Dear Forum,
I am getting close to pullling my hair out ! I have several, yes several homes located, that we have been watching for several months and even years. All are vacant. These homes have been included in bankruptcy and even insurance loss, but have had no action since.
I want to purchase these properties, but need a little help. I have done skip traces, pulled tax cards and the like… What have you all found works in this situation or situations.
Apparently, the banks are just letting these properties sit and rot away rather than dispose of them at a loss. I guess they have already been bailed out by insuraqnce on the note and don’t really care.
Any ideas, suggestions or proven methods would be apppreciated… It is a real shame to let these properties just sit. I can count at least 10 single family homes in nice neighborhoods and not even a sale at the courthouse in the last two years or even a mention of one.
Hi,
I don't know where you live in our country but the truth of the matter is there is a large shadow inventory of homes sitting in many states. Unfortunately if mortgage lenders had just continued to dump more and more inventory on the market in area's already hard hit home values would have continued to crash and we would have markets that would never stabalize.
I can point out homes in some of the markets I work in that have been vacant 3, 4, 5 or 6 years and I see no sign they will come back to the market anytime soon! But whether they erode away, rot or are attacked by termites does not directly effect me as I don’t have money invested in them, and the worst of them are just more opportunity for me to make money when the time comes for some of these to hit the market!
There are a lot of direct opportunities without looking under rocks, just make sure you don’t miss the forest through the tree’s!!
GR
I figure that “money in the hand is worth more than a property on the books.” Let’s just hope the banks that own the property are thinking the same thing.
Since you have the property cards and can see who are the owner, I would write a letter with a good offer and send it to the owner, be it an individual or a bank. A lot of banks are slowing draining out their REO homes so that they do not flood the market and drag down our home values even more.
That being said, as long as the property is not listed with a realtor, you can contact the bank directly and try to buy it off their hands. Just be prepared to spend the time to slosh through the bank bureaucracy which takes a lot of patience.
Thanks Guys,
Grateful for the replys and great advice. I am willing to wait the banks out and see what happens, but I thought someone might have tried and been successful at getting the properties prior to a listing with a Realtor. I am even willing to do a bulk sale if the same bank would be involved.
I understand there are opportunities everywhere and I wish all of my fellow investors the best in the hunt. This is a great forum to discover tricks of the trade and to eliminate tried and unsuccessful methods.
I recommend this site to ALL…
Large banks do sell bulk REO packages, but in their mind, it does not become a bulk deal until the package includes 50 - 200 properties that are bought sight unseen.
That being said, you could always try to make an offer on 4 or 5 homes at one time as a “bulk” deal. Ideally you would have greater success if all the properties were being handled by the same agent or at least by the same bank. I would suggest breaking down the allocated purchase price for each property in the offer. This will help their paperwork.
I am not an expert but I think the value of the structure is a factor in calculating the rate of the total value of the property, but bear in mind that a large chunk of it consists of the land and no matter how long it may stand there and rot, it’s the land and location that matters! You might do a research on your local county as to the current status of the houses. You might be lucky enough to buy one of those in a lower price. Good luck!