Brought To You By Barbara Greenhill
Barbara Greenhill
Broker Assoc.
Realtor
Frank Howard Allen
The Wine Country Group
415-497-2806
Towns and Neighborhoods:
Sonoma Valley
Fine Living:
Some thoughts on REO's - Bank Owned Properties.
It seems that everybody thinks this is a path to wealth. Since it is definitely not wrong, it is not the only truth either.
REO's are often in deferred maintenance since these homes are empty for a while, sometimes up to a year. And before they were vacant, people lived there who couldn't make the payments on the mortgage, and they probably saved on maintenance too, like not taking care of the pool or the once so beautiful garden. Since it also takes up to a year before an owner gets kicked out of the property, we're ending up with two years or more deferred maintenance.
This reflects on the property. Sometimes the house needs some paint and TLC, sometimes the deferred maintenance has left deeper wounds to the property.
On the other hand, the market is down, and this has reached almost every single seller in the country. The houses which are coming on the market are from sellers who really want to sell and often buy somewhere else. These sellers did the math and know they getting less for the property than expected two years ago, but they are also paying much less for their new home. And these homes are often in much better condition.
The numbers of REO on the market are actually surprising:
In Marin we have 36 Bank Owned Properties active on the market, compared to the 620 active residential houses overall. From these 36 REOs 25 are listed in San Rafael and Novato.
Sonoma County has a significantly higher number: 183 active REOs. 89 of these are located in Santa Rosa and only 21 in Sonoma Valley. Overall Sonoma County has 1,195 active listings.
This page was last updated: March 3, 2010
