Fliperati

It seems like most investors were too busy defrosting turkeys or wrapping up deals in advance of the holiday to submit posts for this week’s Carnival of Real Estate Investing because only a handful came through.  Also, CoREI is still in its infancy, so I’m sure it will grow fat with submissions as the word gets out and the leftovers slowly disappear.  In the meantime, here are the links to this week’s top picks.

• Coming in at first place this week, Anesia Springborn from TheLandLordBlog.com regales us with a tale of landlording woe that she was able to observe from the comfort of her own home.  Beyond providing a nice case study of how NOT to manage a rental property, Deadbeat Tenants Slide Over One is a great story full of colorful characters (the disengaged rental property owner, the useless property management company and, of course, the deadbeat tenants).
• Runner up (in no particular order) Benjamin Bach from Benjamin Bach & Associates has put together an interesting discussion comparing two investment properties that generate the same gross annual rental income at very different price points in How much does $70,000 cost? 
• Another excellent submission comes from Real Estate Investing For Real | A BiggerPockets Blog with a reminder about the pitfalls of partnering with friends and family – along with tips for preventing conflict – in Real Estate Partnership Questions.
• ML from My 1^st Million At 33 asks more questions than he answers in Foreclosures from Yahoo! Real Estate, but the comments could generate interesting discussion about the value of electronic foreclosure listing data.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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I recently stumbled across a really nice service for people who sell stuff (houses, cars, baseball cards, etc) on the internet.  It’s called vFlyer and it’s a very simple (and free!) tool for turning boring online classified ads into very attractive electronic “flyers.”  My favorite application is the ability to use vFlyer to plug in a few simple variables about what you’re selling (price, condition and maybe a few photos) and then generate html code that can be pasted into a craigslist posting to create a really flashy advertisement for your item.  I have never been very savvy with html and my craigslist posts for my first flip (and all the things I sold during the renovation) were pretty hum-drum until I started using vFlyer.

The service also allows you to e-mail your electronic flyer and create PDFs.  It has a tool for tracking the amount of “views” your flyer is getting and, for real estate, it automatically “publishes” your flyer to a number of popular housing search sites (Google Base, PropSmart, Edgeio, etc).  It’s still a beta service and I had some problems getting my flyer published to a couple of their affiliates, but their customer service team was very responsive in getting the problem resolved.

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Good news, Fliperati readers: I received a full asking price offer on my very first real estate investment (my flip!) this weekend.  Now, everybody remain calm.  Seriously.  Please stay in your seats and do not get up until the captain has turned off the Fasten Seatbelt sign.  We all know that getting a good offer is just the beginning of what is oftentimes a very arduous closing process, and this deal definitely looks like it will have its challenges. 

***The alternate opening sentence of this post was: While the vast majority of lease-option transactions end without the property changing hands, it looks like I might have the pleasure of closing on the sale with my lease-option tenants before they even move in.*** 

That’s right – the couple that set me running around last week working on a rent-to-own deal has apparently secured a mortgage co-signer (the wife’s sister) and can now purchase the house outright.  They are clearly completely infatuated with the property (they contacted me daily last week to check-in) and will be very motivated to make the deal work, but there are obviously a lot of hurdles ahead.  They said they will need until the end of this week to get the mortgage approval ready, so I’m not even touching the contract until they can demonstrate that they will actually be able to get financing.  The good news is that they do not have a realtor and are instead relying on their attorney to walk them through the process.  He seems quite competent and I’m optimistic that the sale process will go smoothly even without realtors frenetically working both sides of the deal to make sure it closes.  Even if I have to micro-manage the process, it will be well worth it to save more than $10,000 by dodging payment of a broker’s commission. 

Beyond the financing, I’m a little concerned that they will try to nickel-and-dime me with the home inspection.  The buyers have repeatedly mentioned that the sale is contingent upon a satisfactory inspection and that their $5,000 earnest money deposit is fully refundable if they back out of the deal because of something the inspector finds.  I have been countering these comments by stating that I am still getting several calls per day about the property and will continue to show it until the deal closes.  This has also motivated me to get off my lazy post-renovation butt and take care of the stupid little things around the house that an inspector might make a fuss about.  It’s a little easier to spend time/money on the house now that there’s a possible payday in sight.  Keep your fingers crossed for me…

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