Anyone close enough to one of these?

[brewer12345]

Foreclosed Properties: Buying Foreclosed Home, Properties & Foreclosed Home Listing For Sale

Always wanted to attend for sihts and grins, if for nothing else. But none of these places is nearby.

 

[cantlogin]

None are close for me either, but we could carpool.

 

[Moemg]

Foreclosed Properties: Buying Foreclosed Home, Properties & Foreclosed Home Listing For Sale

Always wanted to attend for sihts and grins, if for nothing else. But none of these places is nearby.

Not near any of those but I have noticed short sales being advertised locally .

 

[Nords]

Not near any of those but I have noticed short sales being advertised locally .

A hairdresser on TLC's "Property Ladder" managed to find a nice 4BR/2BA foreclosure fixer-upper for $70K. I think her flipper budget was $10K.

At least it was until they found what the rodents had been stuffing into the voids behind the drywall...

 

[retire@40]

There are a bunch that are less than an hour driving distance from me, but I'm afraid to go there without a revolver.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

none of the upcoming auctions listed are close to me but from what i hear and read they seem to be getting closer all the time.

 

[tryan]

Brewer,

Thanx for the lead ... the northern MA listings are local for me. I plan to attend.

Skimmed the list quickly ... one address caught my eye. I sold a SF to the foreclosed owner in 2005 she kept a duplex on the same street for rental income. Proceeded to drain equity to rehab the SF into her dream home ... and now the duplex has been foreclosed. Interesting.

Attending will tell alot about where we are in the cycle. With financing available I'ld expect most deals to sell above reasonable rental rates (i.e. can't profit yet by renting them out). But we won't know until the auction happens. Just seems like there's too much liquidity out there.

 

[brewer12345]

Brewer,

Thanx for the lead ... the northern MA listings are local for me. I plan to attend.

If you do go, do us a wriet-up on what you see. It would be especially interesting coming from a very seasoned investor who knows the local market.

 

[Milton]

There are a bunch that are less than an hour driving distance from me, but I'm afraid to go there without a revolver.

You need to move to a better place.

 

[retire@40]

You need to move to a better place.

I'm in a good town north of Boston where the schools are good and there is practically no crime. There are also no foreclosures in this area though.

 

[mickeyd]

I have lurked at public real estate auctions on the steps of our county court house a number of times. Very interesting, time honored way to pick up real estate, I guess. I have never been tempted to make a bid as the rest of the folks (many seem to make it a regular event each month) seem to really be knowledgeable about local real estate market and I have never had the time (or inclination) to get that involved.

 

[tryan]

The nice thing about these auctions is that the seller cleans up the title of all subordinate leins. Very similar to the HUD auctions in the early 90's.

I'm in a good town north of Boston where the schools are good and there is practically no crime. There are also no foreclosures in this area though.

Need to look closer ... some these houses have OCEAN view (bring your gun during duck season).

 

[dumpster56]

Wonder how many of those homes went up in flames in CA this week?
And what becomes of them if they had not gone into foreclouser yet?

 

[brewer12345]

The nice thing about these auctions is that the seller cleans up the title of all subordinate leins. Very similar to the HUD auctions in the early 90's.

The clean title is what I find attractive about these auctions vs. buying on the courthouse steps.

 

[tryan]

Yeah, hate to find out after closing for cash that the town has a tax lien and/or the condo fees are a few years back.

 

[tryan]

Well, I said I thought liquidity was still too high; watching ~150 homes be sold at an REO auction confirmed my suspicions. Here’s the high/low lights from the second day REDC Boston West home auction.

• Every property sold above the banks minimum bid. 45 were sold absolute (no minimum). The banks set the minimum bids without regard to what was owed on the property.
• Financing was offered by Countrywide on the vast majority of the home. Only those homes with: Title 5 septic issues, encumbered titles (e.i. wet land issues), flooding issues, major repair issues … were not financed. If financing was not available the auction was “cash only”.
• Winning bids averaged 60% of the “Bank Value”. I believe the bank value is tied to an appraisal (not the foreclosed amount).
• Very few (~ a dozen) sold at values which could be supported by market rents. These few were in the inner city.
• Many bidders did not do their homework. About 1 in 5 were sent back to auction a second/third time because – I am guessing - preapproval for financing could not be obtained. Also watched a couple properties in well established flood zones sell in the six-figures.

I have a scatter plot of the 152 auctioned homes. I used the downloadable sheet from the web link then added a row for the auction price. But I need instructions for cut'n pasting from excel (tried twice).

This auction is only the tip of the iceberg. At the end of the auction it was announced that the next auction date will be held in March 2008. So the pipe line is already well established.

FWIW, I was qualified to bid. Never raised my card. The 2 homes I was interested in quickly hit my limits and sold 20 and 70k beyond me. Even my limits were beyond rent sustainability. I was looking for the winter project (flip).

 

[brewer12345]

Very interesting. Thanks for the write-up. About what I expected, really. Dunno about you, but I am not expecting prices to get to levels that might be supported by rents until late next year (if at all).

 

[retire@40]

I went to look at a couple of these properties. Even at the discounted prices, they are not worthwhile investments. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these same properties get foreclosed on a second time.

It also doesn't surprise me that there was overbidding since REDC advertised the hell out of this auction with TV infomercials, radio commercials, brochures, follow-up postcards and emails.

There will be plenty more foreclosures in the next year or two.

 

[tryan]

Yeah, we agree ... it's TOO EARLY. Need Countrywide to loose a few BILLION more and stop financing and refinancing these things. THEN investors will be bidding with thier check books. And the sale values will be supported by market rents.

When that happens is anyones call ... but I'll at least know what it looks like.

 

[tryan]

Looks like we've got at least a couple years before a bottom is found:

Mortgage giant Countrywide Financial said Tuesday that it financed $22 billion worth of home loans last month — down 48 percent from a year ago. The lender, which was one of the biggest suppliers of subprime loans to borrowers with risky credit backgrounds, said it wrote just $42 million worth of subprime loans in October. That’s down from $3.3 billion a year ago.

Have you been hit by the mortgage meltdown? Send us your story, and please include a photo of your house. Click here to submit your story.


Congress and the White House continue to look for ways to hold back the rising tide of foreclosures being created by a wave of “resets” on adjustable-rate mortgages. Many of these ARMs will jump over the next two years from low, initial teaser rates, resulting in high payments that many homeowners’ will be unable to afford.

Foreclosures hit some cities hard - Mortgage mess - MSNBC.com

 

[stuff]

I'm curious to see how many of these homes actually end up selling. There are reports this auctioneer plays games with buyers.

Tryan, have you had any luck with the excel sheet? I'd love to see the information on what sold and for how much.

 

[tryan]

Stuff, any links/report citing the "games". The only thing that surprized me was the auctioneers 5% commision ADDED to the sale price. So on a 300k bid, they walk with 15k. But they were very clear in explaining this. No surprizes to the winning bidders.

I'll try to link the spread sheet ... need to get it from home thou (we're away for T-giving). The scatter plot in the attachment in my previous post has the sales values. The excel will map addresses to prices.

One thing for sure, everyone should be motivated to close these deals: the banks got high prices (relative to rents/wages); the auctioneer makes 5%; and the high bidder left 5% on the table after signing a P&S.