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Saturday, July 31, 2010
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12 comments:
Anybody familiar with this group?
F F C PROPERTIES LLC
Buying ugly and over-the-top gets you a considerable discount sometimes:
way under assessed value and original asking
ps being at a busy intersection and across from a cemetery should have been factored into the assessment, and into the builder's mind, too.
This is the property that Ace was talking about. way under assessment
I agree the outside is ugly. Some of the inside is over the top, but there are a handful of rooms I think are nice.
Drschmid,
Funny you should ask, because I just came across that name in my daily online house hunt. (Proves that you can always find someone in the cyber universe doing the same thing that you're doing!)
I don't specifically know anything about that company, but it just seems to be one of the many local companies that flip houses. So, basically, they get to buy a Leesburg or an Ashburn house at the auction block for a price that would suit our budget. More to the point, they buy at a price point which is affordable to a significant pool of buyers. Then they (hopefully) do the needed repairs, repaint and recarpet, and put it on the market for a small, but not a substantial, discount. I'm specifically thinking of a Lakes at Red Rock house on which the owner owed 499k, FFC bought at auction for 461, and is now trying to sell it for 590k. Actually, it's not a bad price for that neighborhood. Last actual foreclosure on the market in that neighborhood sold for ~550.
As for many of the Loudoun County foreclosures? Both VA Investor and an agent I spoke with at an open house this spring have said that the banks are selling Loudoun properties to investors, which helps prevent prices from crashing. Large nationwide banks are wise to unload their Loudoun properties to investors: as this is a wealthy county with a stronger economy than elsewhere, why not focus on maintaining higher market prices here? Not that I like it or agree with it, but that's the way it seems to be.
I also asked that agent at that open house if I could get a 500k house for 300k at auction. Answer: definitely not. The recent increase in investors has already significantly limited auction block discounts.
If you learn any more about FFC, please do share.
BTW, did you see the new listing at Spring Lakes? Priced at 499k, it's much less expensive than the last three houses on the market...and smaller....but we decided we weren't interested in that particular house.
Real Deal
That is the same house that I was looking at and went to the Loudoun assesment site and found that name. I wonder how much they are willing to deal. Decent lot, cul de sac and decent neighborhood.
I think it sucks that it limits the amount of houses that we "regular" buyers are exposed too. I agree that we are going to see alot more of this but it will drive the price down some if they want to move the house. I wouldn't say an over $100K profit is selling it for a small profit.
Real Deal
I saw the one listed for $499K. Something about the front of that I house I do not like. Have you driven by and looked at it. What didn't you like specifically.
Have you looked at Woodlea Manor. Quite a few foreclosures and short sales have gone through there over the past months but I do like the neighborhood.
Also, the main thing I meant by "over the top" is that the house is much too large by Arl. standards, for most buyers' needs, and for the lot and area.
David Coy of Jobin Realty seems to sell a lot of flipped properties. I looked at his recent sales on franklymls, and unfortunately, it looks like he's fairly serious on pricing. Granted, if houses start sitting for a long time, something might give. But that's a big if.
Best way to get a deal is to do a short sale. Some don't close, so there's considerable risk that there will be no reward for waiting, but some do. You might have to wait a year, but I think it's worth the wait, if it's the right house at the right price. And while you're under a short sale contract, you just make sure that the language of your contract allows you to be released from the contract one month after signing, if the bank does not ratify your offer. Then, in the meantime, you can keep looking.
RE: http://franklymls.com/LO7401734
The asymmetry? Hard to successfully truncate a traditional colonial by placing the front door at the end of the house instead of the center, and then sticking one of those front-facing peaks at the opposite end of the house, the long slab of roofing cut short without a sense of completion. It just looks like a scrambled house front that a computer design program hasn't "fixed." Apart from that, we're hoping for something larger than that house. That house is probably priced about right, but just not for our fussy tastes and insistence on a deal.
My family has toured 30+ houses at this point, and that does not count our drive-by visits: I suppose that touring so many homes can go two ways, either you give in and make larger compromises, or you have tighter, more specific standards. Or, as in our case, both sort of happen to you. We've become more flexible about location to get that house we want, with an increasingly longer list of things we need/want, within our price range. The average number of homes a buyer tours before purchasing, BTW, is about 10. So, my family is an anomaly in that regard.
Woodlea is nice, we've driven around a few times there. Since there's nothing you can walk to, we have steered clear of the area.
RealDealSeeker,
Really only 10? My broker, Jeff Royce (from Frankly) said it usually takes his clients 20 before they've really honed down what they want and gotten enough sense of the market to know a good price when they see one. He says the worst is walking into a home that he knows is a great deal and actually a really good fit for a client when they've only seen 1 or 2 homes, and knowing it will be gone (because of the good price) by the time the client has seen enough to be comfortable with an offer on it.
(maybe Jeff attracts pickier than usual clients...)
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