All Forum Posts by: Steve Babiak

An appraiser can get access to the MLS.

As Jon mentions, the access is controlled by local entities. Where I am, it is called "Trend"; Trend has their own website and has documents regarding the rules of MLS access through their service. I believe broker supervision to be one requirement.

Of course, there is the "disallowed" access. All realtors get their own login and password; if you find one willing to share it with you... But the MLS controlling entities have rules against that, and that realtor could lose their access if this is discovered.

Originally posted by Adrian Gutierrez:

... I just dont like smaller rentals ...

Adrian,
Maybe you should explain what you don't like, so that others could advise you whether you would get more of the same - but on a larger scale - with the bigger buildings you want to buy.

Now, just to clarify my first post in this thread. In PA, the 10 days period is more of a deadline. If recorded within those 10 days, then the documents are considered as if they had been recorded on the date and time that they were signed and not the day that they were presented to the county recorder. Failure to get the recording done in those 10 days sets the recorded date as the timestamp that the recorder places on the documents.

So in the case of two loans to purchase signed in the title company on the same day, if recording is done within 10 days, the document that was signed first (usually the bigger of the two loans) will get first lien position.

Now, there is one thing I neglected to mention that could also change lien priority of things. That happens when there is a subordination clause or subordination agreement, where the loan that is to get in back has that so stipulated in the documentation. But most of the time, nobody wants to get behind anybody else when the time to foreclose arrives.

If the bank is putting the property on the market, then one of a few things has happened.
1. Defaulted borrower has been foreclosed and it is now REO.
2. Defaulted borrower has given the bank a Deed-in-Lieu and the property is now REO.
3. Defaulted borrower has abandoned the property, and the bank has secured the premises as stipulated in loan documents. The bank will still have to finish the ofreclosure to get the deed in this case, but they could start marketing and listing to sell.

You find out lender position by being aware of laws in the state/county where the mortgages were recorded. Usually, it is first-recorded is in first-lien position; later recorded docs take subordinate lien positions.

If the county is online, you could probably just go to the website to see the recorded dates on the mortgages there.

Not sure if this will help or not, but if there is an attorney performing the foreclosure for the lender, then you might be able to persuade the attorney that at auction you will bid more than the short sale price they are looking at. The attorney could then take that back to the lender to let them measure where their loss will be lowest.

I guess we need to have the OP - Kel - tell us the type of auction that is being considered.

There are estate sale auctions (title should be unencumbered, but disclosures on day of sale are the rule); there are foreclosure auctions (trustee sales or sheriff sales - buyer beware of encumbrances, title blemishes and liens); and then there are the auctions of REO inventory. I have even seen what appeared to be bankrupt owners' property get auctioned.

So knowing the type of auction will help to pin down the risks involved in bidding.

If you are fortunate enough to be looking in the right places, some counties will give the reason. I see things like "postponed to [date]", "bankruptcy", "stayed", "sold for costs", "sold to third party", and probably others that I can't remember offhand.

"Sold for costs" end up as REO; "sold to third party" can sometimes end up as REO too (when a junior lien holder put in a bid to cover debt owed to him, and ended up highest bidder).

The "postponed", "stayed" and "bankruptcy" listings are candidates to find their way back onto the for sale list in the future; they also present other possiblities as mentioned by Dan's earlier posting.

Often, the sale can be be delayed when there is a signed arm's-length contract for sale of the property, so they don't always make it back to auction.

And I did see (at least once) a default get cured in time to prevent the auction, where the foreclosure judgment at the county prothonotary ended up becoming "vacated".

A PA attorney related a case of his; here is some background. In PA we have some interesting rules on recording order; I have copy-n-pasted here:
Title 42 Pa.C.S.A. Judiciary and Judicial Procedure
Part VII. Civil Actions and Proceedings
Chapter 81. Judgments and Other Liens
Subchapter C. Priority of Liens
42 Pa.C.S.A. § 8141
§ 8141. Time from which liens have priority
Liens against real property shall have priority over each other on the following basis:

(1) Purchase money mortgages, from the time they are delivered to the mortgagee, if they are recorded within ten days after their date; otherwise, from the time they are left for record. A mortgage is a "purchase money mortgage" to the extent that it is:

(i) taken by the seller of the mortgaged property to secure the payment of all or part of the purchase price; or

(ii) taken by a mortgagee other than the seller to secure the repayment of money actually advanced by such person to or on behalf of the mortgagor at the time the mortgagor acquires title to the property and used by the mortgagor at that time to pay all or part of the purchase price, except that a mortgage other than to the seller of the property shall not be a purchase money mortgage within the meaning of this section unless expressly stated so to be.

(2) Other mortgages and defeasible deeds in the nature of mortgages, from the time they are left for record.

(3) Verdicts for a specific sum of money, from the time they are recorded by the court.

(4) Adverse judgments and other orders, from the time they are rendered.

(5) Amicable judgments, from the time the instruments on which they are entered are left for entry.

(6) Writs which when issued and indexed by the office of the clerk of the court of common pleas create liens against real property, from the time they are issued.

(7) Other instruments which when entered or filed and indexed in the office of the clerk of the court of common pleas create liens against real property, from the time they are left for entry or filing.

OK, now that you get totally confused by that, check the line beginning at "(1)" - notice that there is a ten day requirement for the recording to be done in PA. Well, in this attorney's case, there were both first and second purchase money mortgages taken out on the same day, but the recording did not happen in ten days time. And when the county recorder got the instruments, the lower dollar amount mortgage was recorded first in the recorder's book. That made it the first mortgage in priority, an inverse of what one would expect.

So, maybe you are seeing a bigger dollar mortgage and assuming it is first, but maybe there is something in your state similar to the recording rules that I just presented. Maybe the bigger loan actually came in second!

I have to hand it to RIch on his post also (and voted it a plus too). Figuring out how to lower tax burdens is a topic worthy of heavy discussion. Not intending to hijack this thread, but maybe Rich can start another one where he helps to enlighten us on how we can legally lower our tax obligations.

Originally posted by Stephen Hare:

My past work experience is construction so I would do all the work myself counting only for materials. It doesn't really need a lot of work on it. Mostly cosmetic.

...

My plan was to wholesale it based on the discount I'm getting and the fact that I have no cash to finance a property. If I could find a way to finance it and afford my current rent payment I would fix it up and rent it out. But again, I need to build myself up some cash and work on repairing my credit.

My take on those two quoted paragraphs is that they contradict each other. If repair cost is estimated based on the "wholesaler" doing the labor (see first paragraph), then that "wholesaler" had better volunteer for supplying the free labor to the end buyer he wholesales it to.

Can't be doing both of "work on repairing credit to buy" and planning to do work by swinging a hammer (on that house that he can't afford to buy).