Patience is Key - Finding a Foreclosure

A few months ago (somewhere around February), I decided I wanted to sell my house, find a fixer-upper, and move. It's not that I didn't like my house, it's just that it wasn't making me money and wasn't likely to start doing so. It's in a nice subdivision, but at 14 years old, was being beaten down by all the new construction. I figured it might see appreciation in line with inflation, but that was about it. So after doing some home DIY in the kitchen and master bath, I popped it on the market and it sold in a week. I felt (and still feel) pretty good about that considering other homes on the neighboring streets are lingering (60-150 days!). Hint: They are overpriced.

My kitchen reno. I painted lower cabinets grey, took out the hop-up bar, had granite installed, put in a new sink/faucet and I topped it off with a shiplap backsplash (most of the work done by me, except the granite of course).

With the sale happening much faster than expected, I was in the unfortunate position of HAVING to find a house ASAP, which is never a good combination if you're looking for a foreclosure or short sale. I did find a couple almost right away. One sold the same day and the other, a VA foreclosure, had potential so I made an offer. What I didn't realize then was that the VA almost never comes down on their asking price (VA listings are handled by VRM, by the way) within the first 30 days. I made my offer when the house had been on the market for 7 days. They countered at full asking and I walked. I was back to square one. A couple of weeks went by and I was beginning to worry - closing on my current home had been set for 8/31/17 and I knew I would need at least 30 days from contract to close, and I was beginning to get awfully close to deadline.

And then I found THE HOUSE - a Well's Fargo REO that needed some major work. It was listed on a Friday, I went to see it on Sunday, and then had to wait until the following Friday to put in an offer! See, the way Wells Fargo does REOs (it's part of their punishment for contributing to the housing crash a decade ago) is that for the first 7 days of a listing, you can go see the house, but you can't make an offer! Testing my patience! Days 8-15, only those planning to live in the home can make an offer on it. This "owner-occupancy" rule is meant to put homes back in the hands of owners instead of investors. After day 15, the home is available to anyone so I knew I  had to get my offer in on the first day. I found a contractor, who was the friend of a friend, and he did a walk-through with me and gave me a rough estimate of what it would cost. I had arrived at similar figures so felt pretty good about that. Unfortunately he didn't have time to take on the work, but I felt comfortable making an offer so I did.

Asking price was $65,000 (the house is a 1968 brick ranch in a good neighborhood - 2340 square feet but only because at some point the garage was converted to a bonus room). I knew at least one other owner occupant offer was coming in so I offered $65,317 with $1950 to closing. This offer went in on Friday morning.

On Monday afternoon, I noticed the listing on the Wells Fargo REO page had changed to pending (not that I was obsessively checking it or anything) and since I had not heard anything I figured that was that so I texted my agent to tell her we needed to get back to the search. She called me back about 30 minutes later and said she had a counter for me: $66,000 and $1980 to closing. I accepted!