All Forum Posts by: Joshua B.

So this may end up being a bit premature and overly hopeful on my end, but I will be listing a property in the next month in an incredibly hot market - Ann Arbor, MI. A friend of a friend just sold his house a mile down the road and had 40 showings and 17 offers. 

Given the price point I'm listing at and the inventory levels, there's a decent chance I get multiple offers. 

My question is this - what's the best way to maximize the sales price in a multiple offer situation? Tell everyone to submit highest and best by ____ date? Pick one strong buyer and make a counter-offer? Pick a few of the best offers and negotiate only with the few?

Nice work @Keith Jourdan! Awesome "find" with regard to that extra 300 square feet. Please update when it sells. I'm interested to see how the Westland market is doing these days for flips.

@Lily Li It's very easy to rent a house in Plymouth, although it's very difficult to actually buy a house that will meet the 1% rule. Where in Plymouth are you buying?

Using a HELOC from your personal account shouldn't be a problem. After all, almost every business gets initial funding from the owner. I would take two steps:

1) Make an initial contribution to your business account so that the business has at least some capital ($1,000 would probably suffice).

2) Then, make the separate HELOC contribution for the amount you plan on using to buy the property.

If you plan on keeping the HELOC contribution in the business long-term (i.e. a buy and hold property), you can draw up a contribution agreement between you and the LLC. If you plan on pulling the money back out after closing (flip), you could just make note of the loan in your accounting records. If you wanted to go the extra mile beyond simply a note in your accounting records, you could draw up a loan agreement and promissory note, but that may be overkill since, with a single-member LLC, you are the borrower and the lender. This step should definitely be taken, though, if there are other members in the LLC or shareholders in the corporation.

@Jason Rogers Bear in mind that an LLC doesn't do you any good if you don't treat it like its own business. Just putting a property in an LLC isn't enough. You need to run the business of that property through the LLC that owns the property. Funding repairs out of your own pocket or another entity, making mortgage payments from your personal account, taking rent checks into a different account, etc, can allow the corporate veil to be pierced. That means if you get sued, courts won't give you the liability protection that an LLC normally affords. Make sure the LLC has its own bank account, that receivables/payables go through that account, and that you keep good corporate/legal records.

Beware the condo association fees killing your chance at hitting the 1% rule.

If your dad was the only one who was paying anything (no financial support from the other siblings/owners) and now he's behind on taxes, then it's only a matter of time until it goes into tax foreclosure. Might as well find out exactly how far behind the taxes are, explain that to the siblings, then make a minimal offer to buy them out. Make sure you work the back taxes into your buy-out offer, though.

Awesome work, @Sarah Lorenz. Happy to help out a little bit on this one.

I will say, though - this deal is making me sad that I didn't go after those 3 buildable lots on Maple a little while back. 

@Keith Jourdan - looks great. I hope it sells high and fast! Feels a lot brighter with the change from lots of brown to lots of white.

As an aside, what is a good number of showings to have in the first two or three days after listing for this area? I had similar numbers of showings and was unsure if it was high, low, or in the middle. I only have my license for personal buying/selling and I don't do much outside of that to give me the context for assessing showing volume.

 Since you're out of money, I'd get a good realtor to approach the bank about doing a short sale. Tell them (and show them) that you're broke and let them know that if they don't do a short sale you'll walk away. Then, if they agree, great. If not, let it go. 

There is nothing unethical about walking away from a property. Both a bank and a buyer know going in what the deal is. Everyone is well aware that a bank can foreclose if payments aren't made and that a buyer can walk away if he runs out of money.