All Forum Posts by: William Murrell

The reason for him to finance is that he can broker that deal just between the two of you without having to go through all the hoops and loops for a bank to give him the money.  Usually this does come at a premium to you in the form of him/her paying more for the house, paying higher interest, shorter term on then note, etc.  You are definitely taking on more risk, so you ought to get something out of it.

Unlikely if you ask me.  Think of how Tesla has had to fight to be able to sell their cars without a dealership.  The issue is the car dealer lobby is powerful and has deep pockets so they've been able to get politicians to make ridiculous arguments against Tesla to protect the interests of the dealerships.  And the realtor lobby is even more powerful and wealthy, so they'll likely place significant roadblocks in the way of that becoming reality.  Just my $0.02

I have a property in mind that was a similar issue.  It was a 4/2 and listed for 45,000 which is dirt cheap in my area.    I couldn't believe it and was practically screaming "sold! sold!" when I noticed it had been listed for months and months and I became suspicious.  And the price had been dropping for a long time.  Upon further inspection, the house had no offstreet parking, no onstreet parking (both practically unheard of in my area) and the best part: an encroachment. Part of the house went off the property.  And if you wanted to park behind it, you had to drive onto the neighbor's property.

My favorite part was something I missed at first which was how to distract from the car issue, it was listed as "a great house for an avid cyclist!"  Of COURSE it's good for a cyclist because a bike was all you could own and live there.  You couldn't actually park a car anywhere near it.  In large cities, that would have been fine but in our city everything is car dependent.  No thanks.  

@Steve Babiak  valid point.  

You can give out frozen turkeys around Thanksgiving with a note that says you're thankful for having such good tenants.   More expensive than five bucks, less expensive than free rent.

You would need to get an attorney for sure, and one who is familiar with the finer points of subject-to purchases.  As far as a broker, there's no need.  You would approach the owner and establish this deal just between the two of you.  

You asked about downpayments, and that would depend on what situation they're in.  In one of the podcasts, a buyer set up a subject-to and it ended up being structured so the property owner wrote the BUYER a check for ~9,000 and then the buyer had the property and continued paying down the property.  So she got a property without consulting the bank, got a property, AND got paid to do it.

That was BP podcast number two, I believe, with Karen Rittenhouse.  She does subject-to and will walk you through the in's and out's of the whole process.  Also, there are a few other podcasts with people who do a much better job explaining the process than I do.  Have you checked them out? They're fantastic!

One time we went to go clean out some commercial property that had been used as a used car dealership.  The guy went off the deep end and just walked off one day, leaving the cars and everything right where they were.  We came in to clean it up and there was the usual stuff, ya know, office supplies, trash, papers, files, furniture, etc.  But then one of the people helping out screamed "oh my god! You gotta come see this!" 

There was a room in the back that he had FILLED with sex toys, stacks and stacks of porn, and mirrors on the walls and ceiling over a couch that just.....yeesh.  Nobody knows whatever happened to the guy who just walked off and left everything, but I know for sure why he wouldn't come back and get all of his stuff.

Yeah, unfortunately it ended up being easier to tear out and just re-plumb everything.  I know the landlord was livid.  

If you really want to see how gross someone can be, take a look at the Cat Litter House thread here.  It is RIDICULOUS.  Not a tenant, but certainly the grossest thing you'll see as far as foul living conditions.

  Threads like this make me feel better.  I've had some pretty bad carpet disasters, but I've never had to scrape off boogers.  And certainly someone else on here will have something to share, right?

If they own it outright, you can offer for them to take back a note and take payments as you suggested.  And yes, it allows you to bypass all the banks and conventional lenders and it is a great way to easily accumulate more than the four or so that most banks try to limit you to.  

So you start making payments to them and if you default, they take back the asset just the same as the bank.  If they have financing in place, it can either be paid off or sometimes it can be assumed under a "subject to" agreement where you take ownership of the property "subject to existing financing."  In that case, they would transfer title to you and keep the mortgage in their name.  Though the mortgage would still be in their name, you would take over paying the monthly payments.  Does that help?

I'm just wondering if anyone knows of a REIA or similar in the Wilmington, NC area or surrounding? I am looking to network with other investors in the area and would love the chance to participate in one if I could find it.