Need advice on buying a forclosed house

[Rucksinator]

My parent's neighbor recently (apparently) walked away from his mortgage. He had told my dad that he couldn't afford it anymore, but he thought he was going to sell it. We didn't realize it was forclosed on until I talked to some guys who came over to mow the lawn. They said that they worked for the bank and their job was to keep the lawn decent over the summer. They said it could be 6 months, or it could be 1 year, before anything happened to the house.*

This is in Kentucky. I'm hoping to sell my house in SC this summer and get a full time job here in KY very soon. I'm staying with my parents right now. 6 months to a year would be a good timeframe for me to get a good deal on this house. How do I proceed?

In SC there is a government website where you can look up info on when and how much houses sold for. (Made for some interesting snooping on my neighbors, all totally on the up-and-up.) Is there something like that for Kentucky? Will it tell me the bank that owns the house? If I knew that, would it be a good idea to contact the bank? I don't want to appear too eager, but I don't want to miss the opportunity to get a good deal.

Or is it most likely that the house will be put up on the market in the regular fashion?

I did a search for "forclosure" but none of the threads that I read through gave much insight into this type of situation.


* I didn't take this as "it will be in this timeframe", but as "IME, there's no telling how long it will be....".

[Capt Kirk]

Foreclosed houses are typically sold at auction(I don't know about KY)

[D-bear]

Check Zillow If your folks know of another foreclosed house that sold recently, you should be able to get a feel...

[Nawth Chucka]

Our recent home purchase was of a bank-owned previously foreclosed home. It was on the MLS like a regular home for sale but had to be financed through Fannie Mae. Get a local realtor, let them know exactly which one you want and they'll watch it for you. You may need to make clear you're not househunting, you ONLY want that house. They're also likely to know which bank holds the note before it gets listed. I don't know of any way to work directly w/ the bank and avoid the realtor.
Banks don't like to negotiate a purchase price; we bid a couple grand under asking and they jumped at it. It certainly was a deal, no doubt. Even putting a few grand into updates (knowing we're moving in a couple years and it needs to look great to sell) we're still going to do very nicely on our investment.

[obbn]

Originally Posted by Nawth Chucka

Our recent home purchase was of a bank-owned previously foreclosed home. It was on the MLS like a regular home for sale but had to be financed through Fannie Mae. Get a local realtor, let them know exactly which one you want and they'll watch it for you. You may need to make clear you're not househunting, you ONLY want that house. They're also likely to know which bank holds the note before it gets listed. I don't know of any way to work directly w/ the bank and avoid the realtor.
Banks don't like to negotiate a purchase price; we bid a couple grand under asking and they jumped at it. It certainly was a deal, no doubt. Even putting a few grand into updates (knowing we're moving in a couple years and it needs to look great to sell) we're still going to do very nicely on our investment.

Agreed. My wife and I attempted to purchase several foreclosures over the last few months. My suggestion is to work with a realtor as they will have the latest information from the bank. In our case a were out bid on several homes, it seemed as if nobody was interested in them until we put in an offer. I purchased my current home as a foreclosure the years ago. My realtor found it and I offered $16k under what the bank was asking and it was accepted in three days from the day I submitted it. Before I got the realtor trying to get info was like pulling teeth. You can try to find info on the Web, but most want a fee for the info. You might want to try the HUD website, for I had an iPhone app that listed all the HUD foreclosures by state and it was free. If you find a foreclosure you are interested in don't delay. We missed out on several due to putting it of until the weekend as properties seem to be moving very quickly, at least in this area.

The only other advice I can give you is stay away from short sales unless you have infinite patience. Tried a few of those and have swore to never again even look at a short sale. Thankfully wee just purchased a home on five acres this week that was a conventional sale, nice and easy! Plus it was a smoking deal!

Good luck and happy hunting!

[Nawth Chucka]

Originally Posted by obbn

Agreed. My wife and I attempted to purchase several foreclosures over the last few months. My suggestion is to work with a realtor as they will have the latest information from the bank. In our case a were out bid on several homes, it seemed as if nobody was interested in them until we put in an offer. I purchased my current home as a foreclosure the years ago. My realtor found it and I offered $16k under what the bank was asking and it was accepted in three days from the day I submitted it. Before I got the realtor trying to get info was like pulling teeth. You can try to find info on the Web, but most want a fee for the info. You might want to try the HUD website, for I had an iPhone app that listed all the HUD foreclosures by state and it was free. If you find a foreclosure you are interested in don't delay. We missed out on several due to putting it of until the weekend as properties seem to be moving very quickly, at least in this area.

The only other advice I can give you is stay away from short sales unless you have infinite patience. Tried a few of those and have swore to never again even look at a short sale. Thankfully wee just purchased a home on five acres this week that was a conventional sale, nice and easy! Plus it was a smoking deal!

Good luck and happy hunting!

To the bolded - it's b/c realtors won't show them if there's not already interest, according to our realtor. No interest is no motivation and the slower a sale takes the less interested your realtor is in pursuing it. Same goes TRIPLE for short sales - you see a great price but it's not really the asking price, it's bait. If you're lucky it will start a bidding war that gets up close to what the bank's hoping to get; if not you're the only offer, it languishes for months and winds up being a resounding NO so you've wasted your time.

[Snnipe 70E]

A few years ago we bought a bank owned home that had been forclosed.

A bank will have a contract with a realter. The bank will use that realter for all its sales. The realter will agree to maintain theproperty until sold. That is mow the lawn, keep the place clean, and arrange for repairs like any broken windows.

What you need to do is find out which bank ows the house see if you can find out which realter the bank uses. Then conact that realter askking to be informed when the bank is going to sell the home. Get all you ducks in a row, ie pre approved for a loan. But I would not expect the bank to be willing to cut you a deal knowing you are their first offer.