Hi, this is Jody with JMS Home Buyers. Thanks for checking out the website. I was asked this at a meeting Monday, I think it was, “Can you really close in 7 to 10 days?” And I was in South Carolina, so I wanted to say yes, and I told him that I could close as soon as we got title work back. The price that they wanted to sell me the property was a very fair price, but I did need to get title insurance. This was a lot of money for me to say, “Let me buy it and find out what the title looks like.” So in that circumstance, I backed up and said I haven’t committed to a 7- to 10-day close. When I’m in South Carolina, I’m very careful because title work can take longer, and depending on the property, I may need 20 to 30 days to get the title insurance squared away or a title fix.
Sometimes we can find things on a title. There’s a judgment or a lien that has been cleared up but didn’t get taken care of along the way. So we got to get the paperwork so that everybody’s happy. So if you need to close quickly, that is something we need to find out right away so that I’m not overcommitting. We can do a quick overview, overlook at the title, even before the meeting, so I can go in and have an idea if I can make that commitment. But before I make that commitment, we’re going to need to ask a few more questions. We do use cash, so that does allow us to close quick. We’re not waiting on banks or appraisals, and we’re not lining up additional inspections. It’s we walk it, and we’ll know.
I did have a case this week though that his price and my price, we were a little off, and I did say I’d like to have somebody that does work with me to get underneath that house and give me an idea. Is that just what I’m dealing with? Is it just the one thing I think I got to handle, or is it something a lot more? And so I asked for an additional day. I did not ask for a contract. I didn’t put them under contract and then try to negotiate that. I said straight up, “If that’s the price that you’ve got to have out of the house, I need another set of eyes on this one.” I couldn’t tell. We knew we had moisture issues and we had foundation issues, but there were a few other things that were going on that I thought might drive up my repair costs. We are buying so that at the price point you need, I can still afford to do those repairs, and I know that we can go back and forth on what repairs really cost, and that’s a discussion for another time.
We’d work hard to give you every dollar that we can for your home. You’ve worked hard for it, especially when these homes have been paid off. You want to get all your equity out of there, and I’m all for that. In this particular house situation, if I thought that they could get retail, if I thought they should list it, I would’ve straight up said, “Let’s get this list.” If you don’t have an agent, I’ve got one. There’s all kinds of things we can do to help you get retail for your home. This one had a lot of foundation issues, structural. Cosmetically, it hadn’t been touched in a while. Mom was happy. I get that. That’s great. But to resell it, it was going to need some touches, along with just the structural.
So can we close in 7 to 10 days? It depends. But we can close quickly. If you’ll tell us when you need to close, if you’re trying to stop foreclosure, there’s things that we can do right away. We’ve got a tax lien if you’re looking at a tax sale. Again, these are things that we can actually get you out of. We just need to know right away what we’re working with, and let’s get that conversation started. So if you have a home that you’d like to sell and you have a timeline, let me know what that timeline is before I commit, and I’ll do my best to make sure that everybody wins. Have a great day.