Tracking down a foreclosure and making an offer

[Jason K Green]

Okay, here's the scenario. There is an abandoned house in my neighborhood. There are stickers posted on the windows stating that the house is abandoned. These stickers were left by a security company. In doing some research, we found that the original mortgage was with bank A. Bank A was subsequently bought by Bank B, which was later bought by Citibank. We have an address for the Citibank REO department, but no other contact info. The house has been abandoned for several years. Possibly as many as five. The balance on the loan when it went into foreclosure appears to be $175k. How would I go about contacting Citibank to make an offer before this house goes to auction? What would a reasonable offer amount be? What are some other questions I should be asking?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

[Account Closed]

As I suspected earlier, there are "other issues" here. The bank has not foreclosed and the property still belongs to the borrowers. The borrower is a CA disbarred attorney serving time in a state prison. There are, like, a bizillion issues. Judgment liens and law suits and lis pendens and HOA issues. All with an attorney with state provided room and board working the system. It's always tempting to think there is an angle, and there may well be. But the players in this one are insane (for my purposes). So I say pass. :)