In my little experience trying to buy a REO, I’ve found that there are a lot of restrictions on buying REOs. You would have to do a pre-inspection prior to making an offer, so if you are planing on making a low-ball offer you would probably be wasting money on the inspection. On some of the properties there won’t be any electricity for you to check the appliances and lighting. This would include the gas stoves/ovens. Most of the properties have running water so you can at least run the faucets, flush toilets, check draining. You also have to pre-qual with their preferred lender and even in some cases get a loan commitment letter from a lender. This is something that bothers me because you will need to have your credit pulled each time you make an offer. Properties that are well priced usually have multiple offers. So it’s not that easy just to go out and make a bunch of low ball offers on a bunch of properties. The way I see it you have to wait and find a property you really like and are willing to pay full asking price or more if there are multiple offers. Then you would do a pre-inspection and pre-qual in order to submit an offer.
As far as loans go, most lenders would prefer 20% down regardless of what type of home you buy (REO, Short, Regular)as long as the appraisal falls in line with the asking price. I have made several offers and have yet to buy a home. My offers have either been too low and rejected or when I’ve made full price offers, I’ve been on the losing end of a bidding war. Another stragety that I use is look at homes that are little more then what I’m willing to pay and wait for price reductions until I’m satisfied with the asking price and immediately make an offer at/near asking price.
I believe that prices are still coming down, but there are some deals out there in distressed neighborhoods. If you are planing to buy in a more desired area or areas that have held up pretty good, I would wait at least till the end of this year if not longer. I’ve been shopping in Chula Vista for the last 5 months and 90% of the REO homes that I looked at have gone pending and a lot of them have failed to close escrow and ended up being re-listed. I’m in the market for 3000+sqft under 800K.
