All Forum Posts by: Shannon K.

I have also had people tell me "I don't want to bother, I'll just let the bank take it." Here in NY the foreclosure process is judicial and takes SO LONG that people feel they are often better off residing in their homes as long as possible and letting the marshalls throw them out on the last possible day. 

Over the summer, I noticed a previous high school teacher of mine's house came up for sale.... He was on the lis pendens list... since 2008!! It finally came up for sale in summer 2016. In that case, he was able to stay in his house for 8 more years without paying for it while declaring bankruptcy/whatever other legal strategy he used.

@Michael Karl, its just one person so far, but its two days in a row.... I just figured I would check on the rules/hours in case we were wrong... 

I would take it.  They gave exactly what you asked for... You were willing to accept that price since you chose that for the listing price and congrats, someone is willing to pay it!  Sounds good to me!

@Steven Payne, the air scrubber seems to be doing its job.  The carbon filter works to take out the musty smell from the house being closed up and vacant with stale air for so long. I'll run it another 2 days here til I return the machine. I'm in the house without a mask now and the musty smell has greatly diminished.

@Dumitru Anton, I never thought of a box fan with filters. I may try that next if I need to continue to improve the air quality in here as we work.  No a/c or heat ducts so we're fine with that, and there's no crumbly bad plaster lurking around... we already have most of the walls open.  The house was vacant for 5-6 years so the stale air was very noticeable. The house is stripped of all flooring, carpeting, ceiling tiles, pretty much everything... so some extra filtering should probably take care of this.

Plows on the roads and main streets and highways are definitely out there early.  I'm wondering about plowing an apartment complex parking lot. People hearing pavement scratching and snow smashing before 5am and getting woken up is irritating to some people.

I suppose people will complain either way.  5am and its too loud.  8am and they're snowed in and complaining about that too, haha. My partner is the one doing the plowing and he likes to get out there early to get a jump on it, so I just wanted to see what everyone else's timetables were like...

For anyone that gets a lot of snow like we do in Buffalo, do you guys have rules or a city ordinance that says how early you can begin to plow at an apartment complex? There's nothing on my city website and people are getting irritated how early in the morning it's being done (waking people up obviously)....

I find the same thing happens around here that @Phil Bach described.  Inexperienced new flippers are buying whatever they can get their hands on at/above list price since inventory is so low and they don't know enough about the numbers. Then the inventory is even further limited for the rest of us who know the numbers and aren't willing to pay list price.

MLS deals have been slim here, but hopefully next spring will prove different. I like to bid 8-10% off list price and even more if the numbers warrant it or the house has been sitting a while.

HUD properties were few and far between here the whole year. Now that I just picked up my most recent flip (HUD also), more and more and more HUD houses I'd love to buy are coming out! Middle of December!? Where were these deals all year??

@Greg D., as with anything in life, real estate is a risk... a calculated one, hopefully, but still a risk. What you've learned so far is not to make buying decisions based on emotion; to find competent agents and attorneys whom you are comfortable with that can explain properly and not pressure you; and to learn more about contracts and contingencies before you sign that contract. 

Everyone seems to share some culpability on this deal going south, but ultimately the responsibility lies with you for a bit of ill-preparation rushing into the deal. I hope you are able to correct this and proceed with something that suits you better.

Can you "fail" to get financing in any way?  Tell the lender you feel the financial burden is too high and you're not comfortable proceeding. Ask them to deny you? I'm not sure if that's even a possibility, but that just popped into my head here...