Flip This Wholesaler

12/15/2008

Well, I had one closing this morning (yay!), and am supposed to have another one sometime this afternoon, but not sure if that's going to happen. This is the one where I'm using my buyer's title company because the buyer doesn't have an ID, and also, the bank is using a title company in Tampa which is a new one for me. I sense impending doom with this deal. I'm just waiting for the phone call any minute now. The attorney from my title company told me this morning to give him a call if I ran into problems, so that's always good.

The other 2 are supposed to close Friday, but I doubt they will. Would be nice, but I just don't see it happening. I'm leaving early next Tuesday to freeze my ass off in St. Louis for five days, so if the other 2 don't get closed by Monday, we'll have to wait until after the holidays, which is going to piss me off, but what can you do?

My buyer from the closing this morning told me he is ready for more. That is a good thing. I've got several other investors looking for more houses, too, so I'll be making offers like a mad woman this week and hopefully will get one more deal in before the end of the year (well, not closed, but at least under contract).

I still have to do a little Christmas shopping, and I can't think of anything I'd rather not do than set foot in a mall the week before Christmas. I don't know if I can do it. Maybe I will have a bottle of wine first and then take a cab to the mall. That should dull the pain a little bit...

Offers to make- gotta run..

11/26/2008

Well, it looks like out of the 4 deals that are supposed to close this week, not a single one is going to close on time. Dang. Should have kept my big mouth shut, huh? All four are being held up by the banks and/or their title companies. I have a feeling that one of them is not going to close at all. This is a deal that I am working with another wholesaler, and together, we are cursed. Every single deal we work on together ends up falling apart for one reason or another. It's the strangest thing. He was involved in the Shady deal, and we have worked on 4 or 5 deals since then, and none of them have panned out. This one was supposed to close Monday, but we do not have clear title yet, and I have a sneaking suspicion that there is going to be some sort of title problem that can't be resolved easily/quickly. Just a hunch I have, and have had it since the day we signed the contract. The buyer is a cash buyer and really wants the house, so there are no worries on that end. Which is good, provided we can get clear title.

Apparently everyone in the industry is taking this week off except me......I can't get a phone call returned to save my life. I called 4 realtors yesterday for lock box codes, and as of this morning, have not heard back from any of them. I got in the houses anyway, but that's beside the point. Hehe.

That's all I've got for today.

Happy Turkey Eve!

9/23/2008

I've been wondering what would happen if I got an REO under contract, and then never followed up (babysat) with the bank's title company or the listing agent like I normally do. I kinda figured it would go something something like this........









Yes, that's right- NOTHING happens!! Nada. The Deal From Hell was supposed to close a week ago today, and I have not heard 1 peep from either the listing agent, or the bank's title company. No extension of contract, no explanation of why we aren't closing on time....NOTHING. This, for once, is a good thing, because my buyer (who is a liar, btw), is still scrambling around trying to put the money together for the down payment (that she swore up and down to me 5 million times she had) on her hard money loan. I'm just really curious to see how this turns out. Technically, I could just call up the listing agent and the title company, and tell them I want my deposit back and am not interested in buying this property anymore. We are out of contract, after all.

The other deal that was supposed to close yesterday is still up in the air. Apparently there's still one lien hanging around that should have been wiped out in the foreclosure, but wasn't, so they may or may not have to start the whole process over again. Or something like that. This may or may not take a really long time. No one knows. No one cares. Well, except for me, because I like to get PAID. I got this property under contract in July, btw, and have a 5k deposit just sitting there at the title company, which makes me extra irritated.

I've got a whole mess of offers out there right now, so I'm fully expecting to get another one under contract by the end of this month. I'm making my offers lower and lower these days. Seems that a lot of the financial institutions are in a bit of a pickle right now, so I'd like to take full advantage of the situation. Hehe.

Have a fantastic Tuesday!

P.S.
I was looking through the recent sales on the mls last night, and saw a HUD property that was listed for 75k, and sold for 38k. Not bad, eh? You can't get deals like that, though, if you aren't making OFFERS!! So get on out there and make some offers, people!

