BS: Real Estate stinks!

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: CarolC
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 10:47 PM

We just made a pretty radical lifestyle choice which is allowing us to put off the inevitable hassle about Real Estate for a little while. JtS has a short-term contract (less than two months) in the Detroit area. We knew that we probably wouldn't be staying in this area for too much longer, but we're not ready to decide on where we're going to settle. So we're buying a travel trailer and we just bought a van to pull it.

We signed a lease on a lot in a nice little trailer park in Alabama (lower taxes than Georgia), and we gave notice on the apartment we're living in now. We bought a storage shed, which we'll be putting on the lot in the trailer park (right across the street from the manager's office for security).

We'll be living in the travel trailer while we're in Michigan, and then we'll park it in the lot we're renting and live in it in Alabama, using the storage shed for laundry and a workshop as well as storage. That makes us pretty portable, which is a good thing for us right now, and we don't have to make any decisions about where we want to settle, or whether or not to buy a house or continue renting.

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 04:43 PM

In Ireland, a mid-range semi-detached (duplex?) house in Dublin now costs almost half a million euro. That's around $580,000.

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: Amos
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 01:06 AM

Jesus, Don!!

Congratulations on sheer bull-headed perseverance!! Wodda creep!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: LadyJean
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 10:43 PM

You should see the fun we're having in my coop. It started because the board wanted to build a garage. The rest of the residents didn't think this was such a hot idea. We had meetings, circulated petitions, now those jerks and jerkettes (The chief instigators are a mother daughter team.) know who their enemies are. My next door neighbor and I seem doomed to spend this summer porchless. Our porches are partly painted, and it may get finished someday. The guy downstairs had a little problem. His mother is 101! Really! She'll be 102 in November. Well, she was alone for a couple of hours on Saturday, and she got lonely, so she called the fire department. I gather one of the firefighters climbed a ladder to get into her apartment. No serious problems created. That old dear has been creating excitement in the building for years. Except her son got a message from the management company, threatening him with legal action. Her son is a cop. He isn't worried. But people here are impressively childish.

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: NicoleC
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 07:17 PM

Good lord, Don! I'm glad you finally got it.

I *would* consider a FSBO -- if one were priced appropriately and in good shape, which they almost never are -- but ONLY because my boss is a real estate attorney.

I guess you won't be sending Max a Christmas card?

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 06:58 PM

Real estate! Sheeesh!!

Unless you know exactly what you are doing, it pays to go through a real estate agent or, if for sale by owner, make use of the services of an attorney. Making absolutely sure that all documentation is legal and binding and make sure that whoever you are dealing with fully understands that. This can save you a huge amount of grief. Barbara and I learned this through bitter, lengthy, and expensive experience.

We live in a cooperative apartment. Our apartment was very nice, but we needed more space. In 1996 we started house-hunting. Since I'm in a wheelchair, we needed to find someplace that was accessible, and ADA notwithstanding, they're not easy to find. We'd find someplace with only one or two steps up—easy enough to equip with a ramp—but then inside, the halls and/or the doors would be too narrow. Or they would be wide enough for me to travel straight down, but I couldn't make a right-angle turn into, say, the bathroom. Or the bathroom(s) would be too small or badly set up to maneuver a wheelchair in. We looked at close to fifty houses and still didn't find anything that wouldn't need some pretty major remodeling.

In 1997, our neighbor across the hall heard we were looking for a bigger place. He said that he and his wife and kids were doing the same, and asked us if we would be interested in their apartment. It was on the same floor and right across the hall. It was practically a mirror image of ours, except that it extended further back in the building, making room for a much larger kitchen and two extra rooms, and two bathrooms, one of which could be set up for use with a wheelchair. And all the doors were wide, like the apartment we were currently in. Bingo!

We all agreed that we could do the deal ourselves and save real estate fees. We agreed on a price, then to keep it official, we drew up a written agreement, I typed it on the computer and printed it out, and we all signed it. They were moving into their new apartment, currently being remodeled, on October 15th of 1997, so we wrote that in as the date of transfer. All saucered and blowed, right?

As Oct. 15th approached, our neighbor (I'll call him Max) said that their contractor had run into problems and their new apartment wouldn't be ready in time. Could we postpone the transfer until November 15th? Sure, we said, no sweat. Some time later, he came to us again and said, "More delays! Would you mind moving it up to December 15th?" Barbara said that she didn't really want to move in the middle of the holidays, so how about the first of the year? First weekend in January, say? Fine, says Max.

