All Forum Posts by: Martin S.

Unfortunately, I figured I would keep some people up to date... If they are following this thread...

Woohoo. Seller signed offer, done deal. I'll fly out Monday. 2nd house (agent who wanted ID and utility bill) came back pretty much near ask price. Figures. I was looking at recently foreclosed homes that sold and I think I have a strategy for that one, but its going to take a while, bombarding them with offers wont be a good strategy for sure as they may just decide to ignore me.

Looks like I may have my first deal today. My agent (the one from first post) says the seller for that other house I asked her to place an offer on will likely accept my offer (with a minor change to the contract, my agent changed inspection from 7 days to 15 days from the previous contract, and the seller wants 10 days). She looked at the property, met with the sellers agent, met with the tenant in the mother-in-law suite and all seems good. Today is the last day for acceptance and she is confident we will have it signed and ready to go.

The home is split into 3 parts, 2/1 main section, 1/1 m-in-l suite which is rented at $650 all inclusive, and a 1/1-no kitchen converted garage (landlord used when he visited) that is non-conforming because the landlord never got a permit, but he will try to get a retroactive permit and pay the penalties, or remove the changes...

He is also a Canadian and we will have to deal with that tax issue where they hold 10% of the sale or something, no worries there...

Great house, great neighborhood, great price, I'm gonna be happy if it all goes through.

The other house where my agent wouldn't work with me because we wouldn't give him 2 proofs of ID and a utility bill was foreclosed, and I see that many foreclosed houses do actually sell close to ask price. BUT, its the same situation, the price had been dropping every month and they didn't drop it the last 2 months, if they would have made consistent drops, my offer is pretty much in line with the expected ask price. But its Fannie Mae HomePath first look, listed in May, so why do I need to still fill out that Fannie Mae offer form, cant I use an As-Is only? Definitely not signing the Owner Occupancy Certification...

LoL, actually Andrew, you are 100% right. And you actually did help me. I will get a license in Florida. I was expecting the requirement to have something where you would have to work at a RE agency for 12 months or something like that, but its not there, so I can probably get my license pretty soon. Thank you, sorry for the rant, but I was frustrated.

Half of you probably have some affiliation with those RE seminars, or have your own tactic which only has your best interests in mind. Its reeks here. Phew

Its exactly like those RE seminars here. If someone disagrees, or complains they will attack you personally and try to find something wrong with you, instead of understanding what the issue is and suggesting something that would actually work. Yes, there is a highly likely possibility that that house which I offered $115k for did not actually get a cash offer, and the broker was just trying to squeeze more money out of me, expecting me to say I can do $120 all cash or $125 with a mortgage. I would say its 60/40 : No real offer/ Dumb Buyer.

Asking for ID, because the broker had a bad experience, or is actually a fraudster is just stupid. He said something about a title search fraud or something, and that he had to remove a listing for 16 days for a home valued at $800k, he couldn't come up with better BS than that? Does he have any common sense, you expect a stranger to send another stranger a drivers license and Utility bill to make an offer for a house? What the kldsfj does my utility bill have to do with buying another house? With that kind of information he could commit fraud, and he lives in Florida, the Fraud state, with all the fake lawyers and bs going on there.

Yes my rant is over, screw this site. L8trz.

I have no idea why I keep coming back to this site. In all honesty, you guys are mostly off topic and come here to brag, and never post anything new or useful to anyone. Yes sometimes there is some encouragement but I haven't seen anyone ever really assist anyone with anything here. There is far more information on other forums, where you would rarely see people assume things about other people. Its like you guys are a close knit group, just looking to sucker in people for your own personal gain. But hey, the world is full of suckers. I'm not one of them.

I'm also anti social. I don't like anyone. I don't do small talk, I don't care about anyone but my wife and close family. I love pain, watching other people hurt or in dire situations. Wouldn't I just be a fantastic landlord. You never know, you may be renting my property one day, lol...

I don't know more than everyone, but I am smarter than most. I am also lazy as hell, and I have the worst work ethic. I avoid work like the plague because its not worth my time.

Every time my wife and I went to a RE office and sat down with an agent and discussed what we were looking for, we ended up with an agent that would just email us any random or new listing on an almost daily basis. That just showed me that most agents have no interest in actually finding a property I would actually want. They expect you to jump on just anything, even when you have a specific area or size or price, they will send you everything and anything. I'm more than capable of finding the properties myself, I even had access to MLS back in 2008/2009 when my auntie let me use her MLS, and I found that most online sites actually had up to date listings (like realtor.com), of course there was always some extra info on MLS but not always.

That agent that asked for 2 proofs of ID and my utility bill, started throwing me statistics he got from the internet. Telling me that most homes sell within 95% of asking price, and that foreclosed homes actually sell for 98% of asking price. I've been looking at houses in my price range for the last 5 years in Sarasota, and I would say that his numbers are wayyy off. Especially when around 1 in 3 listings are asking too much initially, and keep lowering their ask price almost every month until sold for 40% or less than what they initially started at. On the other hand, when they don't change the price, it might usually go for 90-95%. Many homes that are at or very close to being a good deal sell for less than 90%, it just shows that they were motivated sellers from the start... Ohhh wait, he just became a real estate agent in 2014 and he is like 40 years old. I've been dealing with real estate since I was 16, that was 15 years ago... I took every RE class available at Baruch College, even all the Law classes, did pretty well too. Even before that I've must have read 20-30 prominent books on RE... Just never had the opportunity (cash and ability to finance) like I have now, and yes, I know that there are many ways of getting cash and financing and I could have done it a long time ago, but I just wasn't ready then. Nearly everyone in my immediate family is a landlord, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc, etc. Here, there, even Internationally.

I am sorry I did not post my full name, social security number, dob and everything else so you can feel that I am credible on the internet. I take my privacy very seriously, and my personal information is very valuable to me.

Anyways, I did get the offer contract about an hour later after the last call, and we just signed it and sent it 45 minutes ago, after reading it and scanning it into the pdf...

My agent told me that the garage was converted into a 1 bed 1 bath without permit. Does anyone know if this will present a problem for us to close on the property, or anything with the mortgage...? I wouldn't mind just converting it back to a garage, but in the photos it still has garage doors, I guess they just left the doors for looks...