Fluky Friday Flash

<>Tropical Storm Danny is gracing us with his presence today along the east coast of Florida. I was able to sneak in a couple hours session this morning before work. Out front and at the inlet looked like the ocean had a bit of morning sickness with the low tide so we headed south to the wall at Bethune. It's amazing how much better it looked. We paddled out. The crowd was thin. The first five rides I had were "turn-in-burn" right after another bang bang bombs! Super fun lefts and rights. The waves aren't quite hollowing or pitching out like from Hurricane Bill, but they are still overhead and semi-clean. The classic Florida sun shower happened and the rain glassed out the ocean just in time for a monster set to roll in from the horizon. By my judgment the waves were pushing 6-8 feet. This week has turned out to be an excellent warm up for my next week in Puerto Rico!

<>I work in real estate. The past month has been insanely busy compared to the last two years. Through the "boom" I worked my butt off and was very good at managing my time and prioritizing deadlines. Currently, I'm working my butt off, but the difference is the pay checks just are NOT coming through so it's hard to find the motivation to keep up the level of service I was able to provide during the "boom." Right my team has about 8 transactions in different stages of progress. Each one of these involves one or more of the following: short sale, REO, pre-foreclosure, court ordered estate sale, FHA Financing, VA Financing, FHA 203k Rehab Financing and even a cash deal on a home with a normal seller, but the home keeps flooding for unknown reasons (No Bueno on getting it closed). Each one of these transactions is like going to war to get it closed. Each time something changes usually results in about a dozen phone calls back and forth between all parties (last week I literally talked by cell phone battery dead multiple times during the day). So this week I discovered a major break through. I'm going to call it the A-hole break through because I felt like a bit of an A-Hole doing it, but it worked. Here's the example:
-Buyer's lender will not respond to direct questions about getting repairs made to house per VA Loan guidelines. Furthermore, lender will provide no guidance about possible solutions to repair issue.
-Seller is actually a bank. Property was foreclosed on (REO) and the bank has now listed property with a Realtor.
-Seller's Realtor is an arrogant A-Hole that thinks he is God's gift to real estate.
-Buyer is simple, nice and a retired veteran that gets confused easily resulting in many phone conversations (should I say counseling?).
Basically the problem stems from two banks with their "rules" no budging one bit to break said "rules" for either party. Buyer's bank requires repairs made prior to closing. Seller absolutely allows no repairs prior to closing. Any repair cost will be escrowed at closing and made after closing. Can I just say the one single repair is a 4x4-inch section of wood rot in an exterior doorway?
So here's what I did. I wrote an email to God's Gift to Real Estate explaining that I'm getting no guidance from buyer's lender and all the other details of the issue. Then, instead of calling everyone else to give a status update, I just copied it to all of them including the buyer's lender who was not returning messages. With in a minute the buyer's lender emailed me back in ALL CAPS yelling at me that she is doing her job well, but also gave several key pieces of information that helped get the problem solved. She then sent two additional emails yelling at me. I copied her emails and sent them out to all parties again and thanked her for updating us. Today she apologized and also relayed some more helpful information. I'm going to start doing this on all my deals. If it pisses off some people so be it. The best part, my cell phone battery still has a charge!

<>Two more days and I'm Rincon bound! Yup, Puerto Rico here I come for five whole days! It's a win win situation. If there's swell in the water I get to surf amazing point breaks and reef breaks. If there's not I get to snorkel over amazing reefs in crystal clear Caribbean water and have tropical drinks on beautiful beaches! Plus, I'm off to Universal Studios tomorrow with some friends. It'll be my first time ever to Islands of Adventure. I'm sooooo stoked! And Sunday plans are shaping up to look like some fun possibilities too! Better finish packing tonight!