REOs - I'm obviously missing something?

[Roy N.]

Since the beginning of June, we have made offers on three REOs ... these are also our first three REOs.

The first one, I was too late to the game {the fellow who got it already has it back on the market for 35K more than his purchase ... using the same listing pictures. We had a "plant" go look at it, all he did was clean, replace the stove, and paint two rooms.}

After this first dance, I did extensive mining here on BP and took what lessons I could in preparation for our next opportunity ... which happened at the end of June.

The second one was a "pocket listing" ... the selling agent had already shopped it to his investor list before it was listed. We did not know this until we had placed our offer and ended up being the bridesmaid.

Finally, just last week, we made an offer on an REO before it was even listed - my carpenter happened to be doing a job across the street and saw the agent put the lock-box on the house. We made a clean offer, 2K over the banks asking price, sent in 10% EMD, along with a letter of finance from our accountant. We also confirmed with the selling agent we were the first offer submitted by almost 12 hours {it would have been more, but the agent did not take our offer to the bank until the next working day}

After deafening silence from the bank, our window expired. I pushed the selling agent and learned they had accepted another offer - with financing and inspection conditions - and we are sitting on the bench again.

I am only guessing the other offer must have been sufficiently greater than ours that greed overtook comfort and convenience of a sure thing.

So once again, we are in second seat ... this time, being first in the door and over ask, I was certain we would be accepted or countered.

So what did I miss? I packaged this offer and sent in an "I'm serious" EMD.

On the next one, I'm contemplating submitting a cashiers cheque in the full amount with our offer rather than an EMD of 10%.