Buying a vacant, bank-owned house?The house, in St. Paul, MN value topped out at 320,000. It has been vacant since 4/2006 and the price has been reduced a number of times to its current price at $164,999. The house looks bad from outside (because the porch has partially collapsed, and the bank has not reduced the price since the porch collapse)... |
Make a very low offer. The worst thing that can result is the bank says no. If they say no, move on to the next one but make a note to come back and low ball them again in a few months.
I assume you already have some financing lined up but as a reminder, consider a rehab loan to finance the purchase and any needed repairs.
A long time ago, I did two foreclosure fixer-uppers and paid for everything out of my own pocket. That was before I knew about rehab loans. If I was doing a fixer-upper now, a rehab loan is the way I'd go.
Too bad you aren't in Florida but read this
http://www.atlanticeloan.com/pages/rehab-loans.aspx
the criteria shouldn't be too different from your area.
Good Luck,
Charlie Camp
Atlantic Mortgage
Satellite Beach, FL
you need to find out how much the default amount was at the time of foreclosure. if it's more than the current selling price, the bank probably will not come down on the price. but you can always sit around and wait and perhaps no one else will buy it and they will reduce it again. I suspect people with more knowledge about the house than you have already looked into the house and there is a good reason why an experienced investor has not already bought it. if all they had to do was repair the porch and turn around and sell it for a profit, they would have done so.
