All Forum Posts by: Dan N

I can't thank you enough for the information. I'm looking for your article right now.

I did some more digging - the property has never been listed prior to this listing. The tale grows more bizarre by the minute.

I think my next step is to simply contact the listing agent and ask him who he is representing. He didn't even know how to properly use a plat book - something just aint right.

I contacted the county recorder thus far - that is all the work I've done.

The reply:
The foreclosure took place on July 10, 2008. It sold for $130k. They have 12 months from the date of the sale to redeem the property.

The buyer was MERS, probably on behalf of the actual lender.

Thanks for the responses.

It is clear I need to do more homework. The realtor seemed to act as though he was representing the people in the home, not the bank. He went so far as to ask feedback of what I thought of the place to relay to the owners. Weird.

I also thought it odd that he would offer the information that the property was in foreclosure, though he would not tell me the balanced owed, sale info, etc.. I had to contact the county recorder for that.

To summarize: The inhabitants have no right to sell the property during the redemption period because they no longer own it? If that is the case why are they still living there at all?

So - I found a property that I want to own (not an investment per se).

Turns out that the sheriff sale has already occurred and the people living there have a 12 month redemption period in my state. Property was listed in June and the sale was early July.

The asking price is $170k, and the bank bid $130k at auction.

My maximum offer price is $100k - the structure is a teardown and I would be essentially buying the land only. It appears the realtor is listing the property at an exorbitant price considering the condition of the home.

Questions:
1) I feel concerned that they are asking $170k when the bank only bid $130k at auction. If they had a second / home equity loan, would that have been wiped out? How do I find out whether the bidding bank was in the first or second position?

2) What are my options to proceed? It seems pointless to work with the homeowners - their objective is to sell and walk away with a few bucks and potentially a less damaged credit.

Since they have a 12 month redemption, I feel that I have only 2 options:

1) Work with the homeowners / realtor to negotiate a short sale with the bank. Not sure why the bank would even want to do this at this point, but worth a try.

2) Inform the bank of my interest and wait out the redemption period.

Other options?

Thats the idea, at least for the heat.

The water flow.. who knows. Not sure if it would be adequate to detect things like a broken washing machine hose or not before the place was swamped. Would have to compare normal GPM flow with the 'abnormal' case to know for sure.

Everyone is preaching this, which makes me wonder. Obviously, the contrarian view right now is that since 'everyone' is losing their homes and becoming renters again that should squeeze rents upward. Problem is, the home ownership rate (at least where I live) is at an all-time high, and even with the subprime woes I don't think this will significantly impact that.

My observation (I am not yet a landlord BTW, but I do a lot of research:) is that vacancy rates seem to be improving, but rents haven't really moved (yet?). I can't see there being an actual rental shortage, at least in my area. So what is to push rents up, besides ordinary inflationary increases?

I just had an idea, wondering if anyone has done this (or if you even CAN do it).

In the industry I work in, its pretty common to have remote monitoring devices for all sorts of things, ie: temperature, water flow, etc. The devices that do the monitoring are relatively cheap and many are wireless.

Has anyone implemented anything like this in their rentals?

I am envisioning a small array of sensors that report on each unit's temperature and water flow. The temp sensors can actually be integrated into the thermostat circuit as to limit the max temp - Is it legal to cap your units at 75F max? They can also send data to a remote computer / server so you can check on temps vs. time, water flow vs. time, etc.

I think if you offer internet service to your tenants this would be a nice way to keep an eye on things (as you need an outbound connection to report stats). Crazy?

An eye-opening post. Keep em coming.

THat reminds me of my college roomate. Cranked the furnace and sat next to the open window in the cold MN winter with his hoody on, because he didn't like the 'stuffy heat'.

That reminds me of a question I had, but I'll post that in a new thread. Gotta stop laughing first anyway.

I think I may have read the article or articles you were referring to. The version I read involved some guy that was 'wholesaling' properties in upstate new york to buyers sight unseen.

I believe the storyline went that the properties were misrepresented and the buyers were essentially screwed out of their money. I'll see if I can find the link.

Unless I had someone I trusted actually onsite at the remote location, I don't think I could buy something sight unseen.. that's just me.

What a great spot to be in. My wife and I were having this discussion awhile ago - it was the 'What if all our financial goals were met earlier than our planned date' question.

I had a hard time answering this question too. I am 27 now, but spent 7 years pursuing my degree - thus, those 7 years devoted to that singular purpose. After awhile, you stop asking yourself what you WOULD do and have to focus on DOING and getting by. Now that I have established my career, I can again ask myself what I would do if I could.

For me, I love the outdoors, hunting, fishing, camping, etc. First thing would be to buy as much wilderness land as I could reasonably manage, and build a nice cabin on a lake. I think many young kids today do not get the opportunity to experience the things I was fortunate to do. I would spend a lot of my time introducing kids to the outdoors. Teach them to fish, hunt, shoot a bow and arrow, paddle a canoe, conservation, etc.

Take a few long leisurely boundary waters canoe trips, too :)

Perhaps you can come here to MN and teach me a few things about REI!