Would like some input on a pre-forclosure

[Jen Crippen]

Hi Everyone,

We have come accross a pre-forclosure home that is 90 days behind. The FMV is $170K to $180K, not 100% where this will fall until owner gets appraised because of the market fluctuating right now. Also, they were rehabbing and ran outta money. So, FMV might be higher. I am suggesting the owner find out what that ARV would be.

The owner's mtg is for $145K, plus the back payments of about $6K. The reason for the inability for them to pay is that they have an ARM which went from $1300 to $1900/mo. OUCH.

Now if this wasn't an ARM, I would consider Lease Option and keep this for us and an investment prop. However, we do not have the means to purchase and get financed on this - nor do we really want to own it at this time. We were hoping to wholesale it, but there isn't enough equity.

Some people have mentioned short sale, but we're not sure if that is what we want to do as our first deal! Plus, we don't want to buy it - so I don't think you can re-assign a short sale deal.

Since we are so new, we were thinking of finding an investor to take it and learn how they are going to handle. Of course we'd like to make $, but this situation may not lend itself to that. Or will it?

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Jen