All Forum Posts by: Mark Freeman

I loved Grants first podcast. He is such a motivator! I probably listened to it 15 times. I couldn’t listen to Dave Ramsey again after that. I loved how he talked about creating and expanding - not contracting or keeping things small. I guess he is using some smoke and mirrors to keep his name out there. He said in that podcast (paraphrase) If you can get half of the country to hate you, you could be president!

@Laura Williams

I bought a REO once that had cement in the drains. Apparently the previous owner had done it on his way out. Luckily we had a wood subfloor and a decent crawl space and we were able to easily cut out and replace pipes once we figured out the problem. Yours seems much worse! I think I would fix the problem and move on. There's no telling what this guy might do if things escalate. Good luck!

RUN AWAY from the wholesaler!

They want to tie up your in demand property with no earnest money so they can walk away if they don’t find you a below market buyer.

DON’T DO IT!

I have gotten many properties for much less than LP and a lot of money off in escrow as well, but I think I would have a lot more money if I had bought ALL of the properties I missed out on by trying to get the best deal possible 😬.

(I bought a house in December that was listed for $175k. We went into escrow at $125k and then got $25k off in escrow. Final purchase price was $100k. It’s a flip, and I just listed it for $339.9k 🤞)

Switch lenders and get a new appraisal. Get a skilled real estate agent (other than yourself) to provide a list of comps to the appraiser that justify the value. (Have the agent explain the situation with the bad comp and asked that it not be used, or that major condition value adjustments need to be made).  A bad comp usually drops off after six months - so if it’s been over a year , the particular bad comp shouldn’t be a problem.

Get everyone out (and all of their stuff) at least one day before closing. Then do your walk through after they’re  out. (Try and get permission to change the locks as soon as they’re out).  Make it a condition of the close .... “escrow will not close before tenants have been out for at least 24 hours”. If they aren’t out in time - don’t close.

Nice margin! It looks like it worked out good for everyone - including the seller and the flipper. Congratulations!

@David Faulkner

 We had a fridge full of rotten food as well.   Thanks to the smell and lack of electricity they put it outside in the middle of the summer for a few weeks.  They had duck tape wrapped all the way around it several times.  We were curious to get it open and grossed out to find maggots everywhere.  It was nasty.  The thing smelled like something had died in it. We taped it back up, threw it in the back of the truck and took it straight to the recyclers, LOL.

@Taylor Silker

I would work both angles - keep trying to sell ASAP and looking for long term financing.  Construction loans can get bad fast by getting called up or charging outrages fees to extend the terms for short periods of time.  Airbnb might be a good backup plan if you can find permanent financing.

Use your credit card, and have a nice reserve for unexpected costs next time. (It is risky cutting it this close and there are often surprise expenses.)