patrick.net

I would assume that if he bought at $540k, put no effort/money into remodelling, and sold for $648k, that he would have barely made the cut to breaking even. The realtors are probably sucking $40k out of the deal, and the closing costs for his loan previously made the house to more like $555k. And to consider all the property tax he has been paying.

And this is assuming he will sell for his asking price :) This house may rent for ~$2200. No more. The claimed legal in-law is probably not legal (which is why he put a disclaimer 'per 3r'). I'm 5'8" and if I jump, my head will hit the ceiling.

It's been some time, and I was taking a look at the county records for this home.

Can someone confirm if this looks like outright fraud?

The Franciscos purchased the home for $525k on 12/02/2003.
On 8/20/04, Ng Tin W purchases it for $680k with $0 down payment.
On 7/28/06, Ng Tin W "gifts" the home back to the Franciscos.
On 9/07/06, I assume the Franciscos refinanced all the loans that was on Ng Tin W's name, with a $710k loan.

Then subsequently, they try to shortsale, and eventually gets foreclosed upon.

Is it just me or were they plotting on drawing all possible equity and ditch the place since 2004?

I agree. But can you explain what really happened in this scenario? I'm picking up stuff here and there :)

In the meantime, they dropped the asking price to 599k. With even only a 3% transaction cost, they're only clearing 40k. If you assume they had carrying costs of 2500 a month (which is pretty low), they're at 8 months, or 20k. That leaves 20k. If you assume they did the absolute cheapest substandard reno, they still probably had to sink at least 20k in. I suspect they're just past the 'break even' point and rapidly moving to the 'soon to be bent over the pork barrel' point.

Vain, your waiting has not been in Vain. Whoever bought this property is getting the shaft.

I actually checked and the commision is 2% for the buyer agent. Not too sure how much the commision for the listing agent is. And I highly doubt they will sell at $599k. They are hoping for a bidding war. Why do people bid past the previous listing price as soon as the list price drops? I've seen a trend in that. I'm assuming they've been conned by their buyer agent. When the prices drop, many times a new listing will be used. I guess the agents have the buyer fooled thinking it's new on the market and that it's "hot."

Anyways, I think this property will get $560k max since it's done some remodelling. At $560k, they've taken a major hit. I don't think this was really an investor flipping it. I think it's just a case of buyer remorse, trying to recover.

This property was also given as an example of "comparable sales" for another property. My realtor tried to use this property's selling price as a basis of what I should bid on another property. Glad he's fired.

Note: I don't think they've spent much on renovation. They redid the kitchen and I'm assuming the owner did the work himself. The materials for a new kitchen is about $3k. Not too sure how much the bathrooms costed to redo. They refaced the fireplace with about 10 tiles of marble, and repainted the place. They've also cleaned the supposed legal in-law unit up and painted it. They may have redone the hardwood floors or retarnished it at least. I did not rip open any carpet previously to check the condition. HOWEVER, the reason why I didn't want this property was because the rear corner bedroom was suffering water damage. Water had seeped into the home and was visible looking at the drywall. It was even soft and mushy. We busted it open to check and it was bad. I doubt he repaired the water damage. Probably slapped some putty on to hold thru and put new dry wall up. I also doubt he disclosed it on his seller disclosures.

And it's up to $628k now. I'm thinking someone offered $599k, but it disappointed them because they had thought $599k would induce a bidding war. They're about $100k off from a bidding war price. I am pretty sure $628k is the absolute minimum they'd sell the home. Good luck :)

Sold for $615,000, 6/25/2010. Mortgage deed of trust is for $417,000. So they put down $198k.