All Forum Posts by: Kiersten Vance

Hello @Randy Castle

Sounds like a fun job! I live near by in Cypress and am in the process on developing an assisted living in Redlands. Would love to talk to you more sometime about either your day job or your goals for your first investment. 

Good idea to use a realtor. Seller financing right now is probably unlikely. You can definitely ask but if you have no stable job and no downpayment they will not look at that favorably. Work on getting your credit up, get a stable job and work hard at it for at least 6 months and then you can get a pre-approval from a bank. You might want to check out rent to own properties (most will be SFR not MFR's). Best of luck!

Hello Renee, Congrats on getting your license! Does your broker offer any training or assistance to new agents? If so, I would get his help first. Most brokers don't want to help unfortunately so I would recommend referring your friend to another agent and asking for a referral fee-typically around 25%. You would get paid at least this way and your friend would get expert help. You could ask for a higher referral fee if you were willing to take your friend to all the showings and just ask the other agent to help with paperwork. They could walk you through the deal from start to finish. I know it isn't as good as getting the whole commission but may be a good option for you for the first one. I took a mentor at a 20% cut in the beginning just to help me through everything and make sure I got all the paperwork together.

I had this happen just recently on an escrow with one of my buyers. Appraisal came in 10k low. We asked seller to lower price to appraisal value and luckily he agreed. He needed to close escrow as he was moving out of state and couldn't wait for another buyer snd escrow period. I would first ask seller to lower to appraisal price. If they threaten cancellation, then offer to split the difference with them. Buyers can pay above appraisal but they have to pay it with cash. It cannot be financed. If the sellers refuse to come down in price at all the buyers can cancel if they don't want to pay the extra or pay it all. Make sure they understand that they are paying over market value for the home though which may or may not be something they are ok with.

Oh my goodness just the post I need! Yes closing on time is a major issue that I have run into. It has almost made a couple of my buyers lose their house because the lender they chose had too many delays!

I agree with Ivy that transparency to the buyer and to their agent is key. Many first time homebuyers have no idea how the process works and don't know what questions to ask to make sure they are doing the right things to be able to close on the house they want. Also being straight forward and honest about timelines. Many lenders seem to try to give overly optimistic idea of when something will be completed and that stresses the listing agents out because when that date comes and goes, they don't know what is going on. 

Answer the phone and texts as soon as you can, within the same day if possible. We have to do that as well for our clients to keep them updated :) 

I look for lenders with low fees for my buyers. One of the ones we are working with right now, offers $100 per diem to the seller if they close later than they promised. We are about to enter escrow with him so we will see if that happens or if he does close on time. That means a lot to the listing agent and Seller as they see your lender is extremely motivated to honor the contract and keep on top of the loan. 

Best of luck!

Hello Faiz,

Did you end up purchasing this property?

Hello Bo. Question: if you did a refi to a 30 year loan, would the property cash flow or would it still be in the negative? If it is still in the negative, I would seriously consider doing a 1031 to get rid of it and find something that at least breaks even and ideally cash flows a little. Selling costs on a property here in SoCal are around 6-8% so keep that in mind. By the time you pay agents, title fees, escrow, notary ect it adds up. Although since you bought at a very high point, at least it will break even when you sell. Many people weren't so lucky. I am glad you were able to hold onto it until the price came back up. I would be happy to help you list it and work on a 1031 exchange if you decide to go that route.

Hello Jessica, Congratulations on your baby and on your decision to get into real estate. Your best bet would be to get an FHA loan. You would need 3.5% for a downpayment though so work on getting that saved up. Your credit score needs to come up a little too so make it a priority to pay down your credit cards and work on fixing blemishes on your credit report. You will also need a stable income to get preapproved for a loan. Do you have someone that can cosign with you? If not, once you get a new job, you will have to keep it for a couple months before you can be preapproved. Once you get preapproval from a bank, then you would want to pick a realtor to help you find a property that you can buy with the amount you are prequalified for. There are lots of realtors on here or you can google a realtor as well. I would not recommend doing on your own. It is free for a buyer to use an agent so you might as well use one. Best of luck investing!

Abe - sounds like a frustrating situation. Does the seller have the property on the market or is this an off market deal? If it is off market, he may not have any other offers so you might have a little more time than you think. Commercial properties move slower than residential so I would expect anyone else looking to buy the parcels would be experiencing the same problems as you. I would write him an offer to buy the SFR separately from the commercial. Get a commercial loan on the one side and a residential loan on the other side. If you have your own residence, you could pull out money in a HELOC to help with the downpayment or ask the seller to carry. Best of luck!

Hi Ciji! No one should laugh you out of the office no matter what your situation is. It is the American dream to own a home! House hacking sounds like it could be a good option for you. Do you have 2 years of tax returns showing your income? This is what the lender will base your preapproval on. I have a good lender that has worked with a few of my clients under 200k. Do you have enough for 3.5% down? That will most likely be the minimum that you will need to put down. 2-3 hours is a long ways out of LA. Do yo need to be close to LA at all for work? There are definitely options for you out toward Yucca Valley, 29 palms, ect. Happy to help if you need!