All Forum Posts by: Sara Anne Pace

I cannot agree more with @Dave Foster.  Asking the buyer to wire  a large sum of money  to an individual account is a real red flag.  Money is only wired to your  closing attorney...never directly to a seller.  How would you get it back if he does not keep his promise? 

In CT, when a house is sold, the state and town charge the seller a conveyance tax,   a percentage of  the sales price of the house.   Holding back $50K  from the sales price  would result in  defrauding the state and the town of the conveyance tax which you would be participating in.     

I can definitely see paying under $1000 for courses  to fill in the weakness.   This seems like money well spent.  Some of these mentorship costs $50,000 !!!  Some of these these people  who spent the money have not yet  flipped a house.    One guy online wanted half of the profit you make with your money up to $250,000 for his good advice.   How many houses do you have to flip to recoup that kind of money?  My guess is that this kind of high  powered mentionship works for a few people. 

There  appears to be more house flipping gurus making  tours of the country offering FREE house flipping talks at hotels  including meals and free gadgets.  This is all Advertised to be  FREE!  Has anyone gone to any of these events?  How do they fund such operation going from cities to cities with a staff of workers?  Have anyone tried the online  house flipping courses? 

I have bought 6 HUD properties in Connecticut in the past two years. Property Condition Report on the plumbing of the properties stated either hold pressure or does not hold pressure. All were winterized by HUD. Without exception, ALL SIX HOUSES had copper pipe damages, some more than others but never less than 5 pipes (l live in CT). All inadequately winterized or winterized after the freeze damage. Does it cost much to fix a ruptured copper pipe or replace valves. No. Some shark bites and half inch or 3/4 inch copper pipes. As previously mentioned here on some houses I too have replaced most of the valves in the kitchen and the bathrooms. Baseboard radiators with copper pipes were damaged as well. Most of the repair cost less than $1000. In all six houses with freeze damage, Furnace escaped the wrath of the winter. Good luck to you!

I had bought  Starbucks stocks over a decade ago which I sold recently.  Interests from the bank was a meager 1% at best.  Since I have done over 20 flips  in Connecticut, I  have used some of the cash for my flips and used the rest for  hard money lending  to the other flippers for interest ranging from 9-12% and 2-3 points.   It is really beautiful to have some passive income!    I am looking for more experienced  investors needing  hard money in Connecticut.   Of course, now that I have read Zachery Buffin's comments, I may be  looking for 3/2 ranchers! 

When a kitchen contractor put a mechanics lien on my property over $1500 after doing shoddy work, I hired a lawyer.   He filed a mechanics lien even though I told him I  would pay  him $500 to part  ways.  Similar to your situation, this contractor did good work on three prior kitchens but the fourth was different.  He was a licensed contractor.  My  lawyer forced the contractor to get a lawyer to respond to him.  I think he sent him a bunch of  certified letters.   This cost him money and hassel.  Then my lawyer told his lawyer that he will take him to court.   The contractor did not want to go to court.  Then my lawyer  made them take the lien off.  My lawyer  then told him that filing a mechanics liens for no good reason tainted the title of my property and they should pay a penalty  for that.  To summarize:   Contractor paid me $1000 and took the mechanics lien off my property.  This process took about 4 months.

Since you already have a real estate license, take a dive and try to sell the house yourself.  You already have an opinion about your agent...your hunch is probably right.  You will be saving thousands of dollars and get some control of how the house is being marketed.  

If you stage the house yourself, you only need to rent  living room furniture, which should be about $300 per month.    Then go to places like Marshalls and get home decorations and flowers and towels for the bathroom.  Get light colored items...no brown or gray.  That should cost you less than a couple of hundred dollars.  Look up other houses in the area that were staged and sold for inspiration.  

Then invest in a nice camera and take the pictures yourself.   I only saw the exterior picture.  Exterior pictures of the house  looks best when  angled and needs to be LIGHTENED.  Dark pictures are not appealing to the public.  Since it is your house, you will be invested in improving the listing as you learn.  You should have about 30-40 pictures of  your listing.  Need at least 5 pictures of the kitchen alone.  

If you can rehab the house, you can sell the house. It does not take much to learn to put the listing in the MLS. Look at all the agents around you who are doing it lol. Good luck to you!