All Forum Posts by: Sam Leon

Kevin, I wasn't dealing directly with the listing agents.

I have an agent that helps me mostly with setting up appointments to see the properties and give me comps. I do my own contracts and my attorney looks through my contracts.

Theoretically an agent shouldn't give priority to one buyer over another simply because for one buyer he is getting 6% and the other buyer he had to split 50/50. I guess that's not the case in real life.

I don't think it's #3. I basically ignore the list price and do my own due diligence and come to my own offer price. So these numbers I offered were not just list prices. That's why I was surprised how close the sold price were.

Those are only three cases out of many, I just didn't list them all.

My experience with South Florida is there seems to be much more shady deals then others.

I guess my question is, how do I spot these deals? How can I pre-qualify them so that I don't waste time on it if there is a buyer in the pipeline with a secret handshake?

I look for investment properties to hold and rent.

Last year I closed on 3 properties. This year NONE.

Many contracts written yet none accepted. Seems homes in South Florida are heating up and they quickly get under contract.

Last weekend, I decided to re-evaluate all the deals that fell through and tried to learn from my mistake. First thing was I went back and look at each properties and see if it got sold and for what price. What I saw was a bit disturbing.

I saw the actual sold price on a significant number of those are just a small amount over my offer. So much so I start to wonder if I everyone was playing games except me?

For example, a house I offered $180,000 sold for $181,000. Another house I offered $141,000 sold for $142,120. Another house I offered $202,000 sold for $203,500.

All my offers were cash offers with 10% down, AS IS with right to inspect 30 days closing. Very clean no other contingencies.

Why are these other offers just marginally higher? Sounds like buyers are getting tipped on the highest offer so they move in with their offer once they know what price it would take?

Seems if I don't have an inside track I might as well invest elsewhere?

Finally got notification the bank has accepted another offer, agent emailed and asked if I wanted to be put into a backup position, I said sure...asked if I need to modify the contract to include a backup contract addendum he said no, he would "make a note".

Oh well, next!

Will, at the time, I sent the report to my agent. I have no direct contact with the listing broker/agent. I instructed my agent to send the report to them anyways, so they cannot deny knowledge of a huge problem. My agent did not, I guess he didn't want to burn a bridge? He said it doesn't matter they wouldn't be liable because they forced anyone to sign that pile of paper relieving them of any obligations.

Thinking back I should have sent it directly, and drive over to the property and tape the report to the door!

The agent replied to our inquiry yesterday and said "Bank has not yet made a decision".

The MLS listing is still up (active and available). When we submitted the offer we had to go through a specific web site showing a list of properties with a "Submit" button. We had to submit our offer in PDFs via that web site. You can no longer "submit" new offers.

I am moving on to something else, just wanted a "NO" so I can move this off my desk to the dust collection pile LOL.

I am an engineer by trade so when I do a casual walk through I am already compiling a list of things to repair and I know what to watch out for. Normally down here standard inspection covers the standard stuff- structures, plumbing, electrical, appliances etc...and sometimes they would tag on a pest control which typically looks for termites in the attic and around the fascia on the exterior. Very few people would do mold inspections. I did it because I noticed a slight warp in the wall that wasn't there before (long story, but I looked at the house six months prior) and knew there could be a problem, so I ordered a $400 mold inspection. I doubt a layman would.

Made an offer on an REO home recently.

Bank came back within 72 hours asking BEST AND HIGHEST within 24 hours.

I adjusted my offer slightly and sent it in.

So far 2 weeks gone by and no news. The listing has disappeared from the web site where you had to submit offers to.

My agent had called and got the standard reply "the bank has all the offers but has not made a decision".

How long does it take the bank to make a decision? Doesn't it normally happen pretty quickly? In the past I pretty much know in 48 hours. In fact my offer had a 72 hour acceptance deadline which is now long gone.

I am guessing this means the bank is in negotiation with one of the buyers and are putting everyone else in a hold position?

@Will Barnard, regarding the comment about sending inspection results to the bank so they can't stick it to the next buyer...how would you do that?

I had a FNMA property that I discovered black mold during inspection, I wanted the bank to either drop the price by a written estimate of a mold remediation or have it taken care of themselves before closing. Even the listing agent said "WOW, we can't sell homes with black mold", but after conferring with FNMA they came back and said the price stays as is, take it or leave it. I said let me send you the mold inspection report and the estimates, may be you can send it to them, the agent said "no, don't, we don't need to see your results, FNMA has instructed us to inform you to either accept the contract or move on."

In fact, the pile of addendums I got from FNMA, has dozens of provisions everywhere that I had to sign to acknowledge that I KNOW THAT THEY DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ANYTHING, sounds like these provisions wipe out any sort of need or obligation of disclosure to buyers. I backed out of the deal but the next buyer walking in would be told they don't know anything about anything either.

I have a property with a mortgage of 30 YR FIX 6.25% with Seterus.

I asked Seterus to lower my rate, no luck.

Then I got with Quickens and did a HARP 2 refi with a 30 YR FIX 3.99%.

After 1 payment Quickens sold my loan to Seterus.

Why didn't Seterus just lower my rate?