All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

On auction.com, a good property I was looking at has been racking up the bids-- jumped from an initial asking of 40k to like 140k and still 1 more day left to bid. My original hope had been to use my cash to buy it, and then secure hard money to rehab it. But now I definitely don't have anything above 140k cash to get it. The ARV of this house is between 235-250k (recent sales/comps). Haven't seen the inside of it... outside looks ok.

The hard money people I know don't give money unless they themselves first check out the place... and they don't give it in the 24-hour turnaround window auction.com wants. I don't have OPM (other peoples' money) to spend either haha. So this is the end of that deal for me.

What about you guys? Any creative ideas for those times when you don't have enough liquid cash of your own?

Thanks Wayne,

Can you point me to a good title company? I live in Connecticut (the auction.com house of interest is here too). I haven't ordered a title search before... any idea how many days it takes and how thorough it is? The property's going up for auction in two days. Looks like I will need to head back to town hall once again!

I think the best way is to get an REO realtor on your side. I used to know an REO realtor who had her list of cash buyers... she would give these buyers head's up when she got a new property before listing it and see if they were interested. If they offered her a price good enough, she would definitely have preference to sell to them.

If what you mean though is that you know a home foreclosed in your neighborhood and you know the foreclosing bank involved... well, unfortunately you can't offer anything on it. They will not even hear you. I tried contacting the bank on a property like this in my neighborhood and they told me I would have to wait. A year later, it was still foreclosed and the bank had not made any progress on it.

Thank, Joe. I was not aware about the title insurance issue for quit claims (that's a big deal!!).

I ran my own title search on that property by going to Town Hall and looking up the address. Looked fairly clean to me.... only 5 documents. We have a 2004 mortgage for 38k, some guy's 2006 power of attorney, 2007 quit claim deed (that's how the previous owner got the property), 2009 water lien against the previous owner of $223, and a 2013 foreclosure document on the previous owner. The owner of the property today is listed as US Bank National Association (the foreclosure bank).

I'm thinking these are things I can clear up pretty easily (maybe just pay off the balances), but I'm not sure how much further I need to dig. Or is this just the tip of the iceberg and I'm looking to hit something that could sink my ship?

Thanks,

I'm looking at a couple of properties on auction.com.

Here is what I know about a quit claim deed... you have ownership of the property but are liable for any liens or mortgages outstanding on the property.

Special Warranty Deed... you have ownership of the property and are guaranteed no issues for the period that the previous owner was in possession of the property but not if there are any liens or mortgages outstanding that predate the owner before you.

What kind of red flags should I look for in a property from auction.com that offers a quit claim deed vs one that offers a special warranty deed. None of the properties I'm interested in offer a general warranty deed.

It's my first attempt at a title search. Lots of questions came up, and I was just hoping for someone more seasoned than myself to take a look at what I found and give me some tips/recommendations. Thanks in advance for reading!!

I'm looking at some properties on auction.com, and thought I would do a title search on the better ones I think I can sell easily (I have no idea about the kind of work I'm looking at). No online database in my towns, so I had to physically go to Town Hall and look for the titles there.

Here's what I found on property 1 (the owner is listed a person):

• 1986 - Warranty Deed
• 1987 - MECL (what is this?? It lead to a blank paper and I couldn't figure out what this was)
• 1993 - Quit Claim Deed
• 1993 - Mortgage (the trouble starts here... this one was for 165k)
• 1996 - Mortgage (170k)
• 1996 - Assignment
• 1997 - Mortgage ($12,422)
• 1997 - Warranty Deed (didn't understand document very well)
• 1997 - Mortgage (165k)
• 1998 - Mortgage (168k)
• 1999 - Lien ($890.40... the legal document was saying that another city was putting a lien against the owner of the house for that amount... could not understand what it meant)
• 1999 - Mortgage (76k)
• 2003 - Mortgage (265k)
• 2006 - Warranty Deed (to someone in another city for 400k)
• 2006 - Mortgage (380k)
• 2009 - Lis Pendens (I still have to look this one up)
• 2012 - Lien (property taxes amounting to $380)
• 2012 - Lien (more property taxes, this one amounting to $109)
• 2013 - Mortgage (15k... how do they keep being able to get mortgages?)
• 2013 - Order (not sure what this is)
• 2013 - Foreclosure
• 2013 - Quit claim

I will be running for the hills away from this one... It was pretty much the same 2 people getting all these mortgages, by the way. But my big question (because I want to learn) is what does this mess mean? Are all these mortgages still outstanding?? Seriously, can like a billion dollars be owed on a property? If someone won this property at auction, how would they go about cleaning up all this mess?

The second property (owner listed as US Bank National Association):

• 2004 - Mortgage (38,200) (let's call the names on this document People #1)
• 2006 - Power of Attorney (this one is confusing because it says that someone's "attorney-in-fact" has the power to do real estate transactions of this house, but the name on this document is not the name of the owner prior to US Bank National Association or the name of the people on the 2004 Mortgage document)
• 2007 - Quit claim deed (from a Mr. & Mrs. (oddly, they were not the guy on the power of attorney document... or the 2004 Mortgage people) to the owner right before US Bank National Association)
• 2009 - Water lien ($223.58 for the owner right before US Bank)
• 2013 - Foreclosure document (US Bank National vs the previous owner)

This property seems much cleaner than the first one. I might take a shot at this one. Anything I'm missing? The secretary at the Town Hall suggested I do a title search by the owner's name... the owner before US Bank. She's says that's usually how people do it, but why is that? Why are different names coming up in my title search?

Third and final property (the owner is what looks to be a trustee)... I couldn't figure this one out. This Town Hall goes by Owner's name, not the property address... and the Owner was Equitysomething Inc, which looks like a trustee to me. When I looked them up, a whole bunch of documents and properties seemed to be coming up on the computer screen I was using and I got confused. I learned nothing about this property, and it was my last one after an afternoon of driving around to Town Halls so I called it quits. The secretary lady was telling me that if I buy it at auction, they will give me a clean title... my gut was telling me that's not true with auction.com based on what I read by you guys.

At least that's my plan lol.

Hello! I just joined the site after reading Brandon's blog. I'm a 28 year old stay-at-home mom from central Connecticut and have a little 1 year old baby. We've been doing fine on one income, but like everyone else on here, we could definitely use a bit more money! With a baby, I've realized that being a property manager to low-income housing is not something I'm comfortable doing. So I'm interested in getting into RE investing from the rehabbing side.

My ultimate goal is to acquire an apartment complex large enough to be run by a management company and have that wonderful passive income everybody drools over.

I'm a bit nervous about the whole game (I'm not even good at painting or hanging pictures!), but I'm excited to learn from everyone here!