That sucks, but as far as financial mistakes go, could be much worse. Was trying to get into flipping here a couple years ago. I was targeting homes in Harlem, because at that time there were a lot of abandoned homes that you could get for below market. The problem is that they had muddled paper work/ histories and you had to research the homes yourself. It's extremely competitive, which was fun for me, but it was also really fraught with scams.
Three homes in a row basically did the same thing- someone who was renting or squatting was attempting to sale the home they didn't own. Different versions of deed scam are really popular in NY. So, I finally found a place that I thoroughly researched the deed, no sro designations, no bullshit like that- took almost a year and cost about $4500- and it fell apart in the final stages. I just bowed the fuck out. People say that there's a really strong flipping market here, but I think it's mostly in what's considered the "outer boroughs".
that's bad. but sometimes you got to know when to cut your losses, you probably did the right thing to give it up. no point throwing more good money after bad. i suppose wherever you find money, you'll always find someone trying to run a scam. it happens in the auction market in the UK too. vendors trying to put in dodgy properties and hiding problems.
first property i bought at auction i was quite lucky with something like that. when you buy at auction in the UK you have to put down a deposit of 10% of the sale price on the spot and then you have 28 days to pay the rest in full, whether you're borrowing from a mortgage co or have the money yourself, if you're not ready to complete the purchase on 28 days you lose your deposit, no argument.
flat i bought there was a problem with the buildings insurance(flat was owned by a company that also owned the freehold), it didn't include subsidence cover, there was no actual problem with the flat itself but without subsidence cover it is impossible to get a mortgage co to lend the money. i missed it when going through the paperwork pre auction.
anyway i got lucky and my solicitor managed to get around it and the mortgage company gave me the money. but i know of at least one other buyer that had bought a flat in same block and lost his deposit because his mortgage company wouldn't lend on it.
god knows how many times they'd run that scam kept the 10% deposit each time the buyer's mortgage co wouldn't lend. after purchase my solicitor went back through all the paperwork and managed to force the freeholder to add subsidence cover to the policy. as there a legal clause that a freeholder must insure to a reasonable risk(or some term like that) and apparently subsidence is considered a "reasonable risk" so if there is no cover for that the freeholder must show why not, and show they are making reasonable attempts to get that cover. anyway after a couple of solicitor letters, subsidence was added to the policy.
after that when i went to auction i stuck to bidding on properties being sold by local authorities or housing associations , these are basically an extension of the government so you can have a bit more confidence that what they're putting in will be straight.
