Real Estate Advice

[EternalEnigma21]

Originally Posted by jsarno

Well, I put in a hot tub, and built a new deck as well as put in new electrical service and redid the kitchen with granite tile tops and new sink with new plumbing.
Not only that, but the market has jumped considerably out here. A house that was 100k 3 years ago, is now worth 150-167k. It's quite a jump.

I'm excited. I close this week on my new house and were spending 280k. Our appraisal came back at 370...

I know its a weak market here, but its nice to know Im starting out with a little bit of equity, according to all comps and data...

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by canthetuna

I'm excited. I close this week on my new house and were spending 280k. Our appraisal came back at 370...

I know its a weak market here, but its nice to know Im starting out with a little bit of equity, according to all comps and data...

Sounds like you are stealing that house. Good job.

We did that with our second house in Woodbridge. Saw it at an open house an offered 10K less than asking price because we thought they were so off in their price(too low) that maybe they'd go lower. They countered 5k more and we took it. Sold it 14 months later for 115K profit. They missed the price piont so badly on it. There was major development going on just two blocks away on the Occoquan. Building like a mini downtown Alexandria and everything was going to sky-rocket. I still can't believe they sold it for what they did.

[EternalEnigma21]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

Sounds like you are stealing that house. Good job.

We did that with our second house in Woodbridge. Saw it at an open house an offered 10K less than asking price because we thought they were so off in their price(too low) that maybe they'd go lower. They countered 5k more and we took it. Sold it 14 months later for 115K profit. They missed the price piont so badly on it. There was major development going on just two blocks away on the Occoquan. Building like a mini downtown Alexandria and everything was going to sky-rocket. I still can't believe they sold it for what they did.

This house is a forclosure. The bank, however is taking a bath and we sent in a lowball offer 30k off their recently reduced asking price and they countered... then we re-sent the origninal with a 24 hour expiration date and they just accepted...

we took a shot and it paid off... We've put in 6 other offers on other forclosed homes in the area that we didn't get, but we liked this house the most anyway...

The market right now is soft because of all of the ARMs and people getting into houses they couldn't afford and getting forclosed on. Banks are looking to move houses out of their possession and new forclosures are hitting the market daily....

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by canthetuna

This house is a forclosure. The bank, however is taking a bath and we sent in a lowball offer 30k off their recently reduced asking price and they countered... then we re-sent the origninal with a 24 hour expiration date and they just accepted...

we took a shot and it paid off... We've put in 6 other offers on other forclosed homes in the area that we didn't get, but we liked this house the most anyway...

The market right now is soft because of all of the ARMs and people getting into houses they couldn't afford and getting forclosed on. Banks are looking to move houses out of their possession and new forclosures are hitting the market daily....

Good.. Punish the damn banks for their sketchy ARM loans. Damn idiots may have done some serious damage to our housing market with all their crappy loans.

ARMs and all their avriations basically extended the housing boom artificially by letting people buy houses they couldn't afford. Now that all the loans are defaulting the same ARM loans that kept the good times rolling will have an even greater negative effect as they will continue to degrade the market and keep it down longer than it should be. As an investor that is good for me since it means I will be able to get into properties cheap but overall it is bad for the economy.

[jsarno]

Originally Posted by canthetuna

I'm excited. I close this week on my new house and were spending 280k. Our appraisal came back at 370...

I know its a weak market here, but its nice to know Im starting out with a little bit of equity, according to all comps and data...

WOW...that's a great deal for you.
Fix it up a little, add some things here and there that make it more appealing to others, and you could easily get a return of 100-120k. Congrats man, you hit the jack pot there!