renting-a-house Archives | Jennifer Buys Houses

How to Know if Renting or Owning a Home is Right For You in Los Angeles

October 15, 2019

So, you’re looking at moving and you’re not sure if renting or owning a local Los Angeles CA home is right for you? You’re not sure if one is a better financial decision than the other? You’re not sure if you’ll be able to find the type of house or apartment you’d like to live … Continued

Testimonials

Jennifer Buys Houses
“Let me just say that Jennifer Shenbaum is the most honest and trustworthy businessperson I have ever encountered.”

“I have never written an online review before. I am doing so now because of the extraordinary experience I had with Jennifer Shenbaum. Before I retired, I practiced business law for over 20 years and worked on hundreds, maybe thousands, of transactions. Let me just say that Jennifer Shenbaum is the most honest and trustworthy businessperson I have ever encountered.

I owned a second house in the Los Angeles area that I wanted to sell. The house had fallen into a state of substantial disrepair, so I decided to sell it “as is” to an investor, commonly referred to as a “flipper.” A flipper is in the business of buying properties in subpar condition, putting in the money, time, energy, work and risk involved to bring them up to the necessary condition to sell (or perhaps, rent), hopefully at a profit, to “retail” buyers (or renters), i.e., people seeking a home to live in. The financial “win-win” in selling to an investor is that there are no brokerage commissions to deduct from the sales price (although the advantage of a broker is to make the process easier by dealing with the infinite amount of details involved in selling a house).

So, I went online and easily found a number of real estate investor websites seeking to buy single-family houses. I submitted several applications/questionnaires, and over the next several days my voice-mail and email were literally swamped with eager buyers. The competition in the flipping business is fierce. I met with every one of them at the house, including Jennifer.

Offers immediately started coming in my email. They were all very close in price, but they all raised issues: for some, the initial deposit was too low; some had longer escrow periods than I wanted; all of them wanted to split the closing costs; all of them wanted me to pay the transfer taxes (a not insignificant item and normally paid by the seller); they all used the onerous, really long standard realtor contracts, which are intended for retail buyers involving brokers, and then “marked them up” to reflect the significantly different circumstances of selling to an investor. This made me uncomfortable because it created a lot of legal ambiguities.

All the offers had an inspection contingency, meaning the buyer had a certain number of days (usually 5 – 7) to inspect the property and then ask the seller to fix specified things. If the seller refused, the buyer could walk from the deal. This made absolutely NO SENSE to me. The whole point of selling to an investor is to take a lower price precisely because you don’t want to do ANY repairs. I was concerned the buyers might just be using the inspection contingency to renegotiate the price while they had the property tied up in escrow.

The one exception was Jennifer. Selling to Jennifer Shenbaum eliminated every one of my concerns.

Her offer contained NO CONTINGENCIES, period. All I had to do was deliver clean title into escrow, she would put in the money, and we close. The closing was to take place in two weeks. She paid ALL closing costs, including the transfer taxes. (The only thing I would have to pay out of escrow would be my share of the pro-rated unpaid property taxes for the current property tax fiscal year). She told me she doesn’t use the standard form realtor contract, “because it’s basically written to protect the brokers,” a sentiment I fully shared. Her contract was one and a half pages long. Also, her offer matched the highest price I had received.

Unfortunately, some glitches in closing came from MY side, and instead of simply saying, “well that’s your problem,” she really helped me solve the problems. Other than that (again, which was on me), this was the easiest real estate transaction imaginable. All I had to do was sign the contract, sign the escrow documents, which reflected the simplicity of the deal, and wait two weeks until closing when the money hit my account. She took this on herself and fully relieved me of all of the innumerable details involved in a real estate sale.

Before I opened the email with my final closing statement from escrow, I couldn’t help feeling there would be some little extra charge in there, like “wire transfer fee” or something. Nope. The shortest escrow statement I’ve ever seen. Three lines: purchase price, less property tax pro-ration, and net amount due buyer. And that’s the amount that hit my bank account.

As I said earlier, the flipping business is extremely competitive right now, and I am convinced she is simply going to cream the competition. She has a business model that basically takes ALL of her customers’ (buyers’) concerns involved in a house sale into account and SOLVES THEM: No inspection contingency; no lengthy legal documentation; no uncertainty about escrow costs; quick closing; taking on herself all the little details; etc., etc.

If you’re thinking about selling your house to an investor, meet with several prospective ones, including Jennifer. I would be surprised if you didn’t sell to her.”

Matthew K., West Hollywood, CA

Tag: renting-a-house