In the past five months I have starting working with a broker who is heavily involved with Real Estate owned by lenders(REO’s).  For those people out there that don’t understand the process I thought I would tell you what is involved in getting a REO on the market.

The first thing we need to do is check occupancy of the home.  The realtor(I) need to go to the home and see if it is occupied.  If the home is vacant we need to have the home re-keyed and order a clean up of interior/exterior.  If the home is occupied we need to speak with the tenant or previous owner, whoever is living at the property and offer them “Cash for Keys”.  This is where we ask them to vacate at a certain date and if they do the bank will give them a money to help thier move, this will differ on a case by casis basis.  It’s hard to wonder what is going through these peoples minds when you are telling them to get out of their home in 30 days or less.  Some of these previous owners have been paying mortgage for over 3 years and now own nothing.  I never make light of this situation.

After the tenant is gone we quickly remove all debris, create a BPO (broker price opinion) and then wait for the bank to tell us what price they agree with.  Some banks do an agressive pricing skeem where they try and price low to get over asking and others price a little high or at market.  The bank requires that all homes go on the MLS within 24 hours of assisgnment.  Which brings up a good point.  There is no “special list” from the six lenders we use, Wells Fargo, countrywide, etc…  So when agents tell you that they have a special list I would wonder.  Speaking with experience of dealing with many different banks and asset managers (middle man) we have certain procedures we need to follow and from bank to bank they all want the home on the MLS immediately. 

It’s a difficult part of the current market, asking people to leave their homes, however this is where the smart get rich.  If you are thinking of investing there is no better time.  Please let me know if you want a list of my foreclosed homes or a list of foreclosed on the MLS.

thanks for reading.