Have you been in real estate long enough to spot a home that may be going into foreclosure or that is in financial distress? I think most seasoned real estate agents can pick out the homes that are in financial trouble. Piles of newspapers strewn upon the lawn adn driveway, weeds, lawn unattended to, and lacking that manicured look. Even if homes have maintenance schedules, they appear to have a domestic 5 o'clock shadow! A few weeds popping up through the shrubbery, maybe a blind in the garage is bent or broken, the windows just don't sparkle and say buy me! In the fall the leaves on the driveway show no signs of being disturbed or moved by cars going up or down the driveway, Listing agents sometimes try to cover up the fact it is a foreclosure by trying to pass it off as corporate owned, corporate..but they cannot fool the real estate sleuths of old! The home does not cry out "Buy me too loudly!"
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Good point Jim. I can spot a foreclosure a block away. (ok, almost). Wish some of the Banks would clean up the act a bit before putting it on the market.
The old "what are they thinking" conversation, huh? I can give two answers and an observation. The observation is the front door. It usually has one of two things on it to prove the house is a foreclosure. One is a yellow or orange tag and the other is a combo, not electric, loxbox.
A lot of the lenders will not allow the use of the words Bank Owned in the ads. Corporate Owned seems to be the "word" that gets sround the "rule".
It's not that they don't know. It's that there is too much. If they clean it up more, then there is more expense, more time, more vendores, more management, more in and out of the property which leads to more risk of theft, risk of falling and injury. The list goes on.