I was with a buyer last week that wanted to look at a certain foreclosure home that they had seen listed. The price seemed a little high, but they thought there might be room for the bank to wiggle… It had been on the market for about 8 months.
When we walked in the door, the odor of decay was overwhelming. Literally. We couldn’t walk into the house for more than a moment.
Of course, there was no power, the HVAC had not run for at least as long as it had been on the market, probably longer. There was (probably) a roof leak… and the moisture had allowed mold to grow unchecked.
Of course i called the listing agent, got a recording, left a message and… never heard back. I know that I couldn’t have been the first person in the house in eight months… this couldn’t have been the first time someone said that the house was having issues.
Now, this is likely a teardown. I couldn’t recommend it to any of my buyers. The price was slightly too high for a home in reasonable shape. For what it had become, it wasn’t even close. Priced at $345,000 it was about $20k too much. But, it had become a liability and not worth more than $50,000 (value of the land and cost to remove the house).
With banks having collateralization issues, losing $250,000 on this property over spending a little and pricing it reasonably seems kind of stupid. Multiply this by tens of thousands of properties across the country.
Don’t hesitate to shoot Lane a message if you have any questions, or need any help. And check out the new links for FREE Property Searching, FREE Comparative Market Analysis and FREE Market Reports. They are near the top of the page…
