One year ago today: January 25, 2015, 1912 shopping menu.
Five years ago today: January 25, 2011, aw, Pudding-Tat.
Nine years ago today: January 25, 2007, a typical day.
Random years ago today: January 25, 2008, visiting Lake Worth.
MORNING
Roughly on schedule, I have begun putting in low-ball offers on properties in the $30-40,000 range. That’s about all I’m prepared to spend in Florida and I could not care a twit if the other party loses on the deal. The places must still meet my full criteria, such as the land, at least two bedrooms and two full baths, low crime, and if possible a semi-rural setting near a large enough city. I could have made these offers as long ago as last September, had anything suitable come along.
This is a bank sale. They have two choices. The drawn out negotiations for a mortgage that may never fly, or take my offer now and dump it. JZ and I may leave as early as Wednesday for an inspection. And nothing works as well for “proof of funds” as cash in the bank. I’ll give you a little mental exercise: how much do you think I’ve offered for this place? It is setting on over an acre of shady property two miles from town. The same distance I drive here when I want to go shopping.
Another useless map.
NOON & NIGHT
“Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.” – George Carlin
Aha, you get a follow up on the property from this morning, because it is the most “something” event of the day. And blog rules say I tell you about anything like that. It will be an eye-opener for some to follow along the events of this property, others can skip this. The system has taught us to be sophisticated debaters when it comes to REO, or as it should properly be called “bank repossessed property”.
Here’s the satellite photo, no thanks to Mapquest. (If it was MapQuest, some retarded Millennial would superimpose address over top of the exact portion of the photo you want to see.) It is roughly this whole tract, which is more than an acre.
The banks are not, or feel they are not, obligated to tell you what is wrong with a place. So, when we find the words “cash only due to condition”, we know that means the bank is will not qualify the place for a mortgage. Are you with me here? That, in turn, means there is water damage. To us this means the place cannot be sold except to a cash buyer and although the bank will say “people are buying $30,000 houses these days”, we know they are not buying houses that need new roofs.
So next, we examined the 16 available photos of the roof to determine the roof leak must be on the left side facing the front. The rest of what looks like damage is good old Florida exterior mold. Of course, we would inspect the hell out of the place. The structure was built in 2001, so it must be relatively intact, even if we strip it down to the studs, a prospect that doesn’t scare us in the least.
The satellite photo shows the front yard is huge. Good, I like that. Privacy. And more room for a barn or solar panels. Very well shaded.
Now, we need to know if the roof can be replaced by anybody, or if the county or city has a bylaw whereby only “licensed contractors” who pay the kickback can affect the repair. Naturally, the bank said they don’t have this information. Both JZ and I in our younger days worked in truss factories, so although I don’t remember that much about building roofs, I have done something similar in the past.
Next is the former selling price. It sold for $26,000 in 2006, bottom of the market. The real estate agents (two of them) were miffed that we based so much on that price. I’m saying it sold for that much just ten years ago—and it didn’t need a new roof back then. Thus, the place is actually worth less than the property value of $30,000 because it isn’t even vacant land. They were miffed at this angle of logic, and objected to us using the bank foreclosure figure of $26,200.
Ahem, maybe they should quit publishing such figures as a click-bait if they don’t want them to be used? You see, I’ve learned how they calculate that figure. And if it is useless, they are the ones that shoot themselves in the foot by using it as a come on. Who remembers the house with the $2,500 tag in Arcadia? That when we got there, we found the bank had a shill in the audience authorized to bid the price up over $78,000. Well, now the shoe is on the other foot. We know the bank had to repossess the house for $200 more than they had sold it for.
You see, we’ve learned that when we put in any offer, the bank is legally obligated to consider it. This puts a “pending” flag on the real estate listing, which discourages other potential buyers. And we know it. Read my lips, all of these “nasty” things we do were taught to us by the banks themselves in the last six months. They had figured we would just go away like everybody else. Instead, we learned the game.
So, I left the bank with this offer. I won’t put in my low-ball bid of $15,000 while the listing is so new (about five days now). But if the listing begins to go stale, and I’ll be watching, I will put in my offer after 30 days provided if they still want more, they must finance the difference as a personal loan at zero interest for one year, and not as a mortgage. Hardball, so take it or leave it.
Hey, I told everyone here around two years ago if I had found nothing by end of 2015, it would come to this. Waving cash under people’s noses is an accepted business practice. And the more so if they have got themselves into a cash jam. Not my problem, any more than they cared about forcing house prices up for the last forty years by spending borrowed money. You think they cared about those who couldn’t afford houses because of that? Don’t be saying they how were they supposed to live without credit. It is done all the time.
So there.
Last Laugh
These guys again . . .
