Buying a Foreclosure

This is the sixth in a series of 10 blogs I am posting each Wednesday on buying foreclosed property. If you’d like to read any of the previous entries, you can do so by clicking here.

The number of people unable to fulfill their mortgage obligation is at an all-time high, making purchasing a home at a reasonable price easier than ever. Here are this week’s tips on how to go about purchasing a foreclosed property.

This week we are taking a look at who to contact when you are interested in purchasing a foreclosure.

Depending on the status of the property, the seller will either be the foreclosing lender, the trustee (the party who is filing the paperwork necessary to carry out a foreclosure), or the owner who is in default.

Properties in Pre-Foreclosure

As discussed in previous blogs, you will need to deal directly with the …

A vacant home can be especially hard to sell, as every chip, crack and crevice begs for attention. The glut of properties on the market certainly doesn’t help. Vacant home staging can make a difference.

Staging a vacant home for sale can mean a better price and a quicker sale so needed in this market. It can also mean the difference between a successful short sale or a disastrous foreclosure. Which would you choose?

A vacant home can be more costly and difficult to stage then to stage an occupied home where the homeowners’ belongings are available. To hire a professional stager is expensive enough, but to rent furniture, plants, and rugs just adds to the cost.

The trick is to make prospective homebuyers visualize their belongings in the home. Props used for staging will make the home memorable and more comfortable. If you’re short on cash, use these budget-saving tips to stage like a pro.

Budget Staging …

Is this mansion green? How you can tell…

Let’s face it. ‘Green’ is in and promises to be for awhile. Broadly defined, ‘green” is related to the health impact of what we do with living things. Green building means: (1) good indoor air quality – not using toxic building materials, (2) energy efficiency and (3) sustainability — using materials that don’t pollute the earth during manufacture and can be made without depleting natural resources.  Both existing homes and new homes can have green features.

As many as 50 MLSs around the country have added data fields to their MLS databases of homes for sale to better inform buyers why a certain listing is considered green.  A total greening of the MLS is coming, as more and more area databases add green features. As reported in REALTOR® Magazine: ”With these new fields providing data on a wide range of green features — from energy-efficient appliances to …