Real Estate Information

Archive for May, 2009

When I was an agent you could always tell a foreclosure without even looking at the paper work. Once you put the key in the door and unlocked it and pushed open the door. That is if the door would open. As the door opened the smell would roll out and knock you over. Most in Fort Wayne would smell like wet dog mixed with a little mold. Seems like the older houses didn’t mold as much as the newer houses. The older ones were not a sealed or well insulated as the older ones so I guess the mold didn’t grow in them as quickly.
The longer a house sits empty especially where the weather changes like here in Fort Wayne the worse the house becomes. If the house is half way decent the asset company would let us keep the heat on during the winter. But if the house was probably not going to sell for much to begin with they would just have it winterized. Once winterized the property just seemed to fall apart not over night but I remember one that was for sale when I first started selling houses and it was in pretty good shape but was in a less desirable location in the city. It was for sale a year and a half later still and when I showed it then the roof had started leaking and the plaster started falling off the walls and the hardwood floors were buckling. Not only that but someone decided to break into it and steal all the copper plumbing. But as the house sat and the weather outside changed over time the air inside the house got hot and cold sometimes fast and caused things to happen inside the house and it pretty much fell apart just from sitting there.
Foreclosures can be a good deal. You just want to stay away from one that has been empty for a long time if you can. The longer it has been empty the more likely you may find things worse off than you thought when you walked through the property.
You can tell how long the property has been in possession of the asset company from the real estate agent by the listing or the winterization stickers on the sinks but you can not tell how long the house has sat empty before the asset company took it over. Usually the first thing the asset company does is have the property secured.

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Former Agent