The first of January rolled around. Max was out of town. Then on about the middle of January Max returned. He came over one evening to see us. He hemmed and hawed around for awhile, avoiding meeting our eyes, then he said that his wife (who had signed the agreement—all four of us had signed it) wanted more money. $50,000 more, in fact. I reminded Max that we had already agreed on a price, and that we—his wife included—had signed a written agreement to that effect. He dismissed it, saying that he didn't think it was a legal contract. We told him we'd check on it and get back to him.

We checked with three different attorneys: one free legal clinic, one real estate attorney we were acquainted with, and a high-powered attorney who goes to our church. They all made the same comment: "It's brief and doesn't waste any words, but it contains all of the terms necessary for a legal contract." Max seemed to be out of town again, and his wife didn't' answer the phone or the doorbell, so we wrote them a letter explaining what the attorneys had told us. No response.

We really wanted that apartment. So we contacted an attorney officially. His cordial but firm letter got no response either. So he filed suit on our behalf. "They are so patently in the wrong," our attorney said, "that they'll probably just fold." Not so. They got an attorney of their own. Our attorney filed for a summary judgment and we got it. The judge ruled in our favor. Max appealed. Nearly a year passed before the case came up, and when it did, the appellate court reversed the summary judgment. We lost. Our attorney was stunned and appalled, but he left the decision up to us. Barbara and I discussed it, and feeling that we were really being screwed over by Max and his greedy wife, and not wanting to go house-hunting again, instruct him to take it to the next level. Washington State Supreme Court. Again, we had to wait for many months before the case came up.

The bone of contention was that the agreement we had all signed did indeed have everything necessary for a general legal contract, but a real estate contract requires a legal description of the property, i.e., township, tract number, lot number, and all that, which we hadn't included. Just the address and apartment number. Hence, despite the fact that there was no doubt in anyone's mind as to the location and nature of the apartment in question, our agreement was not legally binding for a real estate transaction because it didn't contain the proper syntax.

Our attorney contended that this was not about an exchange of real estate, it was an exchange of shares in a cooperative apartment. One cannot sell a unit in a cooperative apartment building because one does not own it. It is owned by those who collectively own the building. One can sell one's share in the building, but not the apartment per se. No real estate is actually being sold, only the right to occupy that real estate. Hence, the usual stipulations of a real estate contract are not only unnecessary, they could lead to the possibility of fraud by allowing the purchaser of the share in the coop to believe that they are buying more than they really were.

It turned out that this was enough of a pot-boiler among the umpteen coop apartment associations in Washington State that a bunch of them got together, hired an attorney, and submitted an amicus brief supporting our position. If a transfer of a unit in a coop apartment building was declared the same as a sale of real estate, then there would be no difference between a coop and a condominium. The whole coop apartment arrangement would collapse and there would be no way of knowing who owned what. A real legal tangle that could go on for decades. Helluva mess!

Not to worry. The Washington State Supreme Court ruled in our favor. We made some actual case law. Check it out.

But it wasn't over yet! The Supreme Court ruled on the matter of coop ownership. But Max's attorney had filed a second defense. He maintained that we could not produce proof that we had a loan sufficient to cover the agreed-upon price. No, we hadn't signed for a loan, but we did have a deal with the National Coop Bank. We had been approved for a loan, but on the NCB's advice, we didn't take it out until we knew for sure when Max and his wife would be moving out. We didn't want to be paying interest on a loan until we actually needed it. We were all set up, and all it would take would be a phone call and Barbara's and my signatures. But Max's attorney tried to maintain that the reason we didn't throw Max and his wife out bodily on October 15, 1997 was because we didn't have the money and couldn't get a loan. The Supreme Court dealt with the ownership issue and remanded the "failure to perform" defense back to the appellate court.

This was ridiculous, because on the day Max and his wife actually moved out, we handed a check to Max's attorney for the full amount we had originally agreed upon. The attorney deposited the check in a locked account; sort of like escrow, but different. A month of so later we sold our apartment and paid off the loan in one whack. Duck soup!

Nearly a year went by as we waited for Max to make his next move, which would have been to ask for a decision from the appellate court. But nothing kept happening. If we asked for our check back, that meant we were giving up and Max could have his apartment back. If Max ask for the check, that meant he was giving up and abiding by the deal we had made six bloody years ago. In the meantime, if we wanted to sell this apartment (which we don't), we couldn't. Because, despite the Supreme Court decision, who had the right to dispose of the apartment (who owned the share) was still undecided. Max is loaded, but his wife seemed to regard this apartment as hers, and she wanted what she wanted. So we figured that they knew they would lose if they actually took it back to the appellate court (the fact that we "performed" when called upon proved that their argument that we had "failed to perform" was pretty lame), but they were holding on out of spite.

