Has anyone bought a foreclosed home?

[Mommy Of A Little Angel]

I did a search here and found some information on foreclosures, but I want to know if anyone has done it. How did you do it and did it end up being a good deal? I found a foreclosure in a neighborhood that I really like, but since I am new to the whole house buying thing, I have no idea where to start. Any stories/advice you have would be great. Thanks so much!

[SammyeGail]

The one we are planning to sell soon in a HUD Repo. We paid aprx 75% of the appraised value. We saw it on the HUD website, but it was listed with an real estate agency, in a town 40 miles away so it didn't even show up on the mls. Gov't contracts....

We used a real estate agent for our end. They are AS IS, we bought ours not even knowing if the utilities worked. The problems were mostly cosmetic.

Look over the house very very well. Check for rotting wood, etc we ran into lots of crappy HUD homes. If someone is so irresponsible about their MTG payments, they probably didn't care about the home's maintanence, kwim?

The contract offer was a nightmare. Everything had to be worded perfectly. We had to go back and resign docs because they rejected our first 3 offers because of wording, not the price.

Could tell you more, but gotta go..

[almostamom]

Years ago I worked for a real estate company that listed lots of foreclosed properties - most of them from three lenders. Each of these lenders would fix up the properties to make them presentable to sell (carpet, paint, fixing pools, plumbing, etc.) The list prices were determined by the comps in the area, so they were not thousands less than other houses in the neighborhood. Our office did not work with government properties (ex. HUD) at all so I don't have any experience with those.

If I were in your shoes I would find a good realtor who would act as a buyer's broker and have any home I was considering making an offer on inspected by a licensed inspector. The first home I purchased was less than 2 years old. My inspector found out that the builder had not installed the a/c unit correctly (there wasn't enough air flow around the exterior unit) among other smaller items. I hired him to do another inspection after the repair work was completed to make sure it was all done correctly. I think the inspections cost around $250 each (this was in 2000), but it was worth every penny.

HTH,
Linda

[Marisa6826]

If someone is so
>irresponsible about their MTG payments, they probably didn't
>care about the home's maintanence, kwim?
>
Wow. That's a pretty inaccurate blanket statement. I know of several families that have had mortgage problems not as a result of being 'irresponsible'.

I'm sorry, but that just *really* rubbed me the wrong way.

-m