All Forum Posts by: Traci Lovelace

Don't pay for repairs before you own it.  That's too risky.  If something doesn't go through, you lose that money.  I know its tempting.  

HI Shawn - I am probably one of the least experienced buyers on this forum. We've purchased 2 HUD homes and 1 Fannie Mae home. We also bid on others that we did not get. I would certainly not want to misadvise you.

I do not believe HUD holds on to offers. Someone once published a formula of list price, time on market, and % of list price they would accept- you might want to look for that.

Things that will affect their flexibility include whether your offer is cash or requires financing (financing is riskier and takes longer to close) and how long they have had the property.

But for a brand new listing, they aren't going to be very flexible in my opinion.  Especially when they say in the listing that it must be a full price offer or better.

Others surely will have more experienced advice for you.

I have found that HUD is more flexible as the house sits on the market for a while. Sometimes, when they get a house, they send in an appraiser from another area and end up listing it for more initially than it was selling for before it was foreclosed on. If it's not a good buy, it will more than likely sit and they they will both reduce the price and be more flexible on what they will take.

Thank you.  I so appreciate having somewhere to vent and get advice.  In the end, I declined the additional fees, but I did give them the draw they asked for - because if they can't pay the extra guys they have picked up to finish, the job will be delayed even further.  And I told them they have to be finished Tuesday, no more excuses.  We'll see what happens.  I definitely learned a lot of lessons from this one.

Thank you both. I don't see the relationship continuing past this one job, but they are close to done and if possible I would rather them finish at the agreed upon original cost than try to find someone else. Since they are asking for money today I can't ignore the question but I would rather not turn it into a total adversarial relationship if possible.  Think I can finesse it?  Or do I have to be an a**hole?

The drywall contractor we picked has been a fiasco of drama, over runs and excuses after excuses.  They were supposed to be done on the 12th, which was an extension to begin with. 

Now, they are asking for $1000 more than the original invoice and a draw today. The original quote was $6800. The contract says pay materials up front, rest at end. They are running so late I have moved my floor guy twice And they are about to run up against my painter. I have remained polite, but the additional bill for things I feel they should have seen up front is really the last straw.  Looking for advice. Thanks-

I just call the City treasurer and ask where the real estate tax bills are mailed.

Our realtor said they are sending over an amendment which includes moving the closing date to the end of this month (It was originally 30 days out from the date the offer was written, June 8th).  I think it is being able to close before the end of the month that was the kicker.  I haven't seen the amendment yet, just happy to finally get the ball rolling.  

Update:  Fannie did indeed sit on our offer until another offer came in.  Then called for highest and best.

They accepted our offer this morning.  The property was listed at $105k.  The other bid was $100,100.  Our bid was $93,160.

Cash is king.  The other offer was a hard money loan and they couldn't close by the end of the month.

If it actually closes, this will be our first Fannie success.

I bet you are right, Jason.  Remember, I started my comments by saying we'd never successfully bid on a Fannie Mae property.  The only other one we really went after was a long drawn out thing that ended with another bidder getting the house for much more than we would have ever paid for it.

This property has had some interest and it's a good buy for us so we will raise our offer a bit and see what happens.