L.A. real estate news and insights.
If the buyer refuses to send cash as their deposit, find another buyer.
Remember, the deposit is sent over within the first 3 days of opening escrow.
If the buyer is this difficult to work with just 3 days in, imagine how hard it will be for the rest of the 30 day escrow period.
As soon as you accept an offer for someone to buy your home, the buyer has to send over an all-cash good faith deposit.
This deposit is typically 3% of the purchase price of the property and is held by the escrow company in an escrow account just in case the buyer breaches the contract and you want to try to collect for damages.
If the buyer wants to send over anything but cash as their deposit, say no!
I have heard of buyers trying to use necklaces, #Rolex watches, and all types of other items for their deposit.
There are a few problems with this.
1) Will the escrow company hold a physical item as a deposit?
2) What is the true appraised value of the item?
3) Is that item real and authentic?
Because so many problems can arise out of this, only accept cash as your deposit.
If the buyer refuses, find yourself another buyer.
On this episode, I answer the following four real estate questions:
1) The buyer for my home wants to use their Rolex watch as their good faith deposit. Is that even possible?
2) How long does a listing agreement usually last?
3) How many homes should I view before buying one?
4) My lender told me I will have to pay PMI. What is that?
We have over 20,000 followers on Instagram... come join us! @daniellosangeles
The National Association of Realtors reports that older millennials, between the ages of 29-38, hold 26% of the home-buying real estate market share.
The second-largest group are the Gen Xers who hold 24% of the market share.
The asking price for this Woodland Hills home is $1,175,000.
100 Hurlbut St # 9, Pasadena 91105
Asking price: $700,000
Selling price: $705,000
The buyer purchased this unit using a conventional loan.
Burbank only has 30 single family homes for sale right now.
This is my favorite available fixer-upper home.
Asking price is $965,000 and it's been on the market for 2 days.
Jeff Bezos, the founder, CEO, and president of Amazon, reportedly purchased this 9.4-acre showpiece in Beverly Hills for $165 MM.
It superseded the $150MM record set just 3 months ago with the sale of the Chartwell Mansion, which was most well known for being the Clampett’s home in The Beverly Hillbillies.
It was built in 1937 by Jack L. Warner, a co-founder of Warner Bros.
It was designed by Roland Coate in a neoclassical style and has a total of 8 bedrooms and 9 baths.
It is a 13,600 square foot Mansion, with a swimming pool, nine-hole golf course, tennis court, and garages with their own gas pumps.
The seller is American business magnate, producer, film studio executive, and philanthropist, David Geffen.
When the listing agent asks you to get pre-approved with their lender, don't get upset.
Understand that getting that second approval is just part of the home buying process.
Most agents won't even ask you for that second approval, but us good listing agents will.
It's done to protect the sellers.
Even though you are already approved for a loan, the listing agent for the home you are interested in may require you to go through the loan pre-approval process again, this time with their lender.
Listing agents often do this because they don't know your lender and want to make sure you truly can qualify for a loan.
The seller doesn't want to find out 3 weeks into escrow that you can't get a loan.
I personally do this 2 step approval process for all of my listings.
You would be surprised to see how many buyers don't pass the second approval process.
With a full-on marketing blitz on Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, Zillow, Redfin, Trulia, Realtor.com, Etc... my 22500 Gilmore listing received over 13,000 online views.
Our mega open house had about 65 people waiting in the street to get in to see the home.
After receiving 7 impressive offers, the sellers ended up going with an all-cash buyer.
The home sold for $101,501 over the asking price!
If you know someone who needs to sell their home, please share this with them and tell them I am available to help.
Thanks!
Name your trust whatever you want... Banana Trust... #LakeShow Trust... whatever you can think of.
Then when it comes time to buy a property, purchase the home under the trust name.
By doing that, the owner on record will show up as the name of your trust, and not your legal name.
This works if you want to buy under your LLC name as well.
Did you know that when you buy a home, you don't have to put the title of the property in your name?
If you have a living trust set up, you can buy the home under the name of the trust.
For example, if the name of your #trust is "Banana Family Trust", and you buy the home under your trust, the owner’s name on the title will appear as "Banana Family Trust" and not your legal name.
This also works if you buy the home under a #LLC.
Use this hack if you want to keep the purchase of your home a secret.
As soon as escrow opens up on a property, the buyer has to wire over their deposit money.
The deposit is typically 3% of the purchase price of the home.
This 3% is held by the escrow company.
They hold on to the money just in case the buyer breaches the contract and the buyer and seller go to an arbitrator to decide who the money should be awarded to.
If the buyer backs out of the deal because of one of their contingencies (inspection, appraisal, loan), and they are within their contingency period, then the buyer gets their deposit back without any problems.
But if the buyer backs out of the deal, and all the contingencies have already been removed, that's when the seller can come after the buyer's deposit for damages they incurred.
An arbitrator will hear both sides of the story and ultimately decide who gets to keep the deposit money.
When buying a home, your offer will have a few contingencies written in the purchase agreement.
Here is 1 example of a contingency:
The purchase of the home is contingent upon the home passing your inspections.
If the home doesn't pass your inspections within your inspection contingency period, you can back out of the deal and get your 3% deposit back.
However, once you have removed all of your contingencies, you can't back out of the deal just because you wake up one day and decide you no longer want to buy the home.
If you do that, the buyers could come after your 3% deposit as damages.
Always remember, changing your mind about the purchase of a property is not a contingency.
