On my last post I went briefly into the top 3 types of buying situations that I am seeing for the many buyers I am working with currently and the 3 types of what I suggest my buyers consider – and in what order. The first 2 are what I suggest first for my buyers – Seller Owned Properties and Bank Owned Properties (REO – real estate owned or bank owned).  The post was a very long one so I thought I would do a specific post on each buying situation type so that readers can view each individually and not have to go through the entire first post which is located here – Buyers – 3 Types of Buying Situations. You can also view the post on Bank Owned Properties here – Buying Scenario 2 of 3 – Bank Owned (REO) Properties and Short Sales here – Buying Scenario 3 of 3 – Short Sales .

So, what types of opportunities are out there?  The main 3 are Seller Owned, Bank Owned (REO) and Short Sales (Pre-Foreclosure).  The last one,  Short Sales, seems to be the hot topic – and for good reason. They are flooding the market. 

But, in my opinion Short Sales offer the worst chance at actually purchasing the house.  My strategy is to go straight at seller owned and bank owned properties first with short sales being the last option. This too is for good reason!

 Let’s initially go over Seller Owned Properties and if you have questions about any of them, feel free to email or call me.

Seller Owned Properties – These are your “regular” properties.  These are properties that are being offered for sale by the home owner for whatever reason.  Maybe they are moving.  Maybe they want to upgrade or downgrade. But, the seller owned property is usually a property where the owner is in a decent position on their home. They may have owned it for years and regardless of the current market they are still making a profit on the sale. Maybe they did not refi like crazy or pull out all the equity they have.  

Then again, maybe they owe more than it is worth but have cash in the bank and need to move and can afford to pay it off at closing.  I just had a closing like this last week.  I was able to negotiate about $30,000 off of asking price and the owners actually had to come to the closing table with about $28,000 to close on the sale of their house! Fortunately they had the money to do that – verified by their proof of funds which was a bank statement of their account.  

This is a GREAT situation for a buyer. Seller Owned properties offer a buyer not only a great opportunity to negotiate the price (sometimes very dramatically) and terms of the sale (terms such as seller contributions towards buyers closing costs, price reductions for repairs, home warranties, paid taxes for remained of the year, etc…) but also allow for a quicker closing time frame. 

So, as a buyer, if you need to get into a house in 15 (cash), 30 or 45 days from initial offer, if you are FHA or are utilizing another type of “specialized” funding or Government program and you want a real opportunity at a home you like - at a price that is more easily negotiated, seller owned properties are a great option to go after and this is one of the first I suggest my buyers consider.

Please see the next post on Buying Scenario 2 – Bank Owned Properties and the 3rd on Short Sales

If you are thinking of buying in FL, please feel free to contact me by email or phone to discuss market conditions, your situation and time frame for moving and any other real estate related questions or concerns.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to any and all comments. Fire away…