Just got back from a weekend vacation to play some poker, and ready to get back to work…
Here’s an update on where things stand with each of the houses:
House #1: The Corn House
Nothing much new here. We received our first rent check from The Corn House tenants — on time! This marks the first rent check we’ve ever received. While the house is currently under lease-purchase terms, I guess we can now consider ourselves landlords, huh?
House #5: The DIY House
This one is officially SOLD!
House #6: The Red Garage House
Surprisingly, this one appraised for over full purchase price! Of all the houses we’ve remodeled and sold, this is the the least expensive in terms of sale price, and also the one that I thought had the most chance of appraising too low. This is mostly due to the fact that there are a lot of foreclosures in the neighborhood and very few retail sales. But, the appraisal came back just fine.
In fact, the lender has decided not to do a second appraisal, which is interesting, as it should be required by FHA. Because we’re selling the house for more than twice what we purchased it for, the lender is required to do extra due diligence in ensuring the value of the property; normally that’s done with a second appraisal, but obviously the lender has latitude with exactly how they deal with this issue, and this lender has decided against the second appraisal.
This is good for us, if only because it means we can get to closing well before the previously planned May 31 date. Hopefully (and very possibly) next week…
House #7: The Roach Duplex
We are scheduled to close on the sale of this one tomorrow. The contract just got signed last Friday, so the title company is working feverishly to get all the details in order for a quick closing.
I’ll have more to say about this one after the closing this week…
House #8: The 16-Bid House
It’s now been over 9 weeks since we got this one under contract, and we still don’t have a closing scheduled. Supposedly, the title is now clean, but the title company hasn’t yet scheduled the closing.
We just signed an extension through May 22, so hopefully we’ll close before then and not have to do another extension.
House #9: The Hat Trick House
We’ve been dragging our feet on finishing this one, as we still have over two months before we can sell to an FHA buyer. Today we have the countertops being refinished, tomorrow we’ll install the last of the trim/baseboard around the new vinyl floors, Thursday we do a final cleaning, and then Friday we move the staging furniture in.
We still haven’t decided if we’ll put this on the market this weekend, or hold off another week or two. It would be bad to have to tell an interested FHA buyer that he has to wait 9 more weeks to buy the house, but there’s always a chance we’ll find a non-FHA buyer who’s interested, so that’s a good reason to get it on the market as quickly as possible.
Ultimately, this is my wife’s decision, so we’ll see what she thinks is the right thing to do…
Not sure how it works, but maybe you should get assurance that The Red Garage House doesn’t need the second appraisal. Just to be certain if you know what I mean.
Scott –
Agreed, though ultimately, it’s the lender who is taking the risk. If they’ve confirmed with their underwriter that a second appraisal isn’t needed (supposedly they have, but who know), then it’s the lender that risks not being able to sell the loan after the close.
I agree that it would be nice to have some assurance that this won’t come back to bite us, but other than asking the lender what his plan is, there’s not much we can do.