A few days ago I told you why short sales are more difficult to close than Columbus HUD Homes. Let me give you an example: when I look at all the transactions I closed this year, only one of my buyers purchased a short sale. On this deal I had to help the seller’s realtor negotiate the payoff for the second mortgage and get the seller to move out of the house after closing.
 
What does this tell you? Most Columbus realtors do not have much experience negotiating short sales. And, short sales are very difficult to complete and take a long time.
 
You may think it’s easier to buy the home after foreclosure when it is listed as an REO (bank owned) property. At least you won’t have to deal with a distressed seller and with negotiating mortgage payoffs with the lenders.
 
Good thinking! However, in the past months we ran into a number of problems with Columbus REOs. The main issue is that lenders begin to market Columbus bank-owned properties right after Sheriff’s sale, despite the fact that they do not have a recorded deed to the home. They cannot close until the Sheriff’s deed is recorded, so they cannot commit to a firm closing date and the buyer is left waiting.
 
More than 200 Columbus houses are sold at Sheriff’s auction every week in Franklin County. Due to the large number of foreclosures, it takes approximately 5 months before the deeds get recorded.
 
If you plan to buy Columbus REOs or bank owned properties, check if the deed has been recorded and the bank actually owns the home. If the property not owned by the bank, yet, try to find out when it was sold at Sheriff’s auction. Currently, we estimate that the deed gets recorded around 5 months after auction.

So be patient! Even better, give me a call at (614) 975-9650 to learn more about the benefits of buying a HUD Home, so you won’t have to deal with recording and title issues of bank owned properties.

Thanks for reading our Columbus HUD Homes Blog
Posted by: Susanne Novak, ABR, FIS, GRI 
Columbus Realtors specializing in
HUD Homes, Shortsales, Investment Real Estate
(614) 975-9650

I made a strange discovery this week: While we pulled together the properties for this week’s map of Columbus HUD Homes, I discovered that the number of HUD homes listed for sale in Central Ohio kept declining the third week in a row.  Actually, it was not just declining – it was an outright drop of almost 50%.

Does this remind you of the stock market? Will we see a shortage of HUD Homes in the near future?

It’s hard to believe that there will be fewer HUD homes for sale in the foreseeable future.  Foreclosures are still at all time highs, and a certain percentage of foreclosed loans were insured by FHA. So why did the number of listings drop?

Look at the statistics of the past 3 weeks.  It appears that many of HUD homes got sold, because of aggressive pricing and big discounts.  Some are really good deals and buyers take advantage of it.

At the same time is seems that HUD and its local partner NHMSI have their hands full getting new listings ready.  It takes some effort to get these properties to market, completing appraisals and home inspections.

All in all I don’t believe we are not running out of HUD Homes. But they are offered at very competitve prices and go fast.  So if you want to play – don’t delay and make an offer today!

Thanks for reading our Columbus HUD Homes Blog
Posted by: Susanne Novak, ABR, FIS 
Specializing in HUD Homes, Shortsales, Investment Real Estate
(614) 975-9650