All Forum Posts by: Marion Edwards

Hello BP'ers. I have a wholesale deal in the works that I plan to assign. The property is a SFR 3-1 that's currently occupied by a renter. The renters current lease is up at the end of July, but I plan to close this deal by the middle of May. The seller wants an occupancy addendum to protect his tenant's rights until the end of the lease. What's the best way to go about addressing this?

Thanks,

I also wanted to point out that your down payment strategy might not be cool with your lender. They are looking for you to have skin in the game and borrowed down payments tend to scare them off. Additionally, most lenders will want you to have 3-6 months mortgage reserves on both your investment property and your primary residence in some liquid type account. Homepath is a good way to acquire properties but it definitely has it's drawbacks.

Pete, thanks for the response. The great tips I'm getting from you guys are helping me to build some Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for my business. Biggerpockets has turned out to be a real gold mine!

Eric, thanks for the response. There were enough red flags to make me more than uncomfortable working with that particular listing agent. Walking away felt better, so ultimately I think I made the right choice. I still believe that Homepath offers some good deals, so I'm still actively plugging away at purchasing from them.

Dave,

Thanks for the reply. I probably could have gotten a reduction on the price as well, just didn't know enough to take this approach. I'm still looking at Homepath and will use the recommendations provided in response to post to help me get a good deal.

Gents. Thanks for the responses. I let this one go because I was more concerned about the lackadaisical way the listing agent went about providing information and paperwork, as well as not taking action to get the house de-winterized. I spoke with 3 different inspectors and they all indicated that not being able to inspect the plumbing was a major issue and that without this their inspections would contain several warnings in regards to the quality of the overall inspection. I agree that it may have still been a good deal, just would be more risk to the amount of repairs required to get it past city inspection. I wasn't thinking along these lines, but thanks to you guys, it will be a consideration if I run into this situation in the future.

I just terminated a contract with Fannie Mae because I couldn't get the listing agent to de-winterize the property for inspection. There was also a number of paperwork snafus on the part of this agent and she was a lot less than willing to make the necessary corrections. Seems to me that this particular agent didn't have any sense of priority on completing the deal. Has anybody else experienced this when trying to work a Homepath deal? Could it be becauser it was a low end property ($40K) and it wasn't worth her time?

Mark, thanks for the encouragement. I need to update you all, as this Homepath deal fell through recently. After I accepted the counter offer, I was notified that Fannie Mae and I were now under contract for the property. My contract had two contingencies, inspection and financing. I notified the listing agent that I had scheduled an inspection and that I needed the property to be ready for inspection about 7 days after the contract was signed by Fannie Mae. The contract stated I had 10 days to get this completed, so I thought I was good to go. The house was winterized back in Nov 2013, so the water was turned off and the water meter was removed to ensure the pipes wouldn't freeze (here in Michigan). I informed the listing agent that I needed the house to be de-winterized in order for me to have a complete inspection performed on the property. The listing agent assured me that this would be done by my inspection date. The inspection date rolls around and guess what? The house hadn't be de-winterized. I called the listing agent and was told that their records showed that the house had been de-winterized, so I took pictures of the missing water meter and sent it to them. They apologized and said they would get it done within a few days and that they would extend the inspection period in an addendum to the contract. Well this was back in the first week of Jan 2014 and guess what? The property still hasn't been de-winterized! Last Friday I terminated the deal. Too many red flags!!!

Eric, The house was built in 1943. Other than the cracks in the basement, the house is in excellent shape. Cracks are common in the area and there are plenty contractors qualified to repair them. It's expensive though, so I don't want to even deal with it, if it's an immediate repair issue. I always have an inspection clause in my purchase contracts, even if it's the only clause in the agreement. Thanks for your input.

Engelo, there are no visable signs of movement of the wall or the individual cinder blocks. There's also no signs of water leakage from the cracks. If I can wait a year or two to perform any repairs, I'd still be interested in acquiring the property. Thanks for your comments also.

Hello fellow BP'ers. I'm looking at a potential rental property that has cracks in the foundation. Most of the cracks are horizontal and a few are of the stairstep variety. There is no bowing or tilting of the walls yet and no apparent water seakage. Does cracks in the foundation automatically kill a deal for you?