All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Thanks everyone for your input. This has been an interesting learning experience. Part of me feels up to the challenge (and inevitably gaining more experience), while the other part of me wants to look at other homes just so I can have a "normal" buying experience.

The house I have my eye on is still in pre-auction. I expect it to go to online auction within the next few days and might bid again there. I'm not looking for this opportunity to be a buy and flip house--either way, a home is an investment of course, but I plan on spending the next 10-15 years at my next residence. If I can get a decent to amazing price, then so be it. But I don't feel like killing myself to get it.

A word on the evicting tenant thing that Steve mentioned above. I don't believe anyone can just evict a paying tenant just because the owner has not paid the mortgage and the house has gone to auction. In fact, there are existing rights now that were put into place because it's happening more often in this market. If you buy a house and plan on occupying it, and there are tenants there, you must give them 90 days (I don't know anyone willing to wait that long to move into their new house). If you are an investor, you must honor their lease...or come up with a compelling offer to buy them out of it. If the home goes back to the lender, they must honor the lease, too. Or offer a compelling (and I mean compelling) cash for keys opportunity. An eviction notice can/will be posted all it wants to--but it means nothing to tenants who know their rights.

Thanks again, everyone--I'll let you know how it goes.

...and of course, an up-to-date reply is that the tenant has all sorts of rights. I have a near 3 year experience as a tenant in a bank owned home and can answer all sorts of questions if you still have them. Good luck!

So even if our offer was pretty close to what is was when on the market a few weeks back, they don't refer to that price and consider? Or was that a price to attract buyers? It started at $540 in Feb 2011 and dropped to almost half that by a few weeks ago. Are they now looking/hoping to get around $540 for it now? Sounds greedy/silly to me.

When you say "based on the math" what math are you talking about?

Thanks so much, Alex, for your input!

Hello all--what a whirlwind this market has been!

I have a few inquiries--but first some background info:

We looked at a house 8/6/11 and our realtor went to write up an offer for 8/8/11. She discovered that the FM owned home was turned over for auction on 8/3/11! We were just a few days too late!

So we put a pre-auction offer on auction.com. They asked for our pre-approval letter, Earnest money and a copy of a check 24 hours later. We were putting together the docs and right before submitting, we received an email saying the seller turned down our offer. It was nearly $100k over the starting bid amount, too. We're serious buyers and wanted to put in our initial offer because we don't want to fool around. This will be our Primary residence and are not looking to flip the home, or sell anytime soon, etc. Basically the house was an amazing deal even when it was on market.

We are planning on attending the REDC auction, scheduled for mid-sept. rather than submitting another pre-auction bid. I have heard that many winning bidders are unable to deliver at closing and that we should stick around even if we aren't the high bidder to see if the house gets tacked onto the end of the whole auction.

What happens if they reject offers and/or no one bids on the house? Does it go back onto the market again? How many times does this happen? Looking at the history while on the market with FM, the price has dropped significantly over the last 6 months. Do they send it to auction often, and then place it back on Mkt afterwards? There is no history of anyone making an offer on it, so we feel confident about it--but are not counting on getting it for a song, like the price it's advertised at.

Anyway, comments/advice/suggestions/experience is welcome and greatly appreciated.

Cheers! (& wish us luck!)