Monday, December 05, 2011

Foreclosure Purchases By Owner Occupants Declining?

Wow. Real Estate Professionals know that buying a foreclosure is an economical way for first-time homebuyers to get into a house of their own, so this recent study by New Vista Asset Management surprised me a little.


As reported in DS News, New Vista began tracking foreclosure sales in Q1 of 2009 and has continued their quarterly tracking since that time. They monitor 18 national housing markets, of which only Wayne County is in Michigan, but they plan to add additional unnamed housing markets beginning in 2012.

There has been a general decline of owner occupant purchases since the advent of the data collection. An owner occupant is a homebuyer that plans to live in the house, as opposed to a purchase by an investor for rehab-resale or as a rental property. Interestingly, the only one of the eighteen markets that showed a gain in owner-occupant purchases was Wayne County, MI.

I list foreclosures, and it’s not unusual to have a stipulation in the listing agreement that says no offers will be submitted for the first 7 days, then offers from owner occupants only for the following week. However, this is not universal among banks and some entities are going to auctions and bulk sales of ‘as-is’ homes that will generally not appeal to an owner occupant, due to either the cost or scope of needed repairs.

Banks that will take the time and effort to put a home into move-in condition are the most likely to have sales completed by an owner occupant purchaser.

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