Are Foreclosure Deals Too Good To Be True?

As buyers come into my sales office it’s been very interesting to me to see some of the changes taking place in their perceptions of the home buying market from the past years to this year.

When the downturn in the economy started several years ago, resulting in a glut of distressed short sale and foreclosed homes on the re-sale market, many prospective buyers had high hopes of getting a “fantastic” deal on the home of their dreams! After all, if the sale price of a house is on the Internet at 15 to 20 percent below new homes or traditional homes (with equity), isn’t that a great deal? And of course everyone knows a friend, a relative, or a co-worker who got a fabulous home for next to nothing!

Well, it seems this year that dream for many buyers has turned into a nightmare when actually trying to buy that dream home...

What these buyers are telling me now are stories of frustration as they put in multiple good faith offers on short sale homes, and wait… and wait… and wait… only to have the home go to foreclosure at the 11^th hour even though they did everything “right.” They tell me stories of putting in multiple offers on bank owned homes just to be outbid over and over again after the kids had picked out their bedrooms and they had already chosen what color to paint the master bedroom.

To make matters worse, even if a buyer is lucky enough to get an offer accepted and move into the home, the years of neglect by the former owner or the bank has left them with unexpected, costly out of pocket repairs.

So what am I hearing buyers say this year as they come into my sales office? “I just want to fall in love with my home, get a fair price on it, move in, AND GET ON WITH MY LIFE! Can you help me?” Hmm, I think I just might have an answer to that question!