everything to do with the local market, you indicated the price exceeded the local market. What does what the developer paid for the land have to do with comparables showing what the market would support?"

You should definitely stay away from fraudulent wholesalers and agents, and do include incompetent ones to that as well. But not all agents fall into that bunch. There's good and bad in every industry.

As a broker and an investor, I have a couple of opinions...lol. The first is that comps should come first and I think that is what you are referring to as the market. However, comps are based on numbers.

In both your examples I think the numbers were made to fit the "sell" as opposed to numbers which supported comparable sales. It does not sound like either deal had a adequate CMA performed. Had this been the case, the numbers would speak for themselves.

Anytime I'm evaluating a buy for myself as an investor or as an agent for a client investor I take that property out of the neighborhood and let the neighborhood convince me.

Too often I hear "new investors" raving about a short sale they were able to take off the market and what a great deal it is because it's in a great neighborhood and other homes sold for "X". When I ask what the rental market is like for that area, they look at me like I'm speaking a foreign language...probably because I am. They don't speak "cash flow". But...but they've purchased this great property with all this equity... to use as a rental.

If there are no recent comps that support your use of the property it's at the wrong price.

Congrats Mehran, I look forward to reading more of your posts!

Welcome Kevin Chan you'll learn a wealth of information here!

Al Bunch Thank you Al, yes please do pm me the contact. I will contact you if I have any questions. I did log on and got the free 50 addresses (Eric Tait thank you for that) I just wish I'd given then another zip code that I was really interested in...lol.

Ben Hughes Yes please keep us posted. I may join you.

Eric Tait Thanks again I did go on and look around. It seems like a wealth of information.

Eric Tait Thanks for the link. I will check it out definitely. I have to say as a Realtor it is soooo hard to ask someone else to run comps for me. My agents and I also to Broker Price Opinions for the banks and we know how in just looking at previous comps not all realtors are giving due diligence to the comps they pull.

But as we all know time is money...right?

Thank you Jimmy Hong, I believe that is the equivalent to our Clerk of Courts here in Harris County, TX, which is online. But...I have found somethings were not there and then you cannot see the actual document only the notation like "WD" or LN" for Warranty Deed or Lein or "LR" which is I think Lein Release.

On the site www.courthousedirect.com you can get a subscription but you only pay when you download, not to join the site. You can actually pull the document and print the copy. It is country wide and the cost is like $1.25 a page. I've used it and their pretty accurate.

But I will say one property I purchased at the auction had the buyer wrong....it was not me. Well that struck terror because I've heard the horror stories about folks actually buying the lot next door to the one they thought they were bidding on.

Well it turned out to be incorrect I bought the property I wanted, but for some reason the law firm who handles the recording made a mistake. And believe me the folks at CHD let it be known that they only report what the court records.

I did receive my deed and it is correct, so I 'm not sure what happened there.