All Forum Posts by: Ivan Poon

Will i have to wait 6 months for this mortgage application to go through like brian said though? We're looking for a traditional 30 year fixed... i'm hoping to get in while interest rates are still really low

Hello Brian... zillow says it's worth about 485K and based on comps, i think that's fairly close. We're going to occupy the house (first time home buyers). Our credit score averages to around 760

Hi guys,

I have an opportunity for a $245k foreclosure, but the bank is only accepting cash only.

I'm going to put down 90K while my parents put down the rest.

Is it possible to turn around and refinance through a traditional 30 year mortgage so i could pay my parents back right away and end up only owing the bank instead of my parents? Thanks!

Sigh, thanks guys... i think we'll just put up an offer for the listed price of the REO, there were a mob of people looking at the house and we were one of the lucky ones who got to see inside because our real estate agent didn't take a vacation

Hi guys, i'm a first time home buyer working with an RE agent that specializes in REO deals. He found a REO that seems to be way undervalued from the FMV.

Here's some stats:

2000 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 car garage, roof is aslphalt, exterior is cedar shingles. It's missing the refrigerator, but it appears to have a built in oven and microwave into the wall (forgot to take a pic, d'oh... think it's missing a stove too)

The basement is almost finished... it has a full bathroom, a bedroom, a living room... needs a stove and refrigerator to finish out the kitchen.

This is in the Northeast (a fairly expensive part of the northeast)

The house was bought for about 520K back in 2003.

Zillow's estimate range is 430k to 600k (the 'zestimate' is about 520K)

The asking price is 370K. If i get my offer in fast enough before anyone else sees it (everyone's on vacation this weekend), i could probably get it for that price.

Today was the first day it hit the market and my RE agent said there were a long line of people in the morning to look at it.

The neighborhood is good... the only thing about the house is that it's most definitely 'unique' compared to the other houses in the neighborhood. You can see from these pictures i took:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/iypoon/sets/72157622270851340/

I labeled the rooms, so i dunno if you guys can give an estimate as to what obvious remodeling needs to be done.

My concern is that i don't know how to price the house considering there is probably going to be work that needs to be done. How much, i have no idea (at the very least painting and replacing the boiler). The outside of the house probably needs to be updated too, but i don't know how much... I'd probably be able to close before december 1st and get the tax credit, so i could at least offset the boiler. So do you guys think this is a 'deal'?

Hi guys, i need help on this situation.

I'm interested in a 3 bedroom raised ranch with a living area of 1300 sqft (and a finished basement of 580, but they never pulled permit for that so i guess it's not 'officially' part of the liveable space, according to the town records). This house is listed with an RE agent as being a 'potential short sale'.

average sale price for 3 bedroom in the town: $274,000

Listed price for this property: 300K (which i think is pretty close to FMV)
House was last sold to the current owner in 1999 for 195K

Based on the amortization of the mortgage, i estimate that the balance of the remaining mortgage is around 170K

I've talked to some RE agents and they tell me they can get around 20% off fair market value of the home (around 30% off the remaining mortgage) if they do a short sale in the area, but i think those are for homes that were purchased during the peak.

Since this particular home was purchased in 1999 and the mortgage is quite low already, would it be possible to negotiate down to just paying the balance of the mortgage (or even less?)

How would you handle negotiations on price with this?

The RE agent told me they got 30 offers (he could just be bs'ing me), but he's waiting to hear back from the bank.

Edit: OHHHHHH forgot one more thing, the agent mentioned that one of the two owners moved out (hinting at divorce maybe?).

I interviewed a couple of real estate agents.

One specializes in short sales and told me she can typically get 20% off the fair market value of a distressed short sale. However, i don't think i'd be able to get the short sale in time to benefit for the 8k tax credit.

Another realtor i interviewed doesn't do short sales but can get about maybe 10% off the FMV price

Can someone check to see if i'm doing the comparison of savings right?

Assumption:

300K home

If i go with the 8k credit, i'll maybe knock off 10% off FMV price (30K) so i'll get a total savings of 8K plus the present value of 30K

If i go with short sale, i might be able to save the present value of 60K (20% off FMV price)

1) Ok so we need to find out the present value of the 30k (the difference between a 20% vs 10% savings off the future value off the FMV of the home) savings at an interest rate of 5.125% over 30 years

According to this website:

http://www.stocktonturner.com/calcs/MortgageLoan.html

the 30K at 5.125% would amount to a total payment of principle and interest of $58802.56 over the life of the loan.

2) To find the present value of that amount i go to this site:

http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/present_value_calculator.ht...

plugin 58802.56 as the future value, 30 years, and the discount rate of 5.125 to get the present value. I get 13,109.81

3) So it appears if i go with a regular home, i'll save 8K (tax credit) plus 13,109.81 which equals 21109.81 in present value savings

If i go for the short sale, i'll have 26219.62 (13109.81 times 2) in savings, thus i get about 5k extra in savings going with the short sale.

I may also buy as much as 400K in housing, so the higher i go, the more savings i'd get from a short sale.

Did i do this right?