All Forum Posts by: Joe Edwards-Hoff

Well, the son lives in CA and we are in WA. 

Is walking away our only option or can we sue for them to do what they contractually agreed to do? I feel like them just not doing anything and then sitting it out until the contract expires shouldn't be legal....?

So, this happens to be for my personal home,  but it's a good question for this group. 

We got a home under contract.  The property was very messy. Contract required the sellers to remove their belongings. Also, there was mold and so we got bids to have it fixed, they got bids that were WAY lower than ours,  our mold guy told us to have a third party verify the work and so our contract says that he would test before and after and approve the work. They agreed. 

Our rate lock runs out at the end of the week as well as the current sale agreement extension. They still have junk all over the property and the mold work is not only not finished, but the seller's son who has been working the deal on their end has been lying to the realtors (both ours and theirs are from the same small town business)  telling them that the guy never gave reports about what needed to he done, but he gave copies to the realtors when they asked. 

So, aside from just backing out of the deal, do we have any course of action we can take. This is taking up a lot of our time (and money) and has thrown off our schedule because they just are not doing what they said they'd do. 

My gut feeling is that we have little to no leverage to force them, but I'm not aware of what legal action could be taken.

I have some "low income" apartments that I own. I'm slowly replacing appliances and remodeling units. 

In short- In WA state, if a single burner goes out on a range, is it mandatory to fix it? If so, how soon? 

I'm not trying to avoid ever fixing it, but if they can live with 3 working burners and a working oven, I'd rather hold out a bit longer and then replace the whole thing.

Is there any tax strategy to not pay capital gains tax if I wanted to sell a rental house and use the equity to help with the down payment in a primary residence?

We're looking at a home that it more expensive than we'd typically think about, but if we sold our primary home and one of our rentals, we could pay it down substantially.  

(Also, I assume the answer is no, but is there any similar strategy to sell a property and use those proceeds to pay down the mortgage on another investment property?)

In my limited experience I don't believe either is possible,  but I'd hate to not ask and miss out.

Dave- I private messaged you.  

I think another fear with going conventional is whether the house would appraise for the asking price if the orchard isn't taken into account... ir the cashflow from the two rentals.

Dave-total 20. 2541 Wilson Hwy Grandview WA, 98930. 

I assume zoned agricultural.  

I have been trying the local banks and credit unions. 

So far the requirements don't seem to line up, but I may just want to email them. 

So, I found a home that I would like to buy. It is on 20 acres and has 10 acres of cherries on it. I don't intend to work the cherries (the current owner leases them), but because of them, I have been told that it qualifies as a farm and I cannot get a conventional mortgage. All farm mortgages I have found require 20% down and I cannot afford that right now. I could do 10%, but not 20%. Any ideas? 

 Can you specify what isn't allowed? Paying for utilities? I am in Waahington State. 

So, I'm looking to rent out my primary home as a duplex. I was told that it was once rented as a duplex before. I'll have to figure out a few things, but the biggest issue is shared utilities. I figured that I would just include them in the rent and then raise the rent accordingly. I also figured that I would include in the lease that the rental price will be reevaluated every X months in case the utilities fluctuate dramatically.  

I had thought about capping the utility cost at a certain amount and then dividing it up amongst the renters, but I also thought it might create issues if one renter tried hard to keep the bill low and the other didnt. That might not be worth the headache. 

Any other thoughts or suggestions?