But about two weeks ago, we got a phone call from our attorney informing us that Max's attorney had called him and asked us to sign off on the locked account. Max wanted his money (or she decided she wanted her money).

We won. After six years, this apartment is ours. Owned, of course, by the coop association to which we belong, but we have the usual lease allowing us to occupy it for as long as we wish, and if we want to move, we can sell our share in the building. But we're here now, officially, and we're gonna stay awhile!

When our attorney called us to tell us that Max wanted the money, I can't describe the feeling of weight that was suddenly lifted off my shoulders. And when Barbara came home from work, I told her, and she practically collapsed. We're still sort of getting used to the idea. I guess we hadn't fully realized how much strain we had been living under these past six years. But it's gone now! We're free! We're home!

I'm sorry to have gone on like this. But consider it a detailed cautionary tale. Make sure your have all your ducks in a row, get expert advice to triple check everything, and—sadly enough—don't take anybody's word for anything. Don't just get it in writing, have a qualified attorney review that writing. You just never know. . . .

Don Firth

P.S: Financially we came out okay, because we had a good, motivated attorney. He charged plenty, but nowhere near what some attorneys would have charged because he likes going to bat for people he feels are getting screwed. Max jacked up the price by $50,000, then when the appellate court ruled in his favor, he raised it from $50,000 to $70,000. All our legal fees and court costs came to less than $10,000, and we may get some of that back. Our attorney is negotiating with Max's attorney.

P.P.S: And I learned a helluva lot more than I ever wanted to know about the workings of the court system. Anybody ever read Dickens' Bleak House? That's about the way it works. Slo-o-o-o-ow. And the real question is not "is it right?" It's "is it legal?" I didn't know until we got involved in this that they are not the same thing!

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: GUEST,Ron Olesko
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 02:50 PM

LadyJean - now you have me thirsty for Iron City!   Horrible beer, but it brings back so many memories!

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: harvey andrews
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 02:47 PM

We just exchanged today on a new place in darkest Shropshire. The last three days have been undoubtedly the most stressful my wife and I have ever suffered. We were both quite barmy with it last night.Lazy people not faxing vital papers, ultimatums, missed deadlines, blackmailing threats of gazumping,financial arrangements not in place....an endless roller coaster of one peak scaled only for another one to appear in front.
Now we're taking a deep breath and trying to get the blood pressure down!

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 06:10 AM

Nicole, the first item on the title history for the land my ex and I built a house on (in Papaikou, near Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii) was "Royal land grant to..." Hawaii being the only state in the union that boasts a real royal palace.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: LadyJean
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 12:37 AM

The Stephen Foster House is on Penn Avenue, just up the hill from Mullaney's. I pass it when I go grocery shopping in the strip. I always take the bus, because parking on the strip on Saturdays is either impossible or expensive. It's a big, brick house set back from the street. But there's a plaque where you can see it. If you take the 86B bus, you go right past it. Foster is buried in Allegheny Cemetery, which is also in Lawrenceville, Lillian Russell, and the infamous Harry Thaw are also buried there. There's also the Stephen Foster Memorial theater on Forbes Avenue in Oakland. Sorry to continue the drift.
Note, for the dirty minded, Pittsburgh's Strip district is a flat strip of land along the Allegheny River. It is the home of many fine bars, and interesting shops, but no strippers.

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 05:16 PM

Oops, sorry for more thread drift, seems I missed an earlier posting by LadyJean...:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 05:13 PM

LadyJean and Hollowfoxes' grandfather...some familial connections here? Anudder Mudder family member? Hmmmmm...**bg**

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 05:06 PM

Ron and LadyJean, I agree about Pittsburgh. It's one of my favorite places to work. I perform at Mullaney's Harp & Fiddle in the Strip district (another favorite spot!) about 4 times a year, I experience all the seasons, and I enjoy it immensely. The pub puts its performers up in the Lawrenceville neighborhood, and though I've tried, I've never located the house where Steven Foster was born.
Any ideas? Sorry for the thread creep.

