Strange Deal- Is this a Short Sale or???

[Jeff L.]

This would be my first deal and I think this is the correct place to post, if not can the mods please move?

I need to know if this should be approached as a short sale or approach in another direction. Here is the situation:

There is a boarded up home in my neighborhood that Ive had my eye on for 2 years, long before I found BP. There are stickers in the window from a Mortgage Preservation Service which, from my limited experience meant it was an REO. After asking around the neighborhood with no luck I hit the courthouse and found it in fact was NOT bank owned. After having no luck getting the owners phone number I drove to Chapel Hill and knocked on his door.

He and I hit it off and he invted me in and we spoke for over an hour! And this is what I found:

- He is 73 and in deteriorating health.

- He is willing and motivated to sell. In his own words, he said "**** Chase, I'm not going to be around much longer."

- He said the property went to auction in April 2013 but had no bids. Here is the strange part, instead of it reverting to an REO, he said the bank withdrew the foreclosure and its still in his name! Im a newbie but Ive never heard of this happening. Can anyone shed some light on what might be going on?

-He said he liked me and would do whatever he could to help in the sale of the property but He said he is NOT willing to speak with Chase Mortgage (im still not sure why).

-He gave be a statement from Chase showing the loan balance to be around $100,000. This statement was over 3 years ago.

-He said he thinks the payoff would be around $125,000 now.

- According to my limited experience and research I think the ARV should be around $168,000 conservatively and would need about $25k in repairs.

Whats my next step? Find a RE Agent to call Chase? Make an offer to owner and then give to chase?

The owner will be leaving this Wednesday for California for 2 weeks so Id like to act quickly!!!

ANY help is much appreciated!!

Thanks all,
Jeff