What's on paper vs what's real...

[Christophe Noualhat]

Good morning to you all,

I have been working remotely with a real estate agent in Florida's west coast (Bradenton/Sarasota area) looking for an interesting buy, (fix if needed) and rent deal.

I have been through dozens of listings from the MLS and the agent, doing the ground work, has visited close to 10 houses and condos so far (I am starting to feel bad because of this...).

In the past few days, it is another 3 visits that moved units from my "looks interesting" list to my "no go" list... just because the listings hide some important facts about the property....

I am wondering, and am writing here to get your opinion, why would a seller not disclose or hide some important information from the listing ? This is especially true for REOs... I can understand Mr Average thinking he can get away with it and get through a potential buyer in a face to face discussion... but in the case of a Bank, their aim is to sell, as soon as possible ? So why hide important information that would just kill a deal ? 

Examples : 

House 1 (an example already discussed in another post) listed as a duplex but in fact an illegal triplex... I can understand why it wouldn't be listed as such in this case...

House 2 : listed as 2/1, text of the listing talking about 3/1... the 2 bedrooms in the house are not closed (you have to go through one to get to the other) and 3rd one is the former garage, illegally transformed into a bedroom (a dark one as the garage door is still there to keep it confidential)... No water/electricity during the visit so impossible to test AC, well equipment and other appliances... 

House 3 : townhouse condo style, nice pictures on the listing but when visiting, you find out that the places where the pictures were not taken actually require major work (bare stairs, carpets or paints to redo, missing sink, dead/dirty fridge... ) and same thing, no electricity/water to test anything... 

What is your take on this ? I'm sure is current and usual practice and I m just trying to understand the underlying reasons that would push not to disclose some information, not to enable potential buyers to assess the property properly etc...

Thanks in advance

Best