HUD Update #1

We have not heard from HUD yet as to whether I lost the bid b/c of no loan commitment. Apparently this is new protocol. They used to use the banks pre-approval my realtor sent over but now they are requring the bank to put it on their letter head or something. Why my lady at the bank can't just do that and if I can't find a buyer/other funding I'll lose my EMD? It's my risk... She is very, very, very conservative. I liked my residential loan lady at this bank better. I'm currently under the commercial side of things. I want to ask for a new person but I'm SURE I would be rocking the boat so I'll just bide my time here.

Anyway, I was given the number of a lady who works with hard money lenders in the area and called her this morning. I gave her the information and will hopefully be hearing back from her today with some good news. My contractor went out over the weekend and said the water in the basement is due to grading/no gutters. This is what I thought. Is it possible I'm actually learning something? Soooo, I truly think this is a great deal I just need someone to agree with me and give me some moola for the transaction (or at least a loan commitment).

Wish for some good news...

Yet another Hiccuup

Sooo, I get a VM from my mortgage lady today at 5pm saying that she needs more information on "this house on 7th" (which is my new HUD property). I call her back and she asked about the property. I proceed to tell her that it is a 3/1, 1 car detached garage, nice lot, nice town etc... Then she proceeds to tell me that I have maxed out my $120k pre-approval amount and she cannot give me a loan commitment on this property. Urrrgh. Why did she even ask about the property?! AND why is everythng so damn difficult! She basically said since we have not sold the 2/1 in Lake Geneva she could not commit on this loan. I gotta tell ya, I kinda knew this might happen. I mean, did I really think they would give me unlimited funds? It would be nice but I have been waiting for the "ax to drop". So now I have to find out if the whole deal will fall through if they do not get commitment. I called my realtor and she has not called me back. My inspector is going out tomorrow to take a look at the basement so al this may be a non-issue if there are major issues. AND since this is a HUD property they are extremely hard to show prior to closing. I may have to pay my realtor off to get a key, show and just take the chance. I need to get a buyer fast. I hate the fact that she tells me this on Friday at 5pm so I have no chance in contacting anyone else before Monday. Now just have to think about it all weekend..........

Side note: I am going to through my POS computer on the floor and stomp on it. It is so friggin' slow it drives me absolutely CRAZY doing anything on it. I mean I am so annoyed right now. And there must be something wrong with the keyboard. I type fast and now letters are not coming up so I have to watch everything I type to be sure all my letters pop up.

Why can't anything be easy?!?! Because everyone would be doing it, right?! I know... Monday I'll be calling banks in the town where this property is located AND calling a couple hard money lenders to see if they are still lending.

I've got to get off this computer before I throw it against the wall. Later..........

HUD Property

We got a HUD property under contract Monday! It is a 3/1, 1.5 story home with a 1 car detached garage in a really cute town. There is almost no work that needs to be done BUT there is water in the basement. I'm pretty sure I know why the water is getting in but will be having my inspector go through when we get all the paperwork sent in. It seems HUD has changed their policy to allow 15 days for inspection after getting the property under contract vs. 24 hours or something crazy like that! There are several homes that have sold recently in this town and the average sale price is $120k. We have ours under contract for $50k and I'm allocating $15k for repairs assuming of course, that the water in the basement is due to no gutters. If it's not b/c of the missing gutters this deal will change immensely. If the water is due to the gutters I think we have a pretty good deal here! We need a good flip baaad. I'll let ya'll know how the inspection turns out.

We close on our next rental this Friday. Nothing too exciting about this one... everything is already in place.

The condo deal is still a possibility. Apparently the "investor" that the bank was pushing the deal on is either not interested or their offer is lower than mine. Now the bank in pursuing the owner of "phase 2" of the condo complex. He has already said he wasn't interested but I guess they are trying everything they can to get the best "bang for their buck". Can't say I blame them. And in all actuality, I'm not real sure I'll be able to pull this deal off anyway. Maybe if the the "money man" came through it might be a possibility. However, it's not something I am pushing right now. I'm really bad at this kind of stuff...

