How is equity determined in a foreclosed, bank owned property and is there an easy method of assessing what it is or does the property require an appraisal first in order to know how much equity remains?

A lawyer can give you a better assessment of the strength of your case.

If it is similar to what we have here in Phoenix, then you have an assessed value for a property, which should be around the same number for similar properties in the same neighborhood.The tax is a percent of that assessed value.

The house is tax assessed @ $68k was once $215k.

Mike - If you no longer want to participate in the thread, that's fine, but I believe this is an important thread to keep open.I'm curious if Jon's assessment is correct.

I think the part that people falsely believe is that real estate MUST be sold for what it is "worth" but the real issues comes down to liquidity for the bank, and assessing the risk/reward for whatever exit strategy they take to recover the money they have in the deal.

I was just wondering what the difference was between appraised values and assessed values on a property.

Fannie and Freddie are obviously doing a terrible job of assessing risk for borrowers with their mounds of prescribed paperwork.

2) Also, I have had this problem with couple of the properties I had accepted offer on that the property was listed as 2-unit; however, the county or the city assessed it as a SFH.

We take a distressed property, pay the mortgages, back taxes, assessments, negotiate with the lender, etc. and turn it into a retail sale (at a great price for the end buyer) that can close without all of the hassles of buying a short sale property!