Seamus

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: LadyJean
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 11:36 PM

Mr. Olesko! If you're a good walker, you could walk to the Monongahela Incline from Bigbee Street. The Duquesne Incline, which I like better, is a bit further.
There isn't any steel industry anymore. I'm old enough to remember when the whole Monongahela valley looked like it was on fire at night. The morning air smelled like rotten eggs. I wore dark colors all winter. But people were working.
I took Scottish dancing lessons up the hill from where the monument to the Homestead Strike monument is. Where the mills used to be, by the river, you will now find the strip mall from Hell. They've put up a few smokestacks, and some bessemers for decoration, but it's still a lousy strip mall.
Oh, get Hollowfox to tell you about when her grandfather rode the incline.

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: NicoleC
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 10:45 PM

Land. Most of your purchase price is the dirt, not the house, which is why condos are harder to finance. But since the dirt isn't going anywhere and lasts a lot longer, you get better interest rates.

All that title garbage is because the land doesn't move. An RV is an RV and you're pretty sure you own it if you have possession of it, but someone else may have a better claim to the land, hence the need for title insurance. You should see some of the chains of title we run in places like Alabama. It's like a genealogy tree for the dirt. They go all the way back to indian treaties and things like the Louisiana purchase. Nifty.

Nonetheless, I still think real estate stinks!

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 10:09 PM

I'm not the world's most savvy person when it comes to real estate and finance. A person with adequate finances can go into a recreational vehicle dealership and drive away in a $100,000 Winnebago in a few hours. If that same person wants to buy a $100,000 house it involves a mountain of paperwork, weeks of hassles and the involvement of lawyers. What's so different about a house that rolls and one that sits still?

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: GUEST,Ron Olesko
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 03:44 PM

LadyJean - how close it is to the incline?   That is a real pretty spot. My parents were from the area and when I was a kid we went there. I remember watching them pouring slag into the river (this was a long time ago!) at night. Awesome sight although we didn't understand the impact at the time.

Pittsburgh is a real jewel, very underated in my estimate.

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: NicoleC
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 01:26 PM

I can't tell you how many times I had to move when I was renting because the place got sold. Now I realize that for not much more money, I could have bought something and saved myself the hassle. Don't think that holds true today in the crazy market going on down there. (And here in Sac is awfully crazy, too.)

Unfortunately, I'm out of town so I can't use the guerilla tactics I used to use when looking for rental property there. (I.E. drive around and look for stuff that'll be available SOON -- before anyone else finds out.) Nor do I have the luxury of time. My agent is watching complexes that should be affordable and good to live in, but no one is budging. I may have to #$%^@! rent for a few months, which would really hurt my feelings to have to move twice.

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: Hollowfox
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 12:38 PM

My sympathies. I just heard from a friend in L.A. who got his rented place sold out from under him, so he has 60 days to find a new place. He's a techie working on a movie, so he has no time to search. Your @#$%-reduction candle will go up next to his tonight when I get home from work. (LadyJean, you're not moving?!?!? If it does come about, let me know and I'll bring down my minivan to help move you and the fourleggeds.)

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 12:30 PM

Check the courthouse for anything that might be sold for tax delinquincy. Gotta be careful about the neighborhoods, but at least that is another avenue that won't turn up on MLA. Those are sold on the courthouse steps around here.

Is there any such thing as HUD housing out there? Those are listed in the newspaper on certain days of the week. They usually need work, but there is usually an allowance for that.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: mg
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 11:03 AM

get newspapers..little nickle want ads etc...they might not be in MLS...

mg

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: NicoleC
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 01:49 AM

Mary, I can't hope to buy a duplex or triplex in LA -- and there are very few of them anyway. I'd be looking at a minimum of $400,000 anywhere that doesn't require a 2 hour drive to work.

Me? I'm looking at 1 bedroom condos in the high 100's, and having trouble at that price. I check the MLS more often than Mudcat :)

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: mg
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 12:59 AM

first rule....never do business with friends or family. Get them a referral commission of about 15% and get someone else. I've been a realtor, and just recently let my license lapse..in a hot market if you are representing the seller, you would be ill advising them to take an offer that is contingent on another house selling and closing by a certain time...it is a mess...I don't know if that is your situation...but you might just have spared yourself a whole lot of trouble..maybe not...have you looked into duplexes, triplexes etc? They are often priced differently, based on income you can get...so sometimes there are very good bargains.. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: LadyJean
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 12:46 AM

