Any of you sold a house to a person with a VA loan?

[FTE]

A couple of things: there is no such thing as a "pre approved buyer". Part of the underwriting process is underwriting the real estate, and that can't be done without...well.....real estate.

A VA inspection is no more stringent than any other type of buyers inspection. Yes, you will have to make minor repairs. Not a big deal.

If an "investor" is offering you your asking price, then you have grossly undervalued your home. These people don't pay market value.


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[TGO David]

I bet you're fun at parties.  :D

 

Here's the bottom line, Chief... the listing was for more than I owe on it.  I lost my ass with that house to the tune of about $60K in equity gone *POOF* in the blink of an eye when the market crashed a few years ago.  The neighborhood which was once all "owned" homes is now mostly rental.  It's clawed its way back up to where it is now and if I can sell it to an investment group for more than I owe, and get out of it without having to make any repairs... guess what I'm going to do.

 

I'm not going to sweat a frickin moment of it not being maximum dollar.  :lol:

[Hershmeister]

We did an FHA on our first two homes and yes their inspectors require a bunch of repairs to meet standards. Annoyed the crap out of both me and the sellers!


If you are looking for a nice move up home, give me a buzz - we'll be listing our place in lebanon in a couple weeks!

[macville]

Let me put the VA Inspection in perspective of how stupid it is and how they don't follow their own rules. The section that talks about lead based paint talks about, well, lead based paint for houses built before 1978. Our house we just sold had an addition built in 1989, yet we were told we had to scrape and repaint that section also because it's a "defective surface condition." The inspector said any chipping paint, even post 1978 that had to be fixed-even though the rules he cited ONLY talked about defective paint if it was pre 1978 because of lead based paint (the heading was even "Lead base paint defective") and nothing says anything about chipping paint post 1978.  Mind you, the wood siding had holes in it where the wood had rotted through, but that wasn't an issue for the inspector, just flaking paint from 1989... It was stupid beyond belief.

 

All it did was cost the buyer a lot more money to have a bandaid put on the problem instead of actually having it fixed properly.

[FTE]

I bet you're fun at parties. :D

Here's the bottom line, Chief... the listing was for more than I owe on it. I lost my ass with that house to the tune of about $60K in equity gone *POOF* in the blink of an eye when the market crashed a few years ago. The neighborhood which was once all "owned" homes is now mostly rental. It's clawed its way back up to where it is now and if I can sell it to an investment group for more than I owe, and get out of it without having to make any repairs... guess what I'm going to do.

I'm not going to sweat a frickin moment of it not being maximum dollar. :lol:

Well...didn't mean to offend. Hoping to educate a bit. Investors are going to pay no more than about 65% of value, make the repairs you wish to avoid, and flip for a handy profit. There's quite a bit of money on the table if you're willing to sell at market, even if you don't allow VA.

Your money, your choice. Good luck.

Lake Forest Estates, by any chance?


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[Smith]

I can tell you this much, right now is a crazy crazy seller's market especially for homes in the sub $200K range in decent school zones and growing towns.  Two guys I know at work have sold homes in the past few months and none of them lasted on the market a week.  One lasted 24 hours.  Mine will technically have lasted four days if we accept an offer from the investment group tomorrow, but they made a verbal offer at 48 hours.

 

Our agent told us there is a serious drought of starter family homes and they are just being snapped up left and right by investment groups.  The only way an individual buyer can compete in this market is to be pre-approved for a loan.  Not pre-qualified, pre-approved.  Investment groups know that a lot of people lost homes a few years ago, have been renting apartments and are tired of that lifestyle, but likely still don't have strong enough credit to buy right now.  That's who these investment groups are buying up to rent to.  And they're renting them faster than they can buy them.

This is truth. Our agent bumped our asking price up quite a bit from what I thought was the high end and we l still had 28 showings and multiple offers in roughly 4 days last week. Being in the low 100k, it moved quick. Still waiting on the inspection and all that good stuff, so we'll see how it goes.

My agent told me inventory in starter homes is very low and demand is very high. From our multiple offers at asking price, I believe it. I was not expecting that situation. 

[gregintenn]

A couple of things: there is no such thing as a "pre approved buyer". Part of the underwriting process is underwriting the real estate, and that can't be done without...well.....real estate.

A VA inspection is no more stringent than any other type of buyers inspection. Yes, you will have to make minor repairs. Not a big deal.

If an "investor" is offering you your asking price, then you have grossly undervalued your home. These people don't pay market value.


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Doesn't a real estate agent usually have the ability to price a home? I am assuming David is using a real estate agent.

 

After a while, you get to the point where avoiding a headache is worth a few bucks.

[LagerHead]

Man, I must be the only person in history that had a pain free VA experience.

[FTE]

Man, I must be the only person in history that had a pain free VA experience.

I know a lot of buyers that have had a similar experience


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[FTE]

Doesn't a real estate agent usually have the ability to price a home? I am assuming David is using a real estate agent.

After a while, you get to the point where avoiding a headache is worth a few bucks.

I assumed he wasn't. Most investors don't want to go through agents.

Agents can research the market and suggest a price, but it's the owner that will ultimately set the price.