P.P.S
I guarantee you right after I post this, I'll get a call from the listing agent of the Deal From Hell, telling me they want to close TODAY. Bastards.

9/20/2008

I just love the ups and down of this business.....one day you think you're going to close 2 deals in the next week and make ten grand, and then the next, you learn that both deals might crash and burn for reasons that you can not control. Gotta love it.

One of the deals "may" have a title issue that "may" take a few months to resolve. I have not been able to get a straight answer from the title company for a week and a half, so who knows what's going on. Every time I call the lady at the title company, she tells me she will know for sure by the end of the day, and she will call and let me know. Then she never calls, and we start the whole process over the next day. It's supposed to close Monday, but the likelihood of that happening is slim. The buyer, of course, is all ready to go.

The other deal (The Deal From Hell), the buyer is now telling me she is not able to come up with the down payment for the hard money loan that she assured me 500 times she had. So, unless she can come up with it by Monday, things are not looking good. I had a feeling this deal was doomed from the get-go, so I can't say that I am too surprised.

I never heard anything back from the mortgage broker who wants to see me burned at the stake. I was thinking, just for fun, of putting up an ad in the singles section of Craigslist for "men seeking men" with his phone number on it, along with a picture similar to this one:



Hehehehehe.

Gotta go make some offers. I've got about ten out there right now, and plan on making another ten or so this weekend. I've been averaging about 1 deal in every 25-30 offers lately, which is pretty good, I think. I tend to get side tracked, though, especially when I have deals that are going South, and people threatening me.

Au revoir!

9/16/2008

Well, I'm back from Illinois.

The wedding was a blast, and it was great to see old friends and family, but, after 5 days of rain and gray skies (and people asking me why I'm not married yet, and not believing me when I tell them I'm incredibly happy being single), I was delighted to be back in sunny Tampa.

One of the deals I have been working on (I will refer to it as "The Deal from Hell" from now on), has continued on it's downward spiral. I had a bad feeling about this deal from the beginning, and it has turned out much worse than I had anticipated. ..

Let's see.....It all started out when I agreed to take a post-dated check from a stranger for a deposit. This was just plain stupid on my part, and I deserved to have the check bounce.......And bounce it did... So, once I found out the check was not good, I called the buyer and told them they needed to get me the deposit in cash by 10 am the next day or I was cancelling the contract. I met them in the parking lot of their bank the next morning, and, after waiting for an hour or so (It was Friday, so there were at least seven thousand people there cashing checks and doing whatever it is that people do at banks on Fridays), I finally got the cash.

Once I got the deposit- we brought the contract to the hard money lender who is supposed to fund this deal. The lady who was working our file decided to quit (or get fired- we're not sure), the next day, and then the file basically got lost for a few days, until it finally resurfaced, and then the guy who does the inspections/appraisals for this lender, had a family emergency (his Dad died), so, once again, the file just sat there for a few more days......

This brings us up to yesterday, when my buyer finally got fed up with this hard money lender, and decided to look for a new one. I was still in Illinois at the time, and got a call from my buyer telling me they found another lender, but they would only lend part of the purchase price, and they still needed to find 26k from somewhere. At this point, I had pretty much written this whole deal off, and figured that this was going to be my first REO that I was going to have to back out of. It was supposed to close today, and I had no way of lining up financing to buy it myself in that short of time period, and I knew my buyer couldn't either. I still hadn't heard from the bank's title company, though, so I figured there might be a chance that they couldn't close today (this title company sucks ass and never gets deals done on time), and we could buy ourselves some more time.

So, first thing this morning, I get a call from the new lender that my buyer had found while I was gone. Boy oh boy did this guy catch me off guard.... He basically told me, in no uncertain terms, that he was turning me in to the Florida State Attorney's office because I was committing fraud by trying to sell a property that I didn't own, and also because I have been doing simultaneous closings, which, he says, are illegal. Like I said- he totally caught me off guard, and I ended up hanging up on him after he told me that my attorney was also going to jail for doing simultaneous closings. He ended up calling me back a few hours later and letting me know that I should be expecting a call from the FL State Attorney in the next day or so, and that he had told him all about my "fraudulent activity".

