Ah, the eBay property saga

Quick refresher from yesterday...

Over the summer I got a cash flowing duplex under contract, then proceeded to have much difficulty getting access to the property, so I rescinded my offer.

I forgot about this yesterday...after rescinding I was contacted by Aaron and he mentioned he could probably move it quickly, but if I had a lower price.  Told him I had just dropped it.

Seller contacted me to see if we could get it back on track.  I offered about $5k less this time ($13k) and then let Aaron know.  We decided to go in as partners on the deal and he worked to get into the property to check it out.  Got in, took a ton of pics, contacted his list...his nearly sure thing buyer did not pan out.

Contacted another wholesaler friend, Rosanne, asked her to send it to her list...nothing. Between the two of us we put it out to our lists at $19,900 and we both got replies asking what is wrong with the property because it was priced so low.  Really?  "You know, that deal is too good, please charge me more."

 We re-grouped and decided to put it up on eBay.

Now, the next part of the story...

So we put the property up on eBay for 14 days (which was too long, will do something shorter next time) and a decent following developed.  Got some inquiries about it, a couple of investors had multiple inquiries, so that was a good sign.

(Oh, and at this point I had made a decently-sized mistake.  I agreed to partner 50-50 w/ Aaron so we would split regardless of who found buyer.  This was fine since he actually did a decent amount of legwork on this.  When his buyers did not pan out, I reached out to Rosanne to see if her list would be better.  Now, if Rosanne gets the buyer we are splitting the take in half.  Then, I am splitting my half w/ Aaron.  Not my best decision, but 25% of something is better than 100% of nothing.)

As expected the action did not really take off until the auction period was just about over (during the last day).  There were two investors who were bidding against each other, the same guys who had been emailing us.

At the end of the auction the winning bid was $22,500.  Contract price was $13,100, so a nice $9,400 payday.  Woo-hoo!  Got in touch with the winning bidder, he is in Australia.  Got the assignment letter to him and sent a $2,000 deposit via PayPal.  Nice.  Seller is in CA, property is near Pittsburgh and the buyer is in Australia.  This should be a piece of cake, right?

Got the deposit no problem.  Got my attorney to quarterback the closing.  Buyer hired a local attorney to be his representation.  Ok, all of the players are in place.  The train is on track and heading out of the station.

Then the wheels fall off...