cantstopme's blog

I put a house under contract that I shouldn't have. I also used the wrong contract. It was my first home under contract that I wasn't planning in buying myself. I messed up. The seller involved a lawyer because her husband made her, and I had 2 people now that didn't really trust me. I asked for a lot of advice on this one, and most told me to walk away. I had an exit, I could have, and some say, should have, exited.

My motivation made me cry last night. I can usually hold things in pretty well, but this was a tough one for some reason. It was my oldest daughter's 9th birthday, and I had to work all day and night. It has always been like this, we are all used to it. I work for my parents with my brother. We're not always busy, but when we are we have to put the hours in and you can never call in sick or take a vacation. Makes sense, it's work. I'm lucky, I have a great husband who is home with the kids and he's great at it.

Yee Haw! When I asked my local bank to do a cash out refinance, they said if I gave them all receipts of the rehab, they would loan me that amount, cash. So I included a copy of the cashier's check for my 20% down payment when I purchased it, and mentioned that I didn't know if they would count that as a cost, but it's there just in case. The bank replied; oh, so you want rehab costs plus your down payment as cash back? I said, yes please. And if the appraisal comes in high enough to take more equity out, I would like to pay off a credit card or two. I just heard from the bank and they are officially doing a cash out refinance. When I get the appraisal done I will know more. Yay!

A week has gone by after my first deal, and I close on #2 tomorrow. I'm nervous. Only because my rehab team doesn't have the strongest leader- me. But it won't take long to figure out. I can already tell who I won't use to fix up property #2. So I guess I'm better than I thought! I have 2 guys I call the pokey brothers... to myself of course.

Deal number two I will use a separate crew. Except for my flooring guy and painters. My husband and I were going to help with the rehab, but I'm about 7 months pregnant and I just get in the way. Plus, working with the spouse... not as fun when you get home from work. That's why he won't be part of deal #2. I would rather be happy to see him at home than be upset at him for not fitting into my team as well as I would like him to.

So, I called 11 more banks today to find one who will do a cash out refinance. The 11th bank I called happened to be the same bank that owns a property I'm closing on in a week and a half. Too bad I didn't find this out sooner, but they will refinance my loan with cash out! Yee Haw!

I didn't tell them yet I'm buying their REO. I was a little nervous, but I will talk to them about it soon enough. This is so cool!

Well, I might be jumping the gun, but I just received a counteroffer from the bank that I will accept on Monday. I will buy for$45K, fix it up for around $10K. I will rent this one out, and hopefully another just like it in about 45 days.

There are 2 more properties just like this with in 3 blocks of one another and I will buy and rent them all. I'm so excited! I call them ducks. Once I get all of my ducks in a row, anything can happen. Time to go duck hunting!

Gina