All Forum Posts by: Kevin Barrett

I am a real estate and got the email below from clients. Please help! We just received our loan commitment letter from the bank, along with the appraisal. The appraisal generally looked good, except for one issue: the appraiser listed the property as a 3 bedroom, rather than a 4 bedroom, because he did not see a closet in the fourth bedroom and therefore characterized it as a den. Katie reminded me that there is a closet in the fourth bedroom, wh ich he must have missed. Is this something we should get rectified?

@Barb Nitecki What is your strategy after buying?...Do you plan to flip, rent, etc

Since you're just starting off I would emphasize that you need to buy right...buy under market value to give yourself a cushion....Make $ the day you buy!

Here's a quick and dirty APOD I put together using some of your numbers:

Limestone APOD

It should be noted that for financing I assumed 5% instead of zero down as the cash on cash and PPD figures don't really work for homes that don't require no DP.

Nice job with the options and equity trading…I was right more than I was wrong last year with stock options, but who knows what'll happen this year!

It can across the buyer's radar from MLS. It's my understanding that a title search will be done anyways if the property is put under agreement so at this point I agree that we should take it one step at a time and the buyer's can first see if they like it or not.

@Nathan Ley - What are your numbers for utilities, insurance, maintenance/repairs, taxes etc?

How have you done trading options?

Clients of mine would like to see a property which the listing agent said a deal fell through because buyer's had an issue because it has insurable title (vs marketable title). I asked the agent to explain further and she said that it only has insurable title because there is an "old lien" on the property.

An "old lien" could be anything so is it safe to say that the buyer's who had the property under agreement thought that it was too difficult/expensive to resolve the lien issue?

I can recommend to the buyers if they really like the property then they should have atty do a title search to get full disclosure and all the details regarding the lien.

An owner will probably not accept a cash offer of 80% of list price, BUT I've always strongly believed in offering what I think is reasonable and what the market dictates and not what the listing price is…as I as real estate agent I've told many of my clients not to obsess over the asking price because market value is what matters most.

Agreed with @Brian Ortins. Better to not go at it alone if your financing is questionable. I'd focus your efforts on finding a good deal instead of trying to get cute with personal financing. Someone might mention seller financing, but IMO that limits your pool of potential properties by a lot.

How much parking is there? How old are the heating systems and when were they last serviced?

It sounds like it needs a fair amount of work so you may want to consider hiring a home inspector as they're usually pretty thorough.

Do you have a good sense of what the total cost of repairs is?

Thanks all. @Bill Exeter you made a great point about doing a 1031 exchange and educating the seller.

Here's another point of view from an atty:

"The only deferral is a like kind exchange. If he has other capital losses to offset the capital gain that would reduce the tax burden."