1. REO properties are free and
clear. They have no other liens against them. For
instance all the taxes have been paid, any mechanics liens or
2nd or 3rd mortgages have been paid. If you are working
on a property that is in the foreclosure process, there could
still be many other liens on it. There certainly could be
2nd mortgages, mechanics liens, tax liens or any number of
other problems that you will have to deal with as an investor.
Savvy investors know to always check the title BEFORE you
buy a property. The same could be said for properties
owned by individuals -- unless you have a title company who can
check title for you, you could be in a world of hurt when
surprises, like other owners for example, come up. When
the property is already owned by the bank, there are no other
owners -- it's just the bank.
2. Banks are motivated sellers.
Banks are not allowed to own properties and the more they
own, the more trouble they are in. They need to get rid
of these properties and get rid of them at reasonable prices.
Though if you are only buying one at a time, you might
disagree with that as banks are also trying to recover as much
of the property value as they can. However, if you can
buy several REOs from a bank, you can get them for much less.
Also, the bank has already spent a fortune on the
foreclosure and they now have carrying costs for any property
on their books. The more properties they have, the more
trouble they get in with regulators, and with their
shareholders. It's very good for banks to get rid of REO
properties.
3. You don't have to go through a
long process like you do if you are trying to get a bank to
agree to a short sale. You don't have to get all of a
seller's personal information and constantly submit fresh
paperwork to banks or work with seemingly unmotivated loss
mitigation representatives. While short sales can be very
lucrative, and I believe in helping homeowners to avoid
foreclosure so it is worth it to do short sales, if you can buy
a property that a bank already owns, it's a simpler
process.
4. Properties are ready to be
yours right away. REOs are generally vacant. Any
tenant has been evicted or the homeowner has already moved out.
Unless you have a squatter, you don't have to deal with
evicting a tenant or with angry homeowners destroying a house
before you are able to buy it. What you see is what you
get -- you will already know if the house is destroyed when you
make your offer.
5. You get clean title with an
REO property. The bank is the owner as soon as the
foreclosure process is completed. There is no question
about who owns the house and you won't magically have 5 other
heirs show up on title making it impossible to purchase the
property -- which is something that happened to a fellow
investor and friend of mine.
I hope you learned something from this
and look forward to speaking with you
soon.
Christy
Mellott
www.christinamellott.com <- go here
to get a free report on investing in the Orlando Market (yes --
in fixed-up REOs) and 2 free tickets to a Real Deal Commercial
Investing training and bus tour that normally sells for
$997
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