Hey
@CuriousQuiet1 ~ I just wanted to follow back up on this… I actually just went and took a look at the property, and now that I’ve checked out the details, I’m pretty convinced that all it was, was exactly what I thought, a good investment. She purchased it at a great price, definitely undervalued and great bones… It’s in a great part of town, highly walkable, lots of other similar properties around it renting for QUITE a lot… even if she purchased it with a mortgage, the rental amount would far exceed any mortgage payment, she would have to put a minimum of 20% down, so basically any rental income she would be getting from it would be paying the house off by itself, and then she’d be earning additional income beyond that. Honestly, for the price she paid it was a steal… I also thought about another property she purchased I believe at an address off of Jerusalem Road? I think that was the name of it, I could be mistaken, I’ll go back and check, but she flipped it herself… In other words, the woman had a talent for aesthetics and interior design… I’ll see if I can find you the before and after photos of the project that she did a year or so ago… The Baltimore property was built in 1920 and had awesome bones… More than likely it was structurally sound as well (also making it a great investment), otherwise I don’t think she would’ve purchased it being that she had extensive RE knowledge… I’m thinking MAYBE she was planning to give it a little bit of a facelift, because honestly a little bit would’ve been all it would’ve needed to turn it into a show stopper… And then she would’ve been able to rent it out for quite a bit. The other thing is that when you are a real estate professional, you also avoid a lot of the fees in the commissions that come with transactions because you represent yourself since you’re licensed and can… thus, saving her even more $$. Since she is not listed as the buying agent on the property transfer record, I’m guessing she probably had a friend facilitate the transaction for her and name only… working for the company that she did in DC, she may not have been able to officially list herself as the buying agent in the transaction. I’ve experienced similar situations when I’ve worked for custom homebuilders and purchased personal properties… because I technically work for the homebuilder, I cannot, officially, in name, represent myself in the transaction because legally, transactions are between two firms, not to licensees, the licensees simply facilitate the sale, but you can easily find a friend working in a general brokerage firm willing to put their name on the listing on the buy side, and still save yourself all of the transaction fees and commissions or just gifted right back to you. After taking a look, it makes sense that she would’ve purchased it simply because it was a great investment. Obviously I can’t say for sure, but from taking a look at it, that’s what it seems like to me. It would make sense, but I am just speculating based on my own knowledge… I certainly cannot definitively speak for Ana.
Honestly, all of this makes me really sad. It just sounds like she was working so hard and doing all of the right things so that she could create a nice life for her children and herself in DC… she was definitely a smart cookie. It breaks my heart that she and her kids won’t get to live that beautiful life together, that she seemed to be working so hard to create.