All Forum Posts by: Sheryl Griffin

@Raj Tekchandani

There's alot of people on this BP website that can help you if you put "notes" up in the search bar or in the community section under forums. Look for "MEETUPS" in your local market, too.

Thank you for your input. I agree. The MLS listing also indicated home was built in 1949, we further investigated during our 10-day, and found home was circa 1939. We did, however, go ahead and ask for a price reduction, since this still seemed like a good deal. They rejected our offer this morning. Waiting on mutual release and getting our EMD back to move on to the next!

Thank you! The property was listed at 4,936 SF and ended up being 4,476 sf.  This put the house into a new comp arena.  Original comps were based on 4,936, 4/4 resulting in $490K to $530K.  Dropping just 500 sf put the house with 4/4's in the $385K to $400K range.  All comps were based on 3/4 mile to 1.25 miles out which is stretching it for us.  Unfortunately, homes in the closest vicinity were hard to compare since the last sold house was 2008.  Going back even as far as 270 days is what we were forced to base our comps on.  The homes on the 2 mile stretch of road all sold for over $500K to 1.2 million back in 2001 - 2008, but even then, DOM's exceeded 200+ days, but none have sold since making comps difficult.  When doing a flip, accuracy is key, as carrying costs will eat our lunch - so we had to ask for the reduction to stay within our anticipated DOM.  They rejected our offer this morning.

 Thank you for your suggestion - we went ahead with a price reduction request.  I'm sure it was very offensive to them, though, since they rejected our offer this morning.

@Aaron Lovett,  Very wise words. Thank you for your feedback on this - I appreciate your input.  That was the issue, the house was off from the comp beds/baths, so we were using the SF and adding bed to match existing comps.  The house was originally 4,956 sf, 3/2, with room to add 4th bedroom to match existing comps within same SF/bedroom range.  Tax records indicated 4476 sf and then contractor and flooring people came up with matching sf indicated in tax records of 4476 also.  Unfortunately, the difference in the 500 sf substantially put the home into another comp arena, hence the reason for our request for price reduction.  We also discovered in our 10-day inspection that the tax records say circa 1939, but the owner and realtor say 1949. We never went further to verify age, since our request for price reduction was rejected.  This is a good lesson for others, too.  

@Kenneth Garrett Thank you!  I've actually never gone to the tax assessor's office before I made the offer, but I will now.  Makes total sense!  Yes, I will start with a price reduction, but Realtor is pretty sure they won't take it, but at least it will be in their court to say "no".

Offer accepted, 3rd day of due diligence, and in measuring the house, the sq. ft is off from listing almost 500 SF, then Realtor looks up tax records to confirm, and indeed it's off by 500 sf. Any suggestions where to go with this in our 10 day inspection period? Earnest deposit is paid. This is a fix and flip an it just totally threw us into another category of comps, leaving us with lower comps up to $100,000 less than our original ARV.

@Account Closed, thank you. The house is actually in Indiana - laws are a little different apparently. My partners just informed me that if seller is asking for a couple more days then I also need to request extension for my 10-day inspection (expires midnight tonight) also to protect my EMD.

 Not yet, but the inspector said that he's sure it's there because of all the photos of actual "green" growth and the moisture and damp wood rot throughout the house where there had not been rain or snow this winter.  He, of course, suggests the air quality test next, but that's another cost out of my pocket, and I don't want to spend too much if I'm not even going to get the house.  Hence, the price reduction request, and back to the seller to remedy, inspect further or lower price.

@Franco Li Thank you for your valuable insight. All of which I will render food for thought, as this one is a "new" one for me and you gave me lots to consider. As far as not losing the EMD, though, I believe that might be where they are trying to indicate sold "as is" - mold included. From this experience, I'm thinking in the future I might include the words in connection to the 10-day inspection period sentence, "will purchase as-is with exception of health hazards discovered during 10-day inspection". I don't know, what do you think?