I am working with a cash buyer so have been privy to viewing some Oak Lawn foreclosure homes. The prices range in the high $120,000’s. He has placed several offers on these Oak Lawn homes and has been met with multiple offers on most. We finally had one of his offers accepted and he is now deciding whether he wants to continue on with the purchase after the home inspection.
Some buyers don’t realize that you get the inspection option even with a foreclosed property. They are usually all sold in “as-is condition” but if an inspection shows major repairs that you don’t feel you can afford to fix, then this is your chance to cancel the contract. You also have the typical attorney review.
With foreclosures, you write up a regular purchase contract but that will be followed by addendums from the mortgage holder. I once had an Oak Lawn condo with some lengthy addendums and my buyer’s attorney told him he had never seen such addendums before. My buyer walked away from that one but found an even better Oak Lawn condominium and signed those addendums.
I am waiting for an answer regarding another offer I sent in last week for another Oak Lawn home in foreclosure. I have requested that the listing agent notify me of receipt of the offer but I haven’t heard anything back from him.
I’ve dealt with many different reo/foreclosure agents/brokerages and some are very good with communicating, but for the most part I’ve had a difficult time. With my current accepted buyer’s contract, we received the signed contract more than 2 weeks after it was accepted by the mortgage holder. It threw all dates off and we’ve asked for an extension. The listing brokerage claims they never received a copy of the signed contract but they’ve already made a couple mistakes and they never, ever call me back even though they tell me they will.
A lot of these reo brokerages have popped up within the past couple of years. Some have good systems, others don’t. I was surprised that I haven’t heard anything back from the offer I recently submitted because this agent isn’t in one of these little, independent reo brokerages. He works for a popular franchise, so I thought he’d be a bit more forthcoming. Yet he cannot even acknowledge that he received the offer.
This lack of communication from these foreclosure/reo companies makes us all look bad. My buyer clients can’t understand why we can’t find things out or get proper paperwork. Some of these buyers have called the listing brokerages themselves and then they understand what I’m up against as they couldn’t get an answer either.
But that just shows that they felt they needed to go over my head because I wasn’t getting them the information they needed. That makes me look bad, especially when I’m constantly repeating over and over that I’ve called again today and they said this and that…
In fact, I’m going to call the listing agent of the most recent Oak Lawn foreclosure home after I’m finished with this post. It’s too bad we have to keep bugging these agents and it wastes everyone’s time when all they have to do is shoot off a quick e-mail or make a quick call. In my opinion, if they can’t do these simple tasks they shouldn’t handle these kinds of listings.
If you’re looking for a foreclosure home in Oak Lawn or any other southwest suburb, give Judy Orr a call at 708-536-8200 or use the Contact Form.