Running in Place… or Circles?

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We keep trying, and failing, to move forward. I make an offer, and it gets rejected. We open up to a new neighborhood to move to, and the house is in a bidding war after being on the market for a month. The owner of BD’s sister buildings just texted, again, that he hasn’t come to an agreement with his property manager, so I am still not able to see the buildings. At least this time he asked for a recommendation for a new property manager, which I was able to provide. This is not at all where we pictured we would be at this point.

On a positive note, Mr. PFL and I toured a couple of open houses for very comparable homes (to our current home) in our neighborhood this weekend. The homes are listed for $210/SqFt and $226/SqFt. If we listed for $215/SqFt, we could list our house for over $700,000. Whoa! (I just did the math for the first time.) We’d make a great profit at $550,000. So, maybe we just need to pack everything up into storage, live in an Extended Stay, sell our house, and figure out where to go from there. While somewhat radical, at least it would be a step in an actual direction. And with cash in hand, the sky is the limit.

So Close

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Mr. PFL and I apparently had the highest offer on the duplex, but the sellers went with a different offer due to financing. I spent almost the whole second quarter of Super Bowl 50 texting with the seller’s agent about becoming “pre-approved” in order for them to accept our offer. I did my best to explain that, due to our purchase through our LLC, we can’t be “pre-approved” like a traditional residential buyer. The big banks aren’t even interested in talking about a loan and our local bank treats this as a commercial transaction. The local bank wants a signed purchase contract and information about 2-3 years of profit/loss on the investment property before investigating loan terms. The seller’s agent did not even provide me with the current rent on the one unit that is occupied, so I am not surprised they went a different way.

Mr. PFL and I did see the vacant unit on Saturday afternoon. The location was perfect, but the unit needed some updating. It was small (probably 850 square feet). We could definitely envision ourselves at this property and realized just how much downsizing would be necessary.

Overall, this has been an interesting learning experience. It looks like cash will be king if we want to stay in the neighborhood. We’ll need to get creative to make that happen.

Sight Unseen

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Either we are crazy, or we are very wise investors, because Mr. PFL and I made an offer on a duplex for $325,000 without going to see it. I did drive by after making our first full-priced offer of $300,000 on the day it was listed. The agent emailed that they already had multiple offers, so we upped it $25,000. They are supposed to make a decision by 5pm on Sunday.

This duplex checks off nearly every box on our list, the most important being location, off-street parking, basement storage, and some outdoor space. While it lacks a garage, there is potential room for one to be built. The pictures of the interior show some updating, but that part really isn’t that important to us; we can make most cosmetic changes ourselves anyway.

So, I guess we will see.

And speaking of sight unseen, I still haven’t gotten in to see BD’s sister buildings. I’ve still been texting with the owner, who is still trying to get his property management situation figured out. We are quickly approaching three months since I sent my letter.