Ray Essick

A detached condo just means the structure is not connected to another unit and it looks like a single family home. It's not a reference to land ownership and btw it's even posible own a single family home and not own the land but lease the land. Often regular condos are built on leased land and your condo fee pays for the leased land. Often detched condos can have shared septic systems with other units. They could have a common well or water company. Of course I have even seen single family homes that share wells of septic systems too. All condos have condo docs and you should always read them before considering any type of condo. Get a copy of all rules too. It's not like buying a single family home even if the detached condo looks like one. - Fri Feb 8 2008, 22:07

If They won't let your friend work within the system then maybe you have to work outside the system? Since your friend is not a realtor then she is not bound by the systems rules. If she is aggressive she could bypass the listing agent and try contacting the seller directly and set up a showing with them. The seller agent has no right to stop you. This way the seller would know what's going on if they are not informing them that there are other buyers. I would always try to work within the system first but your friend is a buyer agent for you and is not bound by the rules of the system. So maybe you can give the direct approch a try and what's the worst that could happen? They just say no and you don't get to see it a second time but at least the seller knows. They should be informed that you want to see it. Your agent could contact the seller any way they want if the listing agent is refusing to set up a showing. - Fri Feb 8 2008, 20:37

Yes you should get a new deed. A title company should be able to help you. Buying out another person means they no longer own the property so it's important that you get them off the deed. There probably is more than one way to do the buy out. I think you will actually be selling the property as well as buying it in this type of transaction. So you and your friend will sell the property to you. That's the cleanest way to look at it. A title company it the best place to start asking questions too. You probably will not be refinancing and instead you get a new purchase mortgage. You are buying the property from yourself and your friend. It is possible to buy a fractional interest in a property and this could be done too if you have the cash you could just buy out your friend. Then everything could just stay put and your mortage company would just take your friend off the mortgage and you would create a new title that way too. If you need to pay off the mortgage to get your friend's interest out and pay her it would get more complex so that why I say you and your friend just sell it to you and you buy it with a new purchase mortgage. You may have to pay some kind of tax when you buy and sell this way too I don't know how it works in TX. So ask your title company about all the costs for the diffrent options and of course you probably will have closing costs with your mortage. Your current mortgage company might cut you a good deal if you stay with them so I would talk to them as well they probably would hate to lose a good customer. If you can buy out your friend with cash it could save a lot of costs too but it just might not be an option for you. You might also talk to your tax advisor about capital gains tax on this property if you and your friend have not lived in the property 3 out of the last five years or owned it less than three years. You also might talk with your mortgage company and do a cash out refi and then payoff your friend. - Fri Feb 8 2008, 19:22

Penny,
It sounds like you want to by an extreme fixer upper. Homes can be bought in any condition. I know many good loan officers who are able to do that type of loan. In addition however your financial situtation has to be evaluated too. Your down payment, credit score and income all come into play. You might not qualify for the loan that one of my loan officers could do. You may need to shop around for financing in this market it's getting harder to find lenders willing to finance people with bad credit even for regular types of loans. While looking at the property you should get a General contractor(GC) to take a look and get an estimate of what it will cost to repair the property. Don't just take a seller's word for what it will cost to repair the property. You will need to get a list of problems and what it will cost to fix, the lender will want to know. Your GC should be able to help you with that. The lender will probably want a profile of your GC experiance, It's like a resume of some of the projects they have worked on. They will be evaluated and the scope of the repair project will too. Your GC will have to provide plans on what will be fixed. The current condition of the property will also be evaluated by an appraiser that the lender hires and your GCs plan will too. Sometimes it's also a good time to not just replace and repair but to also expand and upgrade and modernize. Does it need a new roof?, new septic?, new heating system? new windows? Making the place more energy efficient and even adding an addition or more square feet are all possible. Keep in mind that the lender needs to see that what you pay for the property before the repairs and what the property is worth after the repairs is what the apparaisal and what your loan will be based on. Depending on the extent of the repairs needed funds from the loan may be released in stages as parts of the plan are completed and inspections are made to insure the work is done.

I also wonder what the sellers situation is? Could they help finance the repairs and why have they not fixed the problems? Houses that are in bad shape may need more than meets the eye. If your not on town sewer and town water you may have a few more things to look into. If pipes are broken and removed is there water damage, what about mold? Try to get a statement from the seller that states all the known problems with the property. They have to disclose what they know about the property to you, but you have to ask the right questions too.

You need to do a lot of work to figure out what you should pay for the property and you may need to pay some money up front to just do a study on the condition of the property in detail. A property in bad shape can have all kinds of things going wrong with it and it could turn out you find out after you do your study that it's just not worth fixing. There are properties out there that it would be cheaper to just knock down and start over again. LOTS of people think that fixing a property is easy and spend money trying to fix a problem only to find out it's a lot bigger problem. Sometimes you have to think of a property as just a building lot that needs clearing and pay no more than that for it. - Fri Jan 4 2008, 03:22

Eva,
Just wondering if this home got put on the market? Just want to know you found someone to help you. - Mon Dec 24 2007, 22:58