All Forum Posts by: Kathryn Bowden

@Christopher Phillips, all good advice.  I believe she has contacted everybody.  And on that second initial offer, we have left it that they will visit and then make another offer assuming the place was still available.  On that offer we accepted, we did not list it as pending and still showed the place.  Though I did wonder if that may have deterred another possible offer when a realtor or two inquired for clients in the interim.  I don't believe we've had an open house though - or I would think I would know about it!  This is a very small town, I don't know if there would be a different rule of thumb on open houses here, but doesn't seem like I see them like I did in the big city.  So you would consider lowering the price within 3-4 weeks?  Again on the small town thing - we had gone into this considering 30-45 days under contract would be good.  Things just don't move as fast here.  Your advice is helpful on what statistics/info I should specifically ask for.

@Christopher Phillips, what is a 3-4 phase?  Showings were terrific in the first week, with a lot of interest.  This is a small town where the market is fairly strong, but nothing like you expect in the cities.  We received two full price offers in the first 12 hours, though both were contingent upon a visit as they were from out of the area.  The one we chose ended up falling through.  There are supposedly a few people out there that may make an offer, but they have not yet materialized.  So we feel like we could see an offer any time, but I feel like it's been very silent in the last week.  On Thursday the realtor said it was quite in last several days, but she said it had been in general in town.  I'm not sure if I'm just being impatient, but it is very important for me to always feel in the loop and informed.  For example, I had heard of a couple of interested parties only because I asked and felt a little surprised.  

@Christopher Phillips, I guess I'm feeling like I'll be lucky to get a once a week update, which me would be a bare minimum of acceptable, just in terms of what I would want or am used to.  Our place has only been listed for two weeks though.

Happy Saturday!  I'm wondering what I should expect in terms of communication from a realtor listing a house for us.  And if you're a realtor, what do you think is normal/average/better than average.  By that I mostly mean how much communication.  How often - weekly for example?  And what would you communicate about - besides the obvious if an offer comes in.  For example, feedback, possible interest, etc.

Oh, one other thing is we do have some flipping experience in our background, so we have some experience with what all that entails.  We like the flipping business, but would want to do that in conjunction with something else, as we want something that will grow and produce passive income and equity/value.  I didn't really think of the idea of a franchise - say like the coffee kiosk business or something.  Something we could expand ....

If you had about $300,000 to spend, what in your opinion would be the best possible way (and place) to spend it today (2017-).  I know there's no one right answer, but it helps to hear experienced investors' opinions as to what they personally would do now if they were beginning again in their career.  We are in our young to mid 50s, so don't have a lifetime of time.  We are considering the gamut, including storage rentals, etc.  We are also open to going out of our area.  We would really appreciate your experienced insights.  We would expect to use a combination of cash and financing at some point.

We are interested in buying a 2.8 acre property with two existing park models, two full hook-ups (which used to have park models) and space and permission for five more spaces (a total of nine allowed spaces), either RV or park model spaces per the county. One of the total nine spaces can have a permanent structure, i.e., manager's residence. It also has a small laundry/shower house that needs a little TLC. One of the PMs could use a new roof. There are also a few containers on the property. This property is somewhat long and skinny. It fronts a lake, more like inlet, but still pretty views for most the spaces. There is an easement for a lake front area that is owned by one of two other houses/properties at the end there (they have easement road to reach their property on this property), where you can fish, canoe, etc., with a couple of small docks. A beautiful large beach is also right down the road, .5 of a mile. This property is on the Pacific NW coast. They are asking $297,500 and it's been for sale for quite a while. It is being sold by an elderly couple who used to run a fairly bustling vacation rental business there years ago (according to them), but scaled it down as they got older. They sold off two of the park models (had removed), decided to live in one (they used to own one of the homes at the end but sold that too), and rented the second remaining PM to a full time resident for $650 per month. They are selling this place because of age, health and are moving back to be with their kids, they are 80 years old. They seem like very nice and honest folk. So as it stands now, the property only brings in $650 from the one PM, the second one could bring in more easily. However, we would want to give immediate notice to the one permanent resident and turn the entire place into a vacation rentals spot. Our plan is to use all park models, for higher dollar vacation rentals (which was what the couple used to do). How can I figure out what this place might be worth with what it's doing now, versus it's potential, and what we should be willing to pay for it. It has city water which is great (though it is officially just in the county), and a very large septic accommodating the entire place. So the basic infrastructure seems to be there. There are other details I could share, but won't try to spell out everything in this post. We thought of offering $225,000 cash, but figure they will probably balk at that. However, cannot imagine paying more than $250,000. And that wouldn't leave us much left for our development of our vision. Mainly we don't want to over pay what might be justified. They are very motivated, and have said they are near getting ready to just leave it and permanently rent out the PM they are now living in. What kind of return should we expect on our money versus the asking price, either now or the future potential. Do we figure it this way? Do we figure it as what is it worth as a 2.8 acre piece of land with some infrastructure on it and two older PMs? Or both? We want to be sure we have a good investment. We have run preliminary numbers and like the potential.

