All Forum Posts by: Heather Meyer

We (buyers) just went under contract on a piece of property in central Texas.  We were preparing to send over earnest money and option fee when we were told the sellers were having an issue on their end and may be breaking the contract (it had been 24 hours since all parties signed).  Then what happened, which I think is bizarre, the title company refused to send us wiring information or courier information so that we could send the money.  They said in light of the issue in the seller side, they were not going to continue with the title until it got resolved.  There were no issues on our side and we were not wanting to break the contract.  All is good now and whatever was going on is apparently resolved but we were quite surprised at all of this.  Can a seller break a contract once signed even if earnest money has not been collected yet (we had 4 days to get it to them and this was day 1) and can a title company halt the process?

We are looking at purchasing a few acres in central Texas that has a nice mobile home (not permanent attached) on it.  We want to make a cash offer and then quickly turn around and do a cash out refinance.  How difficult is this since it's a mobile home and not a house?

Victor, your response is much appreciated.  We have a 5 bedroom/4.5 bath home.  We would want to rent to a single family, we would not be interested in renting by the room (not a good fit for our neighborhood).  Comps in the area are showing rent at $3800, I am wondering if that is realistic.  We are unsure right now about our next primary residence but yes, downsizing for sure.  Whether we stay in this area or not, we do want to purchase a reasonably priced rental property in the Leander/Liberty Hill/Georgetown area.  We are thinking of a 3 bedroom house and at that point "rent by the room".

My husband and I are ready to get into real estate investing, we are also new empty nesters, want to downsize, and have a good deal of equity in our home.  We live in Cedar Park, TX (Austin Area), our home is 3800 sq ft and we have about $420K+ equity currently in the house.  We have talked about selling the house and using the profit to begin buying rental properties.  Now we are also considering keeping the house and turning it into our first rental property.  Looking for sound advice.  If we turn it into a rental, how can we still utilize the equity in our home to not only buy our next primary residence but also buy at least one more rental property.