I know where you can buy a really great house here in Pittsburgh. It's on Bigbee Street, listed through Prudential. It has to have the most beautiful view in town! Bigbee Street is up on Mount Washinton, you can see most of Allegheny County from there. I've watched a nice old red tail hawk riding air currents out the window. Oh! The windows are huge, so you can really enjoy the view. The shower is humongous. There's a garage. (That's important in Pittsburgh.) Mount Washington is a nice, safe, neighborhood. And the owner is desperate to sell, since he wants to move back to Texas. (Don't ask!) Oh, and if you're into Feng Shui, it's apparently all fenged and shuied, however you do that. Also the owner is a really nice guy.
Otherwise, you are correct, real estate stinks. When I tried to sell my apartment, the real estate lady, who I thought was a friend of mine, priced it extra low, so it would sell extra fast, and bring her a speedy comission. Then she gave me a guided tour of an assortment of white elephants. She figured I was too dumb to know she was trying to cheat me. I didn't know much about the real estate business, but I knew enough to ask freinds who did. Keep on venting.

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 12:09 AM

Nicole,

My brother sells real estate in So. Ca, and it's a crazy marketplace, especially when you try to take was is S.O.P. there and make it work somewhere else. Through his pressure ("you're not properly representing the estate if you don't ask this [gouging] price for this house to start with") he compelled the listing of a family home way too far above the actual market price. By the time I convinced him it must be lowered enough to be reasonable, we had passed the good buying season. It sold in the worst time of year, cold gray rainy December, and the realtor and I figure we lost about $50,000 from what it SHOULD have sold for. So much for LA tactics!

So maybe you should move to Texas or Oklahoma? Just be careful to dodge those tornadoes, dust storms, droughts, floods. . .

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 03 - 09:54 PM

No, sweetie, I wouldn't dare!! :>) Just always helps to identify the correct target! Otherwise you end up getting mad at EVVYthang!! I meant THEY were acting crazy, not you!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: NicoleC
Date: 16 Jun 03 - 09:12 PM

Gee, Amos, are you trying to tell me I'm nutty and overreacting? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jun 03 - 07:54 PM

ANd ye know, ducky, it isn't the real estate itself that stinks -- people always go a bit nutty when dealing with numbers that are really too big for their faces, if ye know what I mean. It's the kwaziness that gits ye.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Jun 03 - 07:27 PM

I agree with Sins, Nicole, something better will come along. Sorry, though and glad you had a chance to vent; venting is important when buying or selling a house!*bg* Good luck!

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 16 Jun 03 - 06:47 PM

Nicole:

Our daughter just bought a house in Southern California and they had a very hard time finding one they could afford. They weren't selling a house (they were renting) but they bought from a man who was buying another house from someone who was also buying another house! All three escrows had to be properly timed and, at one point, the whole deal was off but it came back to life and she just moved in a few weeks ago.

We can empathize.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: NicoleC
Date: 16 Jun 03 - 06:29 PM

Always, wilco. Theirs and mine, both of whom were on the ball. Just lousy timing, I guess. That and a certain amount of greed on my part. I COULD have accepted an offer and gone into escrow before I went househunting this weekend, but I wanted to let my place show over the weekend. That was my fatal flaw. Good decision as a seller, bad decision as a buyer. The offer I was already going to accept was raised by $6,000 when the buyer heard there were other offers. (Poor guy; don't tell him... I was accepting him because he was stable and ready to close and didn't ask for any financial help, even though he was the lowest $ figure.)

Hope so, SINS, but I really wanted this one; it was a very mild fixer-upper the seller thought was a major fixer-upper and a steal at the price. The So Cal market is horribly tight right now. There's not a single decent property on the market I can afford at the moment, and prices are going up daily.

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Jun 03 - 06:20 PM

Wasn't meant to be, Nicole. The right place is still waiting for you.
Good luck,
SINS

Subject: RE: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: wilco
Date: 16 Jun 03 - 05:48 PM

Was a broker involved?

Subject: BS: Real Estate stinks!
From: NicoleC
Date: 16 Jun 03 - 04:50 PM

Grrrr... I made a perfectly generous offer on a GREAT place that got turned down this morning (for one at $5000 less) over a technically. I hadn't officially opened escrow on the place I'm selling yet, even though I had multiple offers, and the seller wanted to closein 30 days. Bad, right?

Worse. Ironically, I opened escrow &*$%^! two hours later for my place at 7% over list price, and the buyer wants a 21 day escrow.

If not for a scant few hours, all three of us would have been perfect for each other. I am very annoyed. I thought buying a place was bad, but buying and selling at the same time is a nightmare -- and I have a placed that was a piece of cake to sell. (Listed only 3 days.)

Just thought I'd vent...