08/09/2019
This is a different kind of real estate story...sometimes the best deals require extreme problem solving...and vision on the part of Buyers and their Realtor....me in this case. It finally closed at the end of July so now the complicated tale can be told..
There was a certain 11 acre property in Clifton Park..... Where most of the town is suburbia of course.... This one--573-575 Englemore Rd--had 2 houses on the property but one of them was way past peak and unlivable.... The other one, a split ranch, built in 1980, was far back off the road on a rutted mud driveway that was almost impassable in March when we 1st saw it.
On the way to the back house you had to pass the decrepit "Depression of 1850" kind of 2- story place which was correctly noted as a knockdown, then there was a collapsing shed and multiple cars stowed and rusting in the woods looking like an overgrown junkyard.
Old farm equipment entwined with vines were found upon further inspection, as was an abandoned two car garage, way detached from the back home.
Most suburbanite buyers would have panicked and turned around before even reaching the back of the property... Except in March on a rutted snow-bound driveway there was nowhere to do that so we continued... At first there with grounds snow covered the land looked OK, but after that when the melt occurred it seemed as if 7 or 8 of the 11 acres might be underwater. I can tell you any normal buyer would have freaked out and left... But the guys I was working with are flippers and investors who were unafraid and had bold intentions... So we persisted. I should also mention the place was not cheap; it was listed at $350,000! This is one of the prime zones of southern Saratoga County, afterall, not Appalachia...
The house had been welll built by its original owner, no longer living there, and the family had left a book of color photographs showing the progress back in the early 80s as the place was put together. Everything looked fresh and new, 39 years before...
The cars that were relatively new in the pictures were now camping in the woods.
The house was occupied by a sole tenant who was in an in law apartment that may or may not have been legal above the garage... The rest of the house was clean and tidy but very dated and in need of obvious upgrades. My guys asked me what it was worth, and my instant discount calculation said "$280k."
I should note that this was a Keller Williams listing but I was operating as a designated buyer's agent for my own clients... fully separate from the listing agent who represented the seller obviously.
My clients really wanted a base and a compound where they could stow their trucks and equipment well off the road. ... The parcel could ostensibly could contain 2 lots... But since there was only one driveway with some awkward turns in it that would be tricky to divide the overall lot in the future.
A Cash buyer could theoretically have come along and got the same deal we did but we had to figure out a way to finance it which is what took an extra 2 months.
Much to my surprise my guys were willing to offer 300 K for this entire property even with all its obvious flaws. This was one of the few times in my 32 year career where my buyers made a price offer higher than what I recommended.
It was quickly accepted.
I was a little concerned from the start about the financing complications... There was a deck off the back of the main house that was so rotted that the owners had placed a sign saying to not exit or enter through this door... Anyone who did risked death by rusty nails, Lol.
There were some other flaws discovered during the inspection put the biggest problem came when the septic guy showed up.
The system had been installed well before current town and state laws were implemented regarding Minimal code requirements.... So the house was elevated a bit from the stream that ran behind it the drain field turned out to be on a par With the level of the stream as it expanded during the spring thaw. ...never good. The ancient tank itself was marginal but the leach field failed when Charlton Septic's guys dug down and saw how deeply buried the pvc lines were...ground water seeped into the pit.
That meant an entire new system would be required which could run into a five-figure fix.
This is where the creative solutions had to begin.
The sellers could not afford to pay for engineering fees up front so my buyers had to take that on.... A cost of $1800 to begin with.
The system would have to be completely rebuilt... and the location of the field shifted to higher ground on the north side of the residence... The only other way to do it would have been to bring in 50 to 100 loads of fill in the backyard to bring up the level of the soil there. Ugh.... There was no easy solution frankly. We made about 3 extra trips to the property to get different assessments and estimates... Meanwhile we also went through 2 appraisals to try to see how to get around the problems with the place. I'm telling you most agents and certainly most buyers would have given up by this point......
I won't get into all the details but my guys had to agree to put a new deck on the back because it was red flagged by both appraisers.
The parcel of the property with the old house on it had to be separated from the house in the back and the deeds delivered in 2 parts so that only the livable residence was on the mortgage. Neither bank wanted anything to do with the old house that was likely to be torn down and because it only had 7' ceilings in it was deemed unsalvageable.
The entire cost of the new septic system plus engineering fees plus deck replacement and other minor repairs and concessions totalled 20 grand. ... Therefore my original assessment of 280k turned out to be right on the money, as the end result net-to-seller... And the contract had to be revised 2 or 3 more times in order to make things come out right... Needless to say this thing that was supposed to close in May and it up closing at the end of July, thankfully.
It will show up in the record as a 288K sale, minus 8k in concessions...
I'm not patting myself on the back but then again yes I am... I don't know anyone else who could have overcome all the issues here and stuck with it and I give my buyer's credit for that. Kudos to Aaron the soil engineeer, Kevin at Charlton Septic, Mike Smith at Rafters Inspections who sorted out crazy electrical issues early on, and Kevin Caslin, the attorney for my purchasers ehe pulked it all together at the end.
You can pull the pictures on zillow or your favorite realestate site if you wanna see how how the property was portrayed...but most of these issues were not evident in the pix.
Ultimately Mike and Liza are now happy first home buyers... but their (and now my) friend and ultimate flip wizard will Hennessy provided most of the impetus in getting this transaction through but my new friend and ultimate flip wizard Will Hennessy provided most of the impetus in getting this deal done.
I think the sellers and their agent and attorney realized the lengths we had to go through to get this to the closing table. Our side frankly did all the work but they were patient. Though it ended up as a 20% discount on the original list price the sellers were happy too, to get this complex situation resolved.
Not all deals are this complicated of course Any agent with a brand new license-- and there are now 4200 of them locally!-'can sell you a nice vinyl sided newer house in the suburbs with minimal issues. But if you want sheer experience on your side give me a call, particularky for older homes, countey property with land, or multifamily and commercial investments.
I will post some pictures of the rusty cars in the woods when I get time to go through my files. They probably helped to scare away any other potential buyers!