P.S.  I am reposting this in a different section in hopes of getting a reply.

Edit

We are interested in buying a 2.8 acre property with two existing park models, two full hook-ups (which used to have park models) and space and permission for five more spaces (a total of nine allowed spaces), either RV or park model spaces per the county.  One of the total nine spaces can have a permanent structure, i.e., manager's residence.  It also has a small laundry/shower house that needs a little TLC.  One of the PMs could use a new roof.  There are also a few containers on the property.  This property is somewhat long and skinny.  It fronts a lake, more like inlet, but still pretty views for most the spaces.  There is an easement for a lake front area that is owned by one of two other houses/properties at the end there (they have easement road to reach their property on this property), where you can fish, canoe, etc., with a couple of small docks.  A beautiful large beach is also right down the road, .5 of a mile.  This property is on the Pacific NW coast.  They are asking $297,500 and it's been for sale for quite a while.  It is being sold by an elderly couple who used to run a fairly bustling vacation rental business there years ago (according to them), but scaled it down as they got older.  They sold off two of the park models (had removed), decided to live in one (they used to own one of the homes at the end but sold that too), and rented the second remaining PM to a full time resident for $650 per month.  They are selling this place because of age, health and are moving back to be with their kids, they are 80 years old.  They seem like very nice and honest folk.  So as it stands now, the property only brings in $650 from the one PM, the second one could bring in more easily.  However, we would want to give immediate notice to the one permanent resident and turn the entire place into a vacation rentals spot.  Our plan is to use all park models, for higher dollar vacation rentals (which was what the couple used to do).  How can I figure out what this place might be worth with what it's doing now, versus it's potential, and what we should be willing to pay for it.  It has city water which is great (though it is officially just in the county), and a very large septic accommodating the entire place.  So the basic infrastructure seems to be there.  There are other details I could share, but won't try to spell out everything in this post.  We thought of offering $225,000 cash, but figure they will probably balk at that.  However, cannot imagine paying more than $250,000.  And that wouldn't leave us much left for our development of our vision.  Mainly we don't want to over pay what might be justified.  They are very motivated, and have said they are near getting ready to just leave it and permanently rent out the PM they are now living in.  What kind of return should we expect on our money versus the asking price, either now or the future potential. Do we figure it this way? Do we figure it as what is it worth as a 2.8 acre piece of land with some infrastructure on it and two older PMs? Or both? We want to be sure we have a good investment. We have run preliminary numbers and like the potential.

How much should I pay a realtor to do the paperwork only on a sale.  Or should we consider just doing it ourselves.  We've received an offer on our primary home that is acceptable to us.  It is a cash offer, so there would be no time or energy spent with a bank by the realtor.  The buyers are also taking it as-is based on their own inspections.  The buyers don't want to work with a realtor.  We actually bought this house directly from the owner before us and we did our own paperwork through the only title company in town.  And I have done so a couple of times in my past buying or selling.  But I also am old enough and wise enough to want to be sure we are protected with all t's crossed and i's dotted (mainly because this is a rural property with acreage).  I was a paralegal in my past, so I am generally good with legal paperwork.  I have a realtor I really like, who was expecting to list our home.  She is also working with us on buying another place, as well as selling another investment home we have.  She has not been here yet to visit our house, run comps, or done any work revolving around the sale of our place besides preliminary conversations.  What are your thoughts on this?  The cash offer works because it would NOT include a realtor's commission.  Also, there are issues we could potentially run into with a bank loan if we list it, not to mention all the time and energy, so the cash offer is helpful in a multitude of ways for us.  Any thoughts on how to deal with this with our realtor are much appreciated. 

@Shaun Weekes, @Chris Mason, thanks so much for that insight. This property has five acres and is not a working farm. It's not that rural. Also, I don't think I said it's a manufactured home (1990). No attic, so no head and shoulder view. All of those relatively small items, don't worry me (smoke detectors, strapping water heater, etc.). As to the barn - we've done a tremendous amount of work on it, and will be finishing it off by repainting, etc. The thing with the barn is that it is very old and cannot be made perfect, unless one was to tear it down and start over. It's hard to explain, but it's a mish-mosh and hodge-podge of construction to some extent. We've repaired all major rot and took it from possibly a tear-down or fall-down to a wonderful usable barn. But I would still call it a work in progress. I just don't know what an FHA or VA might require there. The manufactured home is not on what I believe would be called a permanent foundation or footing, but it was set up correctly and passed permit inspection. We live in a pretty small town, so the comps are pretty few and far between on a property like this, but I will definitely talk to my realtor again about looking into similar properties that have closed. I think what she was saying about the VA loan versus FHA loan seemed to be her personal experience in this area with those loan types, which I suppose is saying the same thing but in an informal way. Any additional thoughts on this type of property with my above information is greatly appreciated. Also, if it's not obvious, this property is in Oregon.