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Are foreclosures STILL the best deal?
December 7, 2010

In the past, I would definetely say "yes". However, given the market and sellers realizing the market, this may not be the case.

As realtors when we go on a listing, we give the seller a lot of information to digest, mostly of which is the "sold" properties. As expected, the majority were foreclosures and we have explained that in order to be competitive with the current market and if they really wish to sell their property, they have to be competitive. They can't be behind the "eight ball" which was happening in the past with arms length transactions. Overall sellers are aware of the market and price it to sell.

My opinion is if you can get an arms length transaction (an actual person on the other end), and your realtor has shown you similar properties and you know the property is priced correctly, this is a good way to go. The reason is if the person lived there (which I will also explain is not always the case), they have to give you a sellers' disclosure on the property. However, if it is an estate sale (usually these sellers are eager to dispose of the property) and they have not lived in the premises, they cannot give a sellers disclosure, but they may be aware of what the owner did in the property (it is usually the children selling in this case).
You can also get tidbits about the property that you cannot get in a foreclosure.

My advice is NOT to ask just to see foreclosures; there are other deals out there. We cover Hernando County (Spring Hill, Weeki Wachee and Brooksville) and it is wise to expand to both foreclosures and arms length transactions.

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