Experts: Some foreclosed homes too damaged to sell
A “Washington-based group that supplies data to private mortgage industry analysts” is just finding out now that some foreclosed houses are heavily damaged and may not find a willing buyer. I was selling real estate twenty years ago and could have told them that.
Even back in the olden days you could find houses in such condition that they could not get a certificate of occupancy. The Husband and I even considered purchasing one such house.
There are homeowners out there who don’t give a damn about their homes. Even if their houses are fully paid and won’t be foreclosed, some people don’t mind (and I’ll even say, apparently enjoy) living in a pigsty. I showed houses where the sellers still lived where you wished you had worn a flea collar. These properties were not in blighted areas; they were in very desireable neighborhoods. Some were small and “affordable”, at least one qualified as a mansion.
Other homeowners who are about to be foreclosed will destroy what they can no longer have.
Here’s the situation:
Any given house will sell at the right price.
It may not qualify for a mortgage.
It may have to be bulldozed.
But any given property has a price at which it will sell.
The most dramatic example of this was a house one of my customers wanted to buy. The house had burned down to the foundation. My customer, who was a builder willing to pay cash and had no contingencies built into the purchase, was outbid by another buyer.
Why?
The house in question had lake rights.
