Eric West

Helly,
I see it has been almost a month and still nothing on this property. The bank did in fact foreclose on the property and it will be listed again. Some lenders take a little longer than others to re-list their property. If I were you I would have a REALTOR keep an eye on it so you can be one of the first one's in the door as soon as it pop's up on the market. - Wed Jul 16 2008, 08:19

The short answer is yes. However it does bring up a few questions. 1, what are you short term goals with regards to real estate. 2, what are you mid term goals and lastly what are you long term goals for real estate. For example if you are looking to purchase something for the short term to get your foothold into the real estate market a 15 yr mgt may be the way to go. You would pay down principle faster than a 30 year and when you are ready to take the next step and buy up you would have more equity in your current property that could be rolled into the next property. Assuming you have a lower loan amount on the first property the 15yr payment would be easier to afford then when you move on to your second property. Now on the other hand if you are thinking of buying now… and down the road holding on to this property as an investment then it may make more sense to take the 30yr payment as you will hold the property longer and have a better chance of the rent’s covering the mortgage cost. My advice for you is to call thee LOCAL lenders. By local I mean banks/brokers that are in your area. You can look over all three.. mind you the one who shows the best interest rate may not be the best overall value. Compare the APR and the Rate. If the rate is lower on one and the APR higher there are more closing costs build in to this loan program and there is a good chance you may be paying a point and not even know it. A mortgage lender can go into the details with you.

Best of luck… and welcome to the wonderful world of real estate.

Eric West http://www.yourseacoastrealtor.com - Wed Jul 16 2008, 07:56

I will keep this short and sweet.
When I am working with a lender and buyer, I have the lender make the approval apply to a specific property location with no mention of a price on it. It simply states that “buyer” is approved to purchase the property located at “x”. - Tue Mar 25 2008, 11:34

I know some of the answers were from out of the state. That is good however remember all real estate markets are different. The Insult approach is a funny one to me. Let me ask you a question if you had something for sale, a car boat whatever. If you were asking what you thought was a fair market price for this item and to give it a number lets say $1000.00 this will keep the math simple for me. If I came and saw this item and decided that the item was worth $750.00 to me and offered you that for the item would you sell it for that amount or be offended? If the answer is offended I would say you need to hire someone to sell the item for you. You can not look at real estate solely as an emotional decision, it is partly this but it is also a business transaction. So getting back to point, I offer you 750 you say NO. A little time goes by your price drops to 900 I come back and offer you 800 and we settle on 850 and part ways both feeling happy. The point is any offer is a good offer, it may not be the offer that gets the deal done but if you go in at 250 they will NEVER take 225 after the fact. You can always go up on your offer it is kinda hard to go down (unless you discover undisclosed defects in inspection). Hope it helps. The advice of hiring a REALTOR to help you is a good one. In most cases a buyer’s agent will cost you no out of pocket expense as the listing agent splits a listing fee - Tue Mar 25 2008, 11:11

Maryann,
Some of what they are saying applies. A bank does look at the REO as an asset. They also look at current market conditions and are paying licensed real estate professionals to do BMO (Broker market opinion) this should give the bank a good idea of the current market value of the property. What happens in many cases is by the time the bank gets this information and lists the property for sale the market has changed. The short answer is the bank is slow to recognize this change. Just keep in mind that what you are hearing on National news about real estate market conditions may not apply in the area of homes you’re looking at. I have seen a few good deals lately however they are not as good as the scenario you had spelled out with a 65% of FMV. I would say if you can get a property for 75-80% of the current true market value it is a good deal. Just remember the banks know this too and once they have spent the money to bring it into foreclosure they are looking at what the expenses –vs- return going forward, they have already eaten the cost of the foreclosure. So if they hang on to that property and get 10% more that gains them $22,500 to cover the costs of carrying the property for 6 more months. - Tue Mar 25 2008, 11:00