sdrealtor, I not too worried about a bidding war on this REO property. This is in a nice coastal area, and things aren’t nearly that hot here. Now if the bank were to low ball the price, yes it would get a bidding war, but the few REO’s that have occurred in the over a mil range nearby have not been low priced and in several cases the banks had to lower their asking price before getting to pending.
My hunch is that this owner is just doing what they can to ride the system for as much free rent as possible. I think they’ve already had a loan mod and redefaulted on that. As mentioned, the auction is scheduled for next month. My worry is that if I go to the owners and encourage them to short sale to me, they might just use this as a ploy to drag out their free rent situation. Then four or five months from now they cause the short sale to fall through, and viola, they’ve ridden the system for another four or five months. (Although I’m a bit surprised that they haven’t even tried to short sell it already)
Also, if we do a short sale and they don’t move out, what are my options? Do I then have to take them through the eviction process? What if they trash the place while I’m trying to evict them? If I’m leery of the current owners, wouldn’t it be better to let it go to the bank and let the bank evict them? In a short sale, do you not go to escrow until the current owners are out and you’ve done a final walk through?
