In brief here are the details:
You must put a minimum of $1,000.00 down (unless it is a HUD home then $500.00 is expectable if the home is priced lower then $50,000) and have a pre-approval letter from a lender (some banks want you to be pre-approved by them, but you do not have to use them, however they will try to cut you a deal to use their services) they will not even look at your offer with out this.
Most of them still follow the guide lines that you have a 7 day (includes week ends) inspection period. So you would come to an agreement on price and then have the inspection period, to decide based on inspections if you still want to purchase the home. However not all follow this guideline, so make sure the inspections do not have to be done prior. The home is sold “as is” no repairs will be made by seller. If you decide not to buy the home based on inspections, you will get your earnest money (also know as good faith money) back.
Your offer can NOT be based on the sale of your home. No contingencies are accepted.
It can take 1 day or a month to hear back from the bank on your offer. If you are buying a bank owned home (REO Real Estate Owned) and need to close right away, as you are selling your home or your lease is up, I advise you to be pre-pared to have somewhere else to live in the meantime, as this may not close when you want it to. However the savings may be worth the wait.
How long will it take to close, is one of the questions I get asked the most. So far my experience is they have closed on the date on the contract, however not much before that date. I envision a guy working in a small office with piles and piles of files and is getting to them as fast as he can. Not just one person at the bank makes the finial decision. The bank has to prove to their investors that this is the bet possible price they can get.
There is general feeling out there by many buyers, that this bank should just want to dump this home, I will go in a low ball the price, and they should take it. This is not the case. In most situations they do not take much off the asking price; however they will continue to drop the price till it gets sold.
Title work is usually done by their title company (they make it very hard to work with a local one) However, depending on who they choose, it sometimes makes sense to pay the higher amount for your own title policy and have a split closing. I have run into many problems with “their” title company. So far I have caught the mistakes made by their title company, but this makes me nervous, as I am NOT a title person. Some of things I have run into:
They do not warrantee their work
They do not understand
They do not check for liens
They do not pay off the liens (seller is responsible for all liens on property, unless other wise negotiated)
I am very experienced with these types of sales and will guide you the whole way through, but just wanted you to know a head of time what is involved. Each bank is a little different………………so we take it as it comes……………or NOT!
