I recently found out an aquainted, from an organization I participated, is going thru a foreclosure. He put his house on the market for 1.175M. I have been looking for a new house for a while now. I’m qualify for about 850-900K. I do have a broker but I do not want to bring him in at this point.
My question are:
I want to find out more about this opportunity, how do I approach this guy in such a way that he doesn’t feel offended?
How do I take avantage of this situation and we both come out ahead?
If it is on the market, does that mean it is listed for sale with a real estate agency? If so, then how is approaching the listing agent going to offend the seller? Why not use your buyer’s agent if there is already an agent involved?
Thanks Dave for the reply.
Sure I could use the seller agent and I will when the time is right but I want to talk to the owner directly and get a feel for the property. How much will he willing to come down? Is the situation worth going after? I will not pay the current asking price for sure and I want to take avantage of the situation but not the people. I just want to be fair. I could very well have my agent call his and we can deal on paper. However the human factor seems warmer and more rewarding. I am sure he will feel better knowing that he sell his house to another average Joe to live in instead of some big shot investor trying to flip the house for a profit. On the other hand I could be naive and dreaming.
Thanks again for forth comming response.
If the property is listed for sale, and you try to bypass the broker, things are not going to be friendly.
The seller has a contract with the broker. If the seller tries to cut out the broker and do a side deal with you, the seller will still owe a commission unless he has a listing agreement that directly addresses that.
The broker only gets paid if the property sells, so the broker is on your side. We are not in a market with multiple offers expected to come in, or are you? If that were the case the seller would probably have sold before things went that far south.
Call your agent and have him contact the seller’s broker. Or if you feel it is to your advantage (a discount on brokerage fees) contact the selling broker.
I would ask your realtor to go into public records and find out what amout the owner went into default for.It is very possible he will try and list it for more then he owes before the bank takes it over.If the bank takes over he wont have much of a choice of what the sale price will be but I will tell you the banks are looking for
80% of the list price so that is something to consider.I doubt an investor will try and scoop that up at that price.Im not sure where the home is but in this market homes over 800,000 average 1 year DOM (days on market) No experienced investor will invest in a property that they will have to carry for that long.
You can easily find out if the home is already listed ,so make a call and if it is ,work with the agent to get it done.One thing to keep in mind is most people losing their home DO NOT want to talk about it especially to people they dont know personally.
You should go for it considering that the property is on foreclosure and would be put into the tax deed sales process. Just talk to him nicely and everything would be fine.