The other day I had an illuminating communication thread with a person looking to relocate to California from the East Coast. In the course of our conversation, the Inquirer expressed that she was especially interested in Foreclosure properties that met her requirements and as a reputable agent in the area of her interest, she contacted me for assistance and advice.
From her perspective, a "foreclosure" home should be a bargain, easily attainable. After all, she and her spouse had purchased a "distressed" home in foreclosure about a year ago, back east. It took awhile, but after about nine months they made a successful purchase. And now they need to relocate back to Southern California.
Ah, you purchased your current home as a foreclosure a couple of years ago, more or less? Unless you have considerable equity in this market, I would consider renting it now, mainly because if you've owned it less than 2 years you won't be able to take the capital gains exemption on any profit from sale. If you live in in for 2 out of 5 years, according to current tax regulations, you can sell it in the 5th year and still use the cap gain exemption benefit. So you could move in the meantime. Check with your accounting professional - I am not an accountant and can't give advice - but this is my understanding.
Regarding purchase of Foreclosures, Short-sales and bank-owned properties - it is NOT likely that the bank will like to see an offer "contingent upon sale" of current home. Banks need to move these real estate assets that they've already lost money on, so they don't want to have another contingent deal holding up their sale. Bank-owned sales are usually not willing to offer other concessions, either.... and they still expect to get current market value for the property. Sometimes there exist other circumstances with the property that would prevent YOUR lender from loaning for the purchase. So there are a lot of potential factors in a bank-owned sale.
By contrast, individual sellers with equity ("standard sale") can often be more flexible with their buyers, so I always recommend looking at ALL available property types that fit your needs.
Have you spoken with a Realtor in your area to get some ideas? If you need a referral, just let me know - I network with other Realtors all over the country and can recommend someone with experience and professionalism.
Although real estate statistics continue to dominate the financial news these days, all that data on the web is just that... a lot of numbers, and little context.
There's a lot of often bewildering information regarding Foreclosures, "pre-Foreclosures", Short-sales and REOs (Bank Owned) vs. "Standard Sales". Aggregating websites like Trulia.com, Zillow.com, Redfin.com, BlockShopper.com, and many others just grab publicly recorded information for properties and populate their respective websites with that information. See for yourself, go ahead and google your address, check it out.
Then come back and see what I have to say. I do this every day.
