All Forum Posts by: Kathryn Bowden

We are getting ready to list our primary home, but it's not on the open market yet. We've had one party take a look at our home that found out about it in a round-about way. He was very interested and wanted to come back for a second viewing. I originally told him that we had decided not to accept an FHA loan offer after discussions with our realtor, because of how stringent it is. Our property is rural, and has a barn which is a little rough. It is very usable, but we won't be doing any further work on it, it wouldn't be practical. Our realtor said that she has had a lot of difficulty with FHA loans but not so much with VA loans, and advised we could potentially accept a VA loan offer. The potential buyer insisted from his experiences in the past, that they are every bit as stringent as an FHA loan, and wondered why I would accept a VA loan but not an FHA loan offer. He also thinks he may need to pass on our place as he wants to use his VA loan. I'm really confused because our realtor owns one of the local Remaxes here, has been in the business for decades, and seems very on the ball. Can I please get input on experiences with houses/properties passing the VA loan muster? How does it compare to perhaps a standard loan and an FHA loan?

Natural wood would have been my first choice in this case, but the siding is just too hodge podge in color and type.  I didn't think it would hide enough, even an opague stain.

We are finishing up getting our place ready for sale ASAP on the southern Oregon coast.  This is a manufactured home on acreage.  The first thing you see as you come down the drive is the barn.  The barn is old and a bit "rough".  It has cheap siding, but still has charm and good usability.  We have done a lot of repairs to it (fixed rot, etc.), but it still is what it is.  It's not too close to the house and the house is a green with darker green trim and some cream colored trim.  I have two colors in mind that I feel I have narrowed it down to (but open to others as well).  One is a fairly deep slate blue (lots of gray in it), and then possibly paint the front and back door of house in this same color (another paint decision).  The other color we're considering is a deep espresso brown.  With either color it would have cream colored trim.  We want the barn to recede more, than stick out (like in a red or white barn).  And again, we don't want to call attention to the "roughness" of the barn.  And we feel a green is probably just too much green (?)  I'll attach a picture of the barn.  The house is down at the next level.  We will also be adding a "barn quilt" to that upper front, such as photo I'm also attaching, but colors of that will depend on other final colors.  Thanks for your expert opinions!

@Rick Santasiere, can you please go into more detail on the lease option?  I'd appreciate knowing what your thoughts are on this and where you use it.

@Brian Burke, what kind of insurance would cover the legal matter?  Do you have a general business policy?  We watch our local trustee sales and are new to them, so want to cover ourselves.  Thanks.

@Mark Brechtl, do you have any tricks for the easiest least messy possible way to repaint a popcorn ceiling?  This is the house we're currently living in.  For reasons I won't try to explain, we ended up moving in without dealing with the ceiling first.  Everything else, walls, etc., has been redone.  We don't have to remove the popcorn, the value of the house doesn't necessarily warrant it, although that would be nice best case scenario.  But just painting it would help tremendously, as it's a dinghy grayish white at this point.  I wish there was a way to deal with this ceiling, maybe a little at a time.  For example, a paint drenched sponge comes to mind dabbing sections at a time.  That is just a wild idea on my part, since I'm not a paint expert.  What would be your easiest shortest means of dealing with the ceiling to vastly improve it (doesn't have to be perfect), the easiest way possible.  :-)

@Nate Hawkins, I have just started driving for dollars, and maybe found and sent about a dozen properties so far (once).  I am sending a hand written card.  Do you use cards?  Postcards?  Or just a white piece of paper hand written?  I have a few template messages that I copy, and I modify each one a bit toward their individual property.  How short is your message?  I would be afraid to send a message as much as once per week, but maybe I shouldn't be.  I also like the idea of eventually just floating an offer out there.  Would love to hear a few more details.  Good job!

@Chase Mcduffie, how did this turn out?  I'm sorry no one responded to your post, as I was thinking about bidding on Realtybid.com.  But the properties I'm looking at are live local trustee sales.  I would hope that's a different/better way to buy?  Does anybody have experience with realtybid good or bad? 

My personal preference is the first one, but would also use wood floors.  If you warmed the second one up I would like it better.  I don't like snow white cabinets.

The replies here are really helpful.  It is not a real hot market and properties are not flying off the shelves when listed.  It's probably a fairly balanced market right now.  I do hope to have some wow/oomph factors to help someone fall in love with the place.  And we felt like it may help us get that higher dollar per square foot that our realtor thinks we could get with this place, because it is overall very cute.  Like I said, if it were just a normal space for washer/dryer, I would definitely not get these.  Another thing is there is no dishwasher and we decided not to try to put one in - because it's a small kitchen and as a one bedroom only a single or couple will live here, so less need for one.  This might disappoint some people, so thought the washer/dryer might help offset that.  Love to hear people's opinions though, as it's really helpful.  This is our first official flip, so we don't have a lot of experienced instincts yet.

@James Maradits, @Adam Kappel, @Matthew Smith, @Thomas S.