There are a couple other REO's I'm looking at but nothing but the HUD in the pipeline.

I've decided to take the week after the 4th of July off. I haven't had a week off without being pregnant or a newborn in my arms for over 5 years!!! I think I'm going to head on over to my familys lakehouse for the week and have a few cocktails, sit in the sun, have a few cocktails, play with the kiddies, have a few cocktails, you know, just chill out. I've been feeling very stressed and anxious and wound up about lots of things. And I've been feeling like I totally hate my job and want to walk out the door. Not a good thing : ) I need a break!

That's it for now!

Lightbulb?

I think I have an idea as to why I'm getting so frustrated/"lost" with my REI lately. First let me say that I'm trying to make monthly goals ala Steph's blog. I don't think I consciously thought about this months goal but it just kind of came to be while I was trying to work through my "lost" feeling. My goal is to just take a step back, relax and try to pinpoint my problem areas. I know this sounds like a lot but it's really not. It is just me trying to take a breather. So anyway, one of the reasons I think I'm getting frustrated is because I have not done a flip since April. It's been 2 MONTHS!! It's not that I haven't been doing REI at all b/c I've been renting out my condos, getting a new rental under contract and trying to sell my 2/1 (thanks Shae for pointing this out to me!). However what I have not been doing is getting properties under contract to flip. Of course it's not for lack of trying but we just haven't gotten a good deal yet. So when I get frustrated it's because I have nothing to flip and nothing on the horizon. I just have to keep reminding myself that we are moving forward in the long-term department and have to just keep submitting offers for the quick flip department! It will happen. I'm impatient and I want deals to happen faster than they do. I need to learn patience!

Updates

We found another renter for our 2nd condo. We should be signing the contracts this weekend. Yeah! Hopefully (and hopefully is the key word) we'll be done with these condos until next year. Or, if we're lucky, our renters will be great and want to stay another year! Each unit should cash flow $150/month.

We have another property under contract. This will be another rental for us. It was on the market a couple months ago and had an offer right away. That offer fell through and then we jumped on it again. It is right in our town, huge house, huge yard, detached 2 car garage, cash flow approx. $350/month. It is currently rented through August '10 to the same family that's been in it for the previous 2 years. I think this is a good investment and fits with my current goals.

I have been submitting a lot of offers lately. I'm trying hard to get another flip under my belt SOON! There are a few houses that have been sitting out there a long time and the bank "just wants to get rid of". However, their idea of price and my idea of price are still pretty far apart. My offers are very low b/c I want to be sure I'm not stuck with another property I don't intentially want to keep - ha, ha. So we're looking at offers in the $30's and $40's. We submitted on a property last week that has been on the market over a year. It needs almost no work, very cute house and has been sitting for a price of $104k. No one is touching it. Why? I'm really not sure but the lising agent told us to "just make an offer". Soooo, I offered $45k knowing I would negoitate a bit. Using the 70% rule I put a FMV of $89k minus $5k repairs minus $10k wholesale fee I was sitting at $47,300k. Anyway, the listing agent asked my agent if my offer was a joke and the seller (who is in FC by the way) countered at $99k! Only $5k off list price. I about fell over when I saw that. The house has been on the market for OVER A YEAR! Whatever, I told my agent I wasn't coming up if she wasn't willing to negotiate and that I would wait for the bank to take possession. I felt kinda mean saying that but, really, what a dumbass.

We were called on another property we made an offer on a while ago because the bank "wants to sell". Yeah, I've heard that before! It is listed at $84.5k and my offer is $35k. This house needs lots of work. It is another big, big house with an attached garage but, again, it needs a lot of work and it sits on a busy street with a pretty small yard. We'll see what they say.

The 5 condo deal has been brought to the surface again. It seems the other "investor" submitted an offer close to mine but the bank hasn't accepted anything yet. These properties would cash flow about $175/month/unit for this year. If I got them I would fight the assessment and get the taxes lowered so they would cash flow another $125ish/month/unit next year for a total of $300/month/unit. If I got these units I would be well on my way to my August 2011 end date! Focus, focus, focus. I really want/need a quick flip though! We'll see how it all pans out.