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[E4 No More]

We bought this house 2 years ago with a VA loan and had no issues with it, but it was also fairly new and was move in ready... The VA inspection showed some things that most would not even blink at, but they had to be remediated before the deal could go through.  I think there was a total of maybe $2,000 tedious things the sellers paid to get fixed that we could've fixed ourselves for a few hundred bucks and not even worried about.

 

Unfortunately the thing about the VA inspections is that they pick from a pool of inspectors in the region and you never know which one is going to do the property, so you can't pick them like you can the appraiser which makes it impossible to know what you should look out for outside of the major items (roof, electrical, plumbing, structure etc).

 

 

edit

I'll dig through the paperwork this afternoon and see if we have a copy of the actual VA inspection report and shoot that over to you so you can see what it looks like.

That's the way it is for all home loans now. The Oblamo administration decided that having your own inspectors was a bad idea, so they put them all in a pool regardless of the loan, and they are randomly drawn from the pool when you ask for an inspector. I know this because when I wanted to refinance my home I was worried about the inspector because the last one was an idiot. I called the inspector that I was referred to and he explained it all to me and said that he'd be happy to inspect my house but that it would be null and void for the use of refinancing or selling.

 

For David's situation I cannot advise because I've only bought a new house on a VA loan back in Kansas City: however, I was wanting to refinance with a VA loan because once you finance with a VA loan you can refinance without hassle if the rate drops.

[MacGyver]

I sold my last house to a VA-backed buyer.  Their inspector didn't really find anything of note.  As I recall I needed to line up a door latch so it closed securely and replace a balance in a window.  I had replaced the heat exchanger in my gas furnace when I was getting the house ready to put on the market, so I don't know whether they would have caught that or not.

 

Looking back, it was relatively painless.  But, I have a memory from shortly after closing wishing that I had chosen a different offer.  I don't know that there's any compelling reason to do it in a multiple offers scenario.

[Raoul]

That's the way it is for all home loans now. The Oblamo administration decided that having your own inspectors was a bad idea, so they put them all in a pool regardless of the loan, and they are randomly drawn from the pool when you ask for an inspector. I know this because when I wanted to refinance my home I was worried about the inspector because the last one was an idiot. I called the inspector that I was referred to and he explained it all to me and said that he'd be happy to inspect my house but that it would be null and void for the use of refinancing or selling.

 

For David's situation I cannot advise because I've only bought a new house on a VA loan back in Kansas City: however, I was wanting to refinance with a VA loan because once you finance with a VA loan you can refinance without hassle if the rate drops.

 

I assume you mean appraiser and not inspector.. And Obama had nothing to do with that. That's the handiwork of that gigantic boil Andrew Cuomo.

The rotation is the result of a lawsuit against FNMA.

Nowadays we appraisers are pretty much forced to sign up with third parties that contract with the various lenders. And yes our fees have been cut, so if you buy a house the fee for the appraisal you see on your disclosure is NOT what we're paid (usually).

[E4 No More]

I assume you mean appraiser and not inspector.. And Obama had nothing to do with that. That's the handiwork of that gigantic boil Andrew Cuomo.

The rotation is the result of a lawsuit against FNMA.

Nowadays we appraisers are pretty much forced to sign up with third parties that contract with the various lenders. And yes our fees have been cut, so if you buy a house the fee for the appraisal you see on your disclosure is NOT what we're paid (usually).

Yep, appraisers, sorry. It was the appraiser that blamed Oblamo.

[Sam1]

damn, you can't even pick your own appraiser now either?

[E4 No More]

damn, you can't even pick your own appraiser now either?

Nope!

[TGO David]

Well...didn't mean to offend. Hoping to educate a bit. Investors are going to pay no more than about 65% of value, make the repairs you wish to avoid, and flip for a handy profit. There's quite a bit of money on the table if you're willing to sell at market, even if you don't allow VA.

Your money, your choice. Good luck.

Lake Forest Estates, by any chance?


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Nope.

[TGO David]

Doesn't a real estate agent usually have the ability to price a home? I am assuming David is using a real estate agent.

 

After a while, you get to the point where avoiding a headache is worth a few bucks.

 

Yep and yep.  We priced at roughly $12K more than I needed.  We got asking price, cash.  They sure as heck didn't offer 65% of the house's value as was suggested by FTE.

 

*shrug*

 

I'm just considering myself thankful and counting my blessing rather than worrying about counting dollars.

[Lumber_Jack]

Inventory all over Nashville area is extremely low. The market is growing every month regardless of your price range. People, investors included are paying above market every day hoping to get in before the market plateaus. Homeowners who bought houses less than a year ago are sometimes over $100K in equity. We put 5 offers on houses that sold for more than we were willing to pay according to market comps. Lots of people ready and willing to pay.

[btq96r]

I'm just considering myself thankful and counting my blessing rather than worrying about counting dollars.

 

It's was as much prudence as a blessing and it was the smart play.  Going the other route, you would have had to deal with an empty house with a 2nd mortgage/insurance/property tax hit to worry about until you sold it.

 

But this is America, and for some people selling a house equates to a hustle opportunity.  When the day comes that I buy and sell a house, I'll be as thankful as you to just avoid a loss in the giant shell game that is the housing market.

 

Piece of mind, having the deed done (no pun intended) and a small profit to squirrel away or apply to your current house are reward enough.

[alingo2001]

Our house went in a matter of a couple of hours. Too bad our new house won't be ready till the middle of June.