Monday, September 28, 2009

FINALLY... a successful closing!

What a relief! The closing on Friday went off without a hitch! WOO HOO. I was starting to get a little worried about never doing another successful flip. I guess that is what patience, determination and persistence will get you - a successful flip. I am so relieved I can't even tell you! So we will make about $9.5k pre-taxes, nice. It has a been a looong time ... I hope it doesn't take that long again! We have another HUD under contract that is supposed to be closing the end of October (haven't advertised yet as we do not have signed contracts back) and we are set to close on our condos the end of October also. Things are moving along.

There are several properties we are watching now. Yesterday we went looking at 4 and are making 3 offers. The 4th's location is just too bad to make even a low offer. This is a first for me... someone else can have it. On all 3 we are pretty close on price but we'll see how it plays out. I am hoping to close 2 more (for sure, maybe more) by the end of the year.

I was really looking at going to the KISS Flipping bootcamp next month but I just don't know?!?! I know the content will be excellent and I will get the course but I just do not have the $2k now to go. Well, we have it from the flip but there are many, many, many other bills that need to be paid.

Gotta run.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Making offers again

It looks like Fridays closing should be on schedule for the HUD property. I can not believe how many phone calls I got from our yellow sign in the front yard! Whew. I wish all my properties had that much interest. I'll be looking in this area again!

We signed the offer on our condos. We'll be losing a little on this one too (just getting that all out of our system!) but we'll free up our LOC for downpayment money on future flips! I just hope the bank doesn't close it once we pay it down!

We put in 2 more newspaper ads for the comeback house. I'm hoping something will pop on this one soon!

We have 2 other interesting HUD properties we're looking at. I submitted lowball offers and they came back with decent counters. Hopefully we'll be looking at them this weekend.

There are also about 6 other properties we will be submitting offers on next week most likely. We'll see what happens!

Gotta run!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

HUD/condo Updates

Our accepted offer for the HUD property is still on schedule to close next Friday but the buyer is being weird about the boiler. Of course this stresses me out a little. The HVAC guys were in there yesterday and need to come back tomorrow b/c there the boiler is not holding pressure... great but not surprising. We wrote up the offer as selling the property "as is" and he knew it was an old boiler however he keeps pushing for us to pay for it. I'm really bad at dealing with this kind of stuff b/c I want the deal closed but I don't want to pay for things we shouldn't be paying for. On a brighter note, we are getting a ton of calls from the sign I put in the front yard (just in case this buyer backed out). I have one secondary offer and probably could have had another if I offered it as an option. The secondary offer I have would be a full price cash offer with a quick close.

We got the offer for the condos last night. It is a bit less than I wanted to sell for so we countered but I think he is going to hang tough on his offer. We have another buyer going through tomorrow but I think he is only interested in buying 1, not both. I would rather sell both at once.

Nothing happening with the comback house.

I have restrained on making offers but am watching a couple houses to see where they are at when I AM able to make offers!

OOOHH, one more thing. The local bank I was trying to build a relationship by refinancing the condos is going to finance my next HUD deal. Yeah, another local bank to do deals. This bank is in the other county I do deals so it's a win-win, I hope. Options... I like options!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Positive thinking

I've been trying to change my way of thinking these days since my negative approach just isn't working : ) Every time I start a negative thought or start worrying about something that is not in my control I say, "God grant me the serenity". Yep, that's all I would say b/c I couldn't remember the rest but now I just looked it up online:

"God, grant me the serenityto accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference."

It seems to calm me down. It's my goal to not get so worked up and stressed about things. I know it will happen from time to time but I want to limit those times. I actually did pretty good about the Lake Geneva property ("house from hell") that fell through. I just can't change it and can only move on and try to find another buyer. Hopefully it will be soon.

More good news. My buyers property inspection last night went okay, nothing for him to back out about. They could not get the boiler on so that is the only sticking point now but I think it will be okay. Also, we are getting an offer on the condos tomorrow. Hopefully that will work out too b/c these buyers have another set of units in the complex so financing should not be an issue.

That is it for now. Gotta run.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

I - Must - Stop.......

submitting offers until I clear out some of my inventory! The offer that we have on the "house from hell" (2/1 in Lake Geneva) may be falling apart - again. It has not completely crumbled yet but the signs are there. They were concerned about the foundation so I got a guy out there this weekend who said it was totally fine. There were a few other things (which I consider minor) from their inspection that they want money to fix. I'm not going to bore you with what they want because, honestly, I don't even know for sure. However, their realtor said if we would lower the price she may be able to get it done. I told my realtor to GET THE PLACE SOLD! Sooo, I'm not sure if it is going to get to closing or not? If we do come down in price I will be losing about $5k instead of the $3k I had anticipated. Does this make me happy? Of course not but I need to clear these properties out.

We have someone interested in the condos - no contract - but interest. I'll leave it at that for now.

The buyer for the HUD property we just closed on has his inspection tomorrow night. Hope all goes well! The electric came on fine and the plumber was out this morning and only saw a couple of small things. I'm only worried about some sagging in the floor (which my guy looked at 2x) and the boiler.

That's it for now.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

You just never know...

So as you all know, I often put in very, very low bids on HUD properties just to see where they counter. Yesterday I submitted 3 offers and 1 was actually accepted. Crap. Yes, I said crap.

First, if they accepted my first offer it was too high!

Second, I am not really familiar with this area however I know the price is right. It is the only 3br/2ba for sale in this particular town.

Third, and most important, we are broke (as I commented in a previous post). Even though we are broke I am continuing down the RE path. I'm determined to be successful one way or another. If we are not successful we are going to go down in a HUGE bon fire! ha, ha. No it's not really funny b/c I do not want to fail. I have 2 years to create a replaceable income. Every day when I drop my kids at daycare it lights a fire under my ass to keep going. My husband thinks I am out of my mind b/c he knows our financial state but I just need to find buyers before we close (at least that's what I keep telling myself). Anyhoo, the problem we are having is that we don't have EMD money anymore and the holding of the 2/1 in Lake Geneva and the condos is killing us. I have been trying to re-fi the condos to get rid of the high interest LOC but the bank keeps pushing it off. Each time I talked to the mortgage guy he made it sound like it was a done deal, just needed a couple days for title and that was it. I emailed him today and he wants all kinds of shit now. Urrrgh. If we had it refinanced we wouldn't be in this financial predicament. This is another small local bank that I've been trying to build a relationship with but he's making it difficult. The current bank we work with wanted 6 months ownership b/4 they would re-fi me but I didn't want to wait that long. However, since this guy is taking so long I could just wait a couple more weeks to get it re-fi'd by my current lender without jumping through hoops.

There are 2 other properties I am going after. The first I am going to look at tonight. It has a great price listed and could be a real deal but we'll see when we get there. The second is another HUD property (shocker!). The offer I put in was rejected so I'm just waiting for 1 more price decrease and then it should be ours.

So what to do about the EMD's? Hmmmm, I have access to a small amount of cash through a credit card I could use? It just gives me a headache to think about it...

BTW, I try to post comments on other peoples blogs but for some reason I cannot type in the box. For some I can post comments, for others it seems like the comments box is not getting recognized. Has anyone else had that problem?