A payoff demand landed clean and the number I underwrote to held

The margin math here is tight enough to be worth naming: at $247,500 in plus $18,000 in rehab you are at roughly $265,500 all-in against a $310,000 retail, so the operator you hand this to is working with maybe $44,500 gross before carry, selling costs, and any contractor variance. That spread is real but not fat, which means the person taking the renovation risk needs that HVAC number to hold.

The thing that actually decided this deal was the 14-day close against a 19-day auction clock, and that only works if the payoff verbal three weeks out was reliable enough to commit to without a written demand in hand. Most of the horror stories in this room are not bad math, they are someone who waited on a written demand and ran out of runway.

What is your read on whether the contractor scoped the HVAC as a straight swap or whether he opened the wall yet?

The assumption doing the most work in your underwrite was that the servicer's verbal would hold, and it did, which is the part that usually doesn't. A $300 variance on a $214,000 payoff demand is tight. Most people model a wider buffer and give themselves room to renegotiate on the back end. You didn't, the seller got exactly what you put on paper, and the deal still works at the margin you need. That combination is harder to engineer than the thread makes it sound.

The risk you didn't mention is the contractor number. You're 14 days from close, pre-rehab, with an $18,000 scope that one contractor walked once. The spread between $247,500 in and $310,000 to $315,000 out is roughly $45,000 to $50,000 gross before acquisition costs, carrying costs, and that $18,000. If the HVAC swap runs long or the scope expands after walls open, the deal still closes but the margin compresses in a hurry. Whoever you're handing the operator role to needs a second bid on that HVAC specifically, and they need it before they pull permits, not after. Confirm with whoever's carrying the paper whether scope overruns affect any agreement you have in place on the handoff.

The other thing worth sitting with: a clean title report 19 days from auction on a pre-foreclosure is not a given. Second lien didn't materialize, but the fact that you were bracing for it means your sourcing flagged something. Worth knowing exactly why that flag appeared so you can weight it correctly on the next deal, whether it was the county records pull, the title prelim, or just pattern recognition.

What did the sourcing look like on this one, and how far into the default window were you when you first made contact?