GOOD TIMES.

On a lighter note- the bank's title company can't close this deal until Monday at the earliest, and the original hard money lender for this deal is most likely going to do the loan for my buyer (we'll find out tomorrow), so this nightmare just might work out. I am not holding my breath, though...

P.S.
My attorney told me I have nothing to worry about, but I am still worried.

P.P.S.
I am giving myself a raise.

8/21/2008

So, I've decided to try a new tactic to get the bank's title companies to get my deals closed on time: BRIBERY.

I'm going to try it out on both of the deals I have going right now and see what happens. Once the file gets assigned to a processor, when I call to introduce myself, I'm going to tell them I pay $200 if the deal gets closed on time. I think that should be incentive enough to get my deals pushed to the front of the line- don't you think?

I'll let you know how it goes over.....

Roger Dodger, 10-4, Over and Out.

P.S.
Let's keep this strategy on the DL. Wink wink.

7/24/2008

Well, the deal that was supposed to close today did not close, and the one that is supposed to close tomorrow (the pink house that was supposed to close a month or so ago), is not closing tomorrow either.

Any guesses as to why they didn't close??

I'll give you a hint- it begins with a "B" and ends with a "ank's stupid-ass title companies."

My favorite part was this morning when they sent over an extension for the one that was supposed to close today (the one where my title company has been ready to close since last week and the lady at Watson bit my head off when I called her to see when we could close)...Anyway, so they send over this extension and tried to get me to pay $100/day for each day it goes beyond the original closing date!! HAHAHAHAHAHA!! At least they have a sense of humor along with being slow and rude and incompetent. I sent the extension back with the $100/day nonsense crossed out and a little note letting them know there is no way in holy hell that I am paying a single dime for their screw up. Haven't heard back, so I'm guessing they aren't going to press the issue.

Nothing else exciting to tell. I'm pretty close on another deal, but still going back and forth with the bank. We're 8k apart right now, and I'm not going any higher, so we'll see. I've already got a buyer lined up if I get it, so that's a bonus.

Roger Dodger. 10-4 Over and Out.

P.S.
If anyone has sent me an email recently, and I haven't responded, it's not because I'm an asshole, I am just really behind right now. I swear.

7/15/2008

The deal that was supposed to close last Monday, then Wednesday, then yesterday, funded today, so it's officially closed, finally. One of the wholesalers that I met about a month ago and who I have become fast friends with, is the one who brought me the buyer on this deal, and the deal that closed Friday was one that he had under contract and I brought him the buyer.... Soooooo...... we decided to head out to the beach to celebrate closing our first 2 deals together. We had a good time....



Meet Dave.


Rain in the distance...


Peace.

Everything is on track for the two deals that are supposed to close next week. Spoke to my new buyer today (I will refer to him as McHotterson from here on out), and he is ready to close early if possible, and, since my title company is handling the closing, we should definitely be able to get it done early. He also asked me to find him another deal before the beginning of next month, which, as you can imagine, was music to my ears. Sweet, delicious music......

6/27/2008

Well, as it turns out, my window climbing adventures were not done in vain, because my buyer is going to go ahead and take that property from me. I'm meeting him later this afternoon to get everything signed and get his deposit. Sweet. This is the same buyer who is buying the other one that was supposed to close a few weeks ago where we are STILL waiting on the new lender to let us close. Hopefully we can get it done by the end of next week, but I'm not holding my breath. Apparently they are in no hurry to get this piece of crap house, in all of it's pink glory, off of their books.

Pretty, ain't she? You should see the inside. It's like a maze. And one of the rooms has brown shag carpet on the walls. Niiiiiiice. That's how we roll here in Tampa..

Anyway, as it stands, I've got 3 deals scheduled to close next month. Of course, I'm at the mercy of the banks and their incompetent title companies, so I'm not counting my chickens until they are fully hatched and sitting in my bank account. See- I'm learning..... Look Mom, no hands!

OK, gotta run- my on-again boyfriend is flying me out to Wimbledon to watch him kick some ass!! He plays much better when I'm there, ya know?