All Forum Posts by: Reese Thompson

Thanks, guys.  We were pretty nervous and very confused! 

Update:  I called back our banker and we found out that they used the wrong social security number for my wife.  It was unfortunately someone else's with a poor score, and my wife's was actually right around what we thought it should be instead of 200 points lower.  So, I guess the lesson here is trust but verify.

I think I'm not explaining something right here.  It's not a matter of credit utilization or length of history, and getting more scores is not going to solve my problem.

So let me ask this instead:  How is it possible for a credit bureau to say the reason for your low score is frequent delinquent payments when you have never had any delinquent payments and that same credit bureau's full report confirms no delinquent payments?

We just received her score in the mail from when the bank ran it which is what brought this all up.  Her credit utilization is 0.  She has a credit card in her name, but we use the ones under my name.  The only other forms of credit she has are her car and student loans. 

But none of this still explains the many and frequent delinquent payments reason that the score said because the report from the same bureau shows absolutely nothing past due.

My wife and I are in the process of opening a HELOC on our personal residence. The banker said that my wife's credit score was terrible, so she put it in my name only. At first I thought, "No big deal." Then we received our copies of our credit scores in the mail and we were shocked to see her score 200 points lower than what we knew it to be just a few months ago. Under the causes section, it said that she had many and frequent delinquent payments. We immediately called everything that had a form of credit in her name to see if they are reporting delinquent payments, and we are paid ahead on all of them. So we pulled her credit report from the same bureau that the bank had used, and it is flawless. Everything on there shows as "OK" with the exception of one item that says "Unknown." The letter from the bank had her name misspelled, so I asked the banker if she put it in right. She said that she had used my wife's SSN to run the score check, so everything was right on her end.

What in the world do we do?!?

It's been on the market for 45 days, and every other property has been on from 52 to 190 days (excluding one for over 600). CoC at asking is 9%, and it's 12% at our offer. If this were rented at market, CoC would be closer to 20% at our offer and 15% at asking. For us, 12% is acceptable, but we can't do 9%. No other offers currently, but I know there are other people looking. That's an interesting strategy to start higher, and I'm wondering if it might make them angry by us lowering our price? Thoughts?

We used a combination of expected repairs (furnace is on its last leg and the parking lot needs redone) and where the rents are relative to the market rents (rents have been raised, but they are far below market) along with the returns we're wanting to see.  The price that we ended up at being the same as sellers purchase price is coincidental.  

Thanks.  I will add that we didn't offer 80% of asking just to make it 80%.  We are comfortable to a number higher, but where we want it to be at works out to 80%.  

There are quite a few multi-plexes in the area, but not many on the MLS, and only 2 have sold in the previous year.

My partner and I are in the process of putting an offer in on a 4-plex.  Our agent wasn't too happy with what we wanted to offer, but we thought it was a good place to start.  We offered about 80% of the asking price which is the same as what the seller paid 10 years ago.  Our agent is worried that we're low-balling it and may not get a good response from the seller.  What are some of your strategies on how you begin offers for 4-plexes?  

I apologize for the lack of details because I don't want to put too much information out there while we're trying to purchase.

Thank you both, good info!  It is a relatively large closet at about 16x4, but it is not a walk-in type and is unheated.  

I'm in agreement on using the drywall to have a substrate, and that's only because it seems like the right thing to do.  Would you happen to know a little more technically what having it vs not helps to do?