6 June 2008

Foreclosures Are Up and Bank Owned Properties Are Here For Awhile

Posted by staceysloan under: Housing and Economy; Buying a Home .

The total number of foreclosures for April, the latest complete month available was 898, including houses and condominiums. That number was up 29% from March and 284% from a year ago.  Now obviously all those homes did not hit the market for sale all at once.  They must be processed, sometimes rehabbed, and gotten ready for sale by the asset management company.  In fact, the bank owned properties are staggered into the market.  There are several ways to buy bank owned properties.  One method is auctions and you have probably seen the advertisements for these.  The other way is to buy a traditional listing from a listing agent where the property happens to be bank owned but otherwise you process through the transaction with a normal escrow period.

You definitely need to give me a call if you are thinking of purchasing a home.  You should not try to buy a bank owned, especially a short sale listing (you could be tied up for months with no foreseeable conclusion) or even a traditional sale, without representation.  Today’s transactions are just too complicated.  It looks like foreclosures will be around a little longer as the Notices of Default; the first leg of a foreclosure hit a record in April, totaling 2,598.  According to Dataquick, nearly 3 out of 10 sales in April was a bank owned property.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.