I just got off the phone with my realtor who has a potential "money man" for me. Someone who is looking to invest in real estate without doing much. Maaaaan, if I had access to unlimited funds at a decent rate that would be fantastic! Just fantastic. I don't know if this will pan out either but we need to go down all avenues!

Okay, I think I've said enough and caught up on my blogging. It's been over a week! We were sooo busy last weekend. My husbands sister/nieces were in from Atlanta and I took 2 days off so we kept busy visiting with relatives.

Anyway, hopefully I'll have something pop soon.

One more thing... I still have not sold the 2/1 in Lake Geneva. Crap. I'm going to list as a rental and see if anyone is interested. If not I'm going to list for a loss.

Baby Steps

As I stated in my last post I'm feeling a little overwhelmed right now. I know what my issues are (at least some of them) and need to attack them the best I can. One of my issues is time management. Since my husband has gone back to work my RE time has gone waaay down and my stress level has gone waaay up. Of course it's a good thing that he's back to work but it can definately be challenging trying to work things into my schedule. I feel like I've got a million things on my plate and one of the reasons I feel that way is b/c I am not organized. I am a terrible procrastinator and terribly unorganized. It's a wonder I make it through a day sometimes (I'm sure you will find this quote in earlier posts - heehee). At any rate, my first "baby step" was to get out a handheld notebook given to me by my title company 2 months ago. I've been writing my 'to dos' in the book all week and I've actually accomplished a lot. I'm feeling very good/productive about that. I need to keep this up and more productive actions will follow suit!

Struggling to get back on track

Okay, I had the meeting with the mortgage lady and it was kind of a waste of time. Well it wasn't really a waste of time as much as we could have done it ALL over the phone. It ended up that she gave me a loan application to fill out and she was going to talk to one of her commercial loan officers this week. I'm pretty confident that isn't going to happen unless I constantly harrass her. It was also apparent that there was not going to be any zero downpayment loans coming my way. However, she did stress the no payments for 6 months which I liked. The commercial loan officer she is going to talk to is the same guy I worked with last year on a simo flip. My buyer used him and he is the reason I called this bank. The reason I did not call this guy in particular is b/c his branch is so far away from where I buy. In hindsight I should have called him anyway, he is the guy I should have been talking to. Well, at least I got in to see her and I will fill out the loan app and see what happens. It never hurts to build more relationships in this business.

I have not been listing my weekly goals b/c... well, I'm not sure? I feel kind of "lost" and overwhelmed now. I have 4 books at home I want to read but I only get through about 5 pages a night in 1 book. The first is my real estate license book which is HUGE and I just can't seem to get through it. The second is the Dave Ramsey book I was given (which I NEED to read!). The third and fourth books are the new landlording books I ordered last week. Since I have no freakin' clue what I am doing in this area I thought I should read up on it.

I am also "lost" because that 2/1 in Lake Geneva is still not sold. In fact, I'm having a hard time finding someone interested in renting the damn thing. I have totally lost faith in myself. I must say it's a pretty crappy feeling! I'm seriously thinking about lowering the price another $10k and taking a loss just to be rid of it. I would lose about $3k, I think.

I'm pretty close to finding a 2nd renter for my condos. There is a 2nd showing today and they seem like a nice family so... cross your fingers. The issue with this property though is that I've got my 20% downpayment tied up (which equals about $28k). I use a unsecured LOC so my payments are almost $650/month ALONE. I need to get this property refinanced so I can get my money out.

With all this said I am still putting offers on on various properties. However I am nervous about each and every one - "will I find a buyer", "will I be able to close w/o a buyer", "are my numbers right", etc., etc... As I said above I've lost faith in myself. I have NOT lost faith in the business and know that people make bad decisions at times but it still sucks. I know I will learn from this but I just want to move forward. I feel stagnant right now, you know, like I'm spinning my wheels. I need those wheels to hit the pavement again. It will just take time.

I've got to go back to work... hope everyone is having a good week.