It takes almost a year for HUD or VA to put a foreclosed property on the market.  One in town has a sign to NOT inquire about buying or renting.  How smart is that?

KarlMarx:

It takes almost a year for HUD or VA to put a foreclosed property on the market.  One in town has a sign to NOT inquire about buying or renting.  How smart is that?

This is very common in certain markets.  Any time the BPO is significantly lower than the loan amount, it doesn't make much sense to foreclose today.  Also, some loss mitigation departments WILL NOT EVER foreclose on 30,000 or less home.  This is not a guess, but straight from the source.

But these ARE foreclosed.  And the value declines while they wait to market the property.  Delays in pursuing foreclosure without using other remedies such as short sales or loan mods are a different story.

oh gotcha, misunderstood.

maybe they're waiting for the market to turn around!

Who you kiddin'?  This is the govt we are talking about here.

Didn't the FHA outsource (for lack of a better term) the marketing & selling of their foreclosed homes?  I thought that happened 8 yrs or so ago. 

Wayne Stensrud:

Didn't the FHA outsource (for lack of a better term) the marketing & selling of their foreclosed homes?  I thought that happened 8 yrs or so ago. 

This is the case at least in my area. A third party company handles everything until it's time to list, at which point it is turned over to a HUD approved R.E. company. There is a good amount of lag time on these. Prime example, condo in my development went vacant 6 months ago from FC. Took the third party 3 months to get anyone in to clean the place out. Now they have all their signs saying 'leave this place alone, nothing to see here folks'. I imagine it will finally be listed for sale in a month to two. And I live in the "good" part of Cleveland!!

AC

It is not only FHA and VA.  I have a realtor friend who Refi'd in Oct 07, I would not do her loan because she needed stated and I knew what kind of money she made.  I would have had to put down she made $8,000 per month for DTI.  Loan amount was $345K.

She found someone from Hawaii to do a pay option Arm at start rate of I think 1.95% Stated/Stated

Loan was immediatly sold to Country Wide, she has never made a payment and has still not been foreclosed on.

Wayne Stensrud:

Didn't the FHA outsource (for lack of a better term) the marketing & selling of their foreclosed homes?  I thought that happened 8 yrs or so ago. 

Yes. In Georgia, California, Hawaii, Guam and the Marianas Islands - Pemco handles them. They have a relatively small local staff and no intentions of ramping up. Going from handling a few hundred REO's to handling several thousand puts a little bog in the system. I would agree getting them to market more quickly could make a difference but then I argue that investors with 25% down a 720+ credit score and a 43% DTI - including the subject property - full doc should be able to own unlimited investment properties which would also help the situation. Fannie Mae, unfortunately, can't see the light for the brightness of the sun. Limiting financially solid investors to 4 properties is probably the most boneheaded move they have made recently.

Ken, I think you need a new photo.  Looks like Caesar just awarded you a victory laurel.

He thinks he's Coolio! J/K