All Forum Posts by: James Wierzba

Is it worth trying to fight this legally and force seller to close? I am thinking not, since we missed closing day

I am (was) under contract for a 5 unit MFH.

I was under contract with contingencies for inspection, appraisal, and financing.

Everything was lined up to close except for the appraisal. My financer charged me $850 for it, and after a week, told me that the vendor backed out and we need to pay $1400 to get it done. Another week goes by, and we hit the closing date and it passes (it was yesterday).

My agent had been trying to get the sellers to sign an extension but little did we know, they were dodging us because they actually changed their mind and did not want to sell.

So here we are, 1 day after closing, just learning all of this. I'm wondering what recourse I have. From what I can see, there is nothing I can do except get my earnest money back (which we are working on now).

Is there anything I can do (or could have handled better) with the financer? He told me there is regulation that prevents him from having control over the appraisal timeline. This makes no sense. This means every real estate deal is completely dependent upon the appraiser.

I'm sorry this thread is mostly just a rant. As long as I can get back my earnest money and appraisal fee (the appraisal never even got ordered) then I will only be out 650 for the inspection and can chalk this up to a lesson learned. (It is not clear what that lesson is, though ...)

What methods do you use to get data on livability for a property (schools, crime, employment, ...) in a relatively fast manner?

If I am considering 10 similar properties and need to get livability data to make my decision, it would take a long time to hunt down all of this individual data myself for each property. Not a very effective use of my time.

I used to use areavibes.com , but it seems that their address search page is broken.

I see lots of sites that let you search by zip code, but this is really not accurate enough because livability can vary a lot within one zip code.

FYI, this is for remote properties. So driving by isn't an option for me.

My brother and I going to invest in buy and hold rental properties and we are deciding on a fair deal how to split ownership given that one partner is completely passive. The other will be doing all of the work (finding +vetting deals, closing, dealing with all day to day maintenance, etc.).

What we are thinking to do is split everything evenly: down payments, closing costs, rental income (after expenses), capex costs, ...etc.... 

Additionally, the one that is doing the work will have a 55% share of equity and the passive investor will have 45%). This would be the compensation for the efforts.

Thoughts?

Hi,

I am purchasing a SFH investment property. There is one issue of concern that came out in my inspection:

The basement bedroom window does not meet the national fire safety standard egress requirements. The violation is that the window is a bit too high off of the ground. 

Note that the property was built in 1965 which was before this safety code was implemented, so it is "grandfathered in" so-to-speak.

What I would like to know is if and how this window egress issue could pose any potential issues for me in the future? Potential issues with me legally listing the room as a bedroom?

Also, I don't know if this would prevent me from obtaining property insurance? Do insurance companies accept the excuse that a property was built before a safety code was implemented?

I have a financial partner that wishes to invest with me in a multi family property I am about to go under contract on. We will be splitting the cash out of pocket 50/50 (down payment, closing costs, inspection, appraisal, rehab) etc. I want him to do this, because this will free up some of my cash for another investment.

Now, what makes this tricky is that I did all of the work and I will be doing all of the future work. Finding the deal, closing it, maintaining the property, etc.

This will be a buy and hold property. For at least 5 to 10 years.

My only idea for distributing ROI to my partner is to agree up-front on some interest rate percentage, and simply buy him out at some point in the future. (For example, say he puts in $100k and we agree on 10% interest. I will pay him $110k later.)

I would appreciate any suggestions

I am in! I've been waiting for one of these

Hi,

What are the general guidelines about competing offers in real estate?

Let's say I'm a buyer, trying to purchase a property. I make an offer based on the minimum I think I can get it for. Then, someone else makes a higher offer, and the seller notifies my agent of that. So, I make a slightly higher offer. And so on ....

What if the seller was lying about the counter offers? What laws / regulations are there to protect me from this? Would I have to write this in as a contingency in my offer? (i.e. a contingency that he proves he got the other offers)? Can I even do this?

@Ali Boone and @Chris Clothier -- thanks for the advice.

Let me just clarify that I do not *plan* to sell in 5 years. I am just thinking of worst case scenarios, i.e. I *need* to sell for some reason. It is highly unlikely, and perhaps I am worrying too much because it's my first rental property.

Hi,

I just made an offer on a turnkey rental property (duplex) in a rural town. It is recently renovated, and fully occupied. It will cash flow immediately. My offer is significantly less than the listing price. Read below for why. (I don't expect the offer to be accepted)

My concern:

There are not many comparable properties in the area. Given this, and the fact that I don't know the area that well, I cannot be confident in the value of the property.

I might make great cash flow for a few years. But, if I want to sell the property in 5 years and can't find a buyer, I may have to sell for $20K less than I bought it for. I may actually end up losing money!

How can I acquire confidence in the value of the property? Can I use my lenders appraisal as a source of truth? They would tend to be conservative on the estimate, I would imagine.