Write a letter to the bank of your interest, and ask them of any bank owned properties they have. If they do, find out how long they have had it. The longer its been there, the more willing they are do get rid of it cheap. Those are the ones you want. Even if not, if they get have it for 100k, offer 55k. If they say no, say ok thank you, and leave them your number. You may get a call in a month or so with them reconsidering.
[addsig]
You might also want to add a letter/coverpage with your written offer outlining how much they are losing while the property sits there, how much they would lose if the property needs major repairs, etc. There is a set of articles on "Using Financial Judo" by Bill Young here on TCI in the article archives that you might want to check out when you get the chance. You can fidn it by typing in "judo" in the search box in the upper right hand corner of the page.
I've been told by certain banks that they would look very favorably on an investor that offered on multiple properties. And all of their properties are handled thru agents. Singles are hard to deal on. One of those banks recently sold 100 properties to the same conglomerate...one fell swoop. And a lot of rehabbers would be discouraged by this, but the way I see it, it's just more incentive to get out there and find the right ones, because they are definitely out there. I don't need a hundred...6 a year would be fine for now.
All of the REOs I have looked at have been through real estate agents. I have made offers using the real estate forms, but the banks like to ammend these using their own forms. My most recent purchase was an REO and it was fairly straight forward and rather quick close. The speed was helped by an all cash offer. On a cash offer be prepared for a request for verification of funds.
In my experience so far every REO every bank has is listed in the MLS with a listing agent. Are there secret properties that banks don't put in the MLS that you will find only by contacting the bank?
1) Find a realtor to give you the listings of all REO properties in your area. Give him/her criteria such as single family homes, condos, narrow the search by specific areas only, or year built, nothing older than 50 years, nothing smaller than 500 sq feet, whatever you want or don't want, or just get them all.
2) Look them over, start going to look at them with the realtor. Take notes on the ones you like, put together costs to rehab if that is what you are looking at doing.
3) Put offers in to the banks through your realtor to the banks listing realtor.
Banks are in the banking business--Not
the real estate business. They let others handle real estate. They absolutely hate people asking them about REOs-they don't have the time, personnel, or stomach for that. One Senior VP banker told me that they get hundreds or inquires a day and they don't want to deal with the curiousity seekers, tire kickers, or other such persons. That's the Realtors bag.
Write a letter to the bank of your interest, and ask them of any bank owned properties they have. If they do, find out how long they have had it. The longer its been there, the more willing they are do get rid of it cheap. Those are the ones you want. Even if not, if they get have it for 100k, offer 55k. If they say no, say ok thank you, and leave them your number. You may get a call in a month or so with them reconsidering.
[addsig]
You might also want to add a letter/coverpage with your written offer outlining how much they are losing while the property sits there, how much they would lose if the property needs major repairs, etc. There is a set of articles on "Using Financial Judo" by Bill Young here on TCI in the article archives that you might want to check out when you get the chance. You can fidn it by typing in "judo" in the search box in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Tanya
Can you still make an offer to a bank on REO if the property is listed with an agent?
I've been told by certain banks that they would look very favorably on an investor that offered on multiple properties. And all of their properties are handled thru agents. Singles are hard to deal on. One of those banks recently sold 100 properties to the same conglomerate...one fell swoop. And a lot of rehabbers would be discouraged by this, but the way I see it, it's just more incentive to get out there and find the right ones, because they are definitely out there. I don't need a hundred...6 a year would be fine for now.
All of the REOs I have looked at have been through real estate agents. I have made offers using the real estate forms, but the banks like to ammend these using their own forms. My most recent purchase was an REO and it was fairly straight forward and rather quick close. The speed was helped by an all cash offer. On a cash offer be prepared for a request for verification of funds.
I'm curious about birdogs1's response.
In my experience so far every REO every bank has is listed in the MLS with a listing agent. Are there secret properties that banks don't put in the MLS that you will find only by contacting the bank?
Dnon33-
1) Find a realtor to give you the listings of all REO properties in your area. Give him/her criteria such as single family homes, condos, narrow the search by specific areas only, or year built, nothing older than 50 years, nothing smaller than 500 sq feet, whatever you want or don't want, or just get them all.
2) Look them over, start going to look at them with the realtor. Take notes on the ones you like, put together costs to rehab if that is what you are looking at doing.
3) Put offers in to the banks through your realtor to the banks listing realtor.
4) wait for the rejections
5) repeat until successful.
Banks are in the banking business--Not
the real estate business. They let others handle real estate. They absolutely hate people asking them about REOs-they don't have the time, personnel, or stomach for that. One Senior VP banker told me that they get hundreds or inquires a day and they don't want to deal with the curiousity seekers, tire kickers, or other such persons. That's the Realtors bag.