kneemah

I'm looking to buy a home to make it a rental property. The bank is listing it at $370,000 and structurally the house is good. only problem is that the previous owner must have been a handy man, because he tried to do 100 different projects, but never completed a single one, so to me i have to start from scratch on them.

anyways i wanted to know what experience you had with the price. i want to take into account another 6 months of depreciation in this market, and 15k-20k for the repairs to the house to make it livable. i told my Realtor to make an offer for $250,000 which is a little less than 70 cents per dollar.

to get some attention from the bank, i told her that i'd do the whole thing cash. the Realtor didn't really offer any insight into whether i was too high or too low.

This is in Los Angeles, ca (specially the valley).

what advice can you guys give me? thanks!

melimel

gosh.. i cant even say now.. when we bought our first home. it was in new york.. a foreclosuer too.. was a little beat up inside and out.. but at that time the bank wanted what was owed to them and thats it.. nowadays i think banks are asking over what they are owed.. kinda near market value..? not too sure.. even the foreclosures out here arent cheap.. the banks want what they want..

as far as other things.. it will be "as is" thats the way it goes.. did you get a home inspection? you usually can do it.. but the bank will not negotiate any further.. its just for your knowledge so you know "what is what"

good luck.. as foreclosures can be a diamond in the rough.. or a money pit.. (ever watch that movie?) HILARIOUS!

sure theres someone on the board dealing with banks and real estate.. if the previous owner owed the bank more then your offering they wont even look at your offer.. like i said.. good luck!!! Mel

Gene

have you had your realtor run the comps in the area as well to see what the market value is for that square footage in that area? How long has it been on the market? Make a list of all the repairs needed as well. Especially if things were not done to code, as it will be out of your pocket to bring it up to code. If you haven't already hire your own inspector to come in and make a list to repairs needed and check everything out. GL


Gene

bonehead

+1 to everything Gene said. Have your realtor run the comps in the area. You don't want to be the most expensive or the cheapest house on the street. In this market, there's certainly no harm in lowballing the bank's offer. It's up to a loss mitigator to decide if your offer is feasable. You never know what they'll accept. Trust me. I speak from experience Good luck.

kneemah

the home on the other side of the street just sold recently for $339k (apparently banked owned as well). That home is in much better condition as far as it being livable, while the home i'm interested will need all the projects to be completed. however, once completed, i feel the house I'm looking at is a much better home, with upgraded amenities.

basically i had my buddy who owns a mortgage brokerage run some stuff on the house, and the previous owner had a 2 year option arm on the home at 600k which was 100% at the time (i'm assuming he took cash out to do the projects). after his second year and the rate jumped on him, he couldn't pay the payments and after 12 months of no payments the bank kicked him out.

comps on the area are around 400k but in this market, that doesn't mean much, as a home takes quite a while to sell with plenty of price reductions along the way.

we would differently have an inspector look at the house.


shelley long was a stone cold fox in that movie

jasonstacey

Try calling an appraiser to get some information. Out here in Vegas banks are holding on to the properties and getting upwards of 4 to 5 appraisals done by different appraisers get a range of values and then passing it on to there loss mitigation department for further review. Banks can only go so far and some are just holding on to the properties.

If you can hold out, there are more arms adjusting in Oct ?Dec then last year, so you might be able to get a better price by waiting.

Thanks,

Jason

bonehead

So how'd you make out?

kneemah

Well I got the biggest BS i've ever heard. my real estate agent called me back saying the bank's Realtor already has offers 45k more than what they were asking for after only being on the market for 3 days. that's also 15k more than what zillow would suggest. she said bank owned homes only stay on the market for 72 hours because they're "that hot". lol

I asked her about other homes and she said bank owned homes are so hot that people are actually buying them for more than normal channels. i can't believe this. i told her to send me 10 homes that have recently sold for more than the asking price and market value and she hasn't gotten back to me.

She accidentally left her property listing page with me that had the realtor's name and number who was managing the sale for the bank and i left them a message. hopefully I'll get a call regarding the property to see if my real estate agent is BSing me.

Regardless I'm dropping her, because she obviously has very little experience in this. if anyone has a good agent they'd like to pass along to me (San Fernando Valley) please PM me the information.

bonehead

WTF? No one in this market is paying asking price for a home, ESPECIALLY bank owned ones. If someone does, they're retarded. My question is why would your realtor BS you? It's a commission for her, so what does she care?

kneemah

no idea, i know it's a set commission regardless what it sales for. i think the bank is BSing her, seeing how dumb she is. i believe a more experienced real estate agent would have read through that.