All Forum Posts by: Matt Wilson

Our market wasn't bad at all back in April/May.  We listed our home for $339k & got a cash buyer pretty quick at $330k.  Ten days before closing, our water heater leaked in the attic and our buyer bailed.  We got it all fixed, decided to go ahead and move to a home in a different market we're now investing in.  We got back on the market early June & got a full-price offer, but it was a double-contingency & the buyers had a situation we weren't comfortable with, so we declined them.  "We *just* went back on the market, so we're bound to get another offer pretty quick...!"

Then..... nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Zero.  Zilch.  No further interest in the home.  Homes all around us began dropping prices, but it didn't lead to more interest, so we held strong at a higher price waiting to see what happened.  Well, it was more of the same.  Long story short, we ultimately lowered our home price to $297k, and we're still unable to sell it.  The market just went dry & we're competing against new construction in that neighborhood.

Everyone asks us, "Why don't you just move back?" Well, in doing the math, we moved for a reason... it's expensive to live in that other market & it seems to make more sense to sell the "American Dream" home to begin saving significant money to further invest in this new market we're in where properties actually cashflow.  

We also get asked, "Why don't you just rent it out?" Well, we'd be negative cashflowing roughly $500 /mo on the "hope" we'd find a renter for only 6-8 months who would do ZERO damage to the property so we can "hopefully" sell again next year when we "hope" the market is better and "hopefully" don't lose all our equity like we did this year.  That's a LOT of hope!

But one fact is certain:  We're spending $2500 /mo on a VACANT home right now and have been for several months... OUCH!  :-/

What would you do if you were in my situation?  (Anyone want to buy a $330k home for $300k?  LOL.)

Another question that comes to mind related to all this is if we can claim any sort of tax write off for the vacancy if it wasn't technically a rental home during that period?  If we get a renter in before December, can we claim a loss for May-Present?

Thanks in advance for your support!  --Matt

+1 - Glad I found this group!  Just joined the Meetup group & look forward to meeting you all soon!

I'm following this thread closely since I'm new to this (this is my first BP post and I haven't made my first investment purchase yet) and I am in a similar situation where I'm tempted to tap into one of our smaller Roth IRA's for initial funding.

But the research I've done says while you've already paid income tax on a Roth IRA, you're still subject to a 10% early withdrawal penalty unless you meet one of the exceptions.

https://www.fool.com/retirement/iras/the-roth-ira-part-iv-early-withdrawals.aspx

While there is an exception there for “used to pay the costs of a first-time home purchase (subject to a lifetime limit of $10,000)”, I don’t see anything else that would qualify taking anything out for a third-home/investment or that would allow anyone other than yourself to supply the funds for this purpose without penalty. 

I look forward to learning more about all this. Thank you all so much for your time and advice!!