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Everything but the Kitchen Sink-An REO Surprise

Just when you think you have seen it all in bank owned properties you can still be surprised. This week while showing a newly listed bank owned condo in Northern Virginia my clients and I had to look twice before uttering the phrase "everything but the kitchen sink" applied to the property.

Missing appliances aren't anything new. In fact no appliances are often better than the ones left behind. But all of the door knobs, plumbing fixtures, light fixtures, wired smoke alarms, built in medicine cabinets and even the cheap builder grade mirrors over the bathroom sinks were gone. The only thing left behind was the faucet on the kitchen sink. How odd!

Since this condo building has an onsite manager and security cameras we had to stop and ask if anyone had been suspicious when the previous owners had carted out the dishwasher and built-in microwave. No idea was the response, which makes you wonder about the effectiveness of the security system in the building?

The condo is a great deal and my clients see it as a clean slate to build on and are planning on making an offer. Meanwhile I'm going to check on Craig's list and see if I can find them a set of door knobs as a housewarming gift. Something tells me that's where we will find the missing ones.

Posted by Cindy Jones-Northern Virginia Real Estate & Military Relocation Services on 10/03/2008 10:22 PM

Comments (48)

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48 Comments on Everything but the Kitchen Sink-An REO Surprise

OCT

2008

LOL...you git that right, Craigslist is exactl where they willost all the stuff they removed.....

kelly willey Marathon Florida christian realtor REO expert

LOL. That was a thoroughly stripped property wasn't it? Then there is the rare REO that has all its fairly new appliances and is in great shape, I've seen those as well. Not the norm, for sure!

Too funny Cindy.......The first house I bought was a HUD home. As you know, same problems as you mention in your blog but I thought I would add two odd ones to the list: Ceramic tile REMOVED from the kitchen floor. The house we ended up buying was in good shape with all the appliances etc, but.............................The stockade fence along the back of the property line was taken!!!!!!!!! Really, I mean seriously; leave the appliances and air conditioner, but take the fence????????

I have seen similiar, I dont know maybe they wanted to wash their hands when they left for good lol

I had one of those, and they also took the sinks, 1 kitchen, 2 bathroom sinks, and utiltity sink. Nothing was left, took the breaker box, the light fixtures, basically it was a shell of a house. Not so funny part, is I think the guy that finally purchased this, was "Maybe" the guy "who done it." As he was a relative of the x-owner. I would love to see what it all looks like now. Most likely similar to the before look.

Hi Cindy,

You brought back fond memories of the first house we bought (Freddie mac) for $20K - it had no toilets just a hole in the floor, grafitti all over the house (we ended up buying Killz in gallons!) and obviously (LOL) no cabinets anywhere! Thanks for the post!

CraigsList is where a guy was advertising one of our REO listings FOR RENT. LOL Sadly, he was able to collect a substantial "deposit" before the potential renter realized he had been scammed.

Susan, so your are saying someone you do not know, advertised one of your listings for rent, then a potential tenant gave him a deposit, how did this person show the house to the potential tenant. Or did this tenant give deposit to this person without looking at the home?

How odd!! Yeah you can find anything on craigslist! I even list my homes for sale on there!

Cindy,

Unfortunately that's the case everywhere these days...in our area you can drive through neighborhoods and see the foreclosures left and right. In fact, one day we were driving through this one subdivision and the men were packing up dishwasher, appliances, AND ceiling fans...as it turns out...they took EVERYTHING that they could remove...tacky, tacky, tacky!!!

Cindy, I found some fabulous door knobs on Ebay! Sounds like quite a condo! Hope it has a good view, anyway!

Kelly-I've seen whole kitchens on Craig's list so it wouldn't surprise me to find the missing pieces to this condo there are well.

Suzanne-I've sold a couple of near perfect foreclosures this year. I have another one under contract where all of the appliances are missing. The cost and hassle of disconneting and moving them just doesn't seem worth it.

Jamie-LOL. I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps you are right!

Mary-wow that is extreme. Taking the breaker box takes some planning and skill.

Rose-No toliet? That is also extreme. I'm sure you turned it into quite a great home though.

Susan-I've heard of that scam. Sorry to hear that you got caught up in it.

Raylene-I also put my listings on Craig's list and have had good success with getting properties sold or rented.

Rebecca-I guess the banks don't have any recourse against the previous owners who are stripping houses and walking away. It is interesting how many houses I see that are trashed in some way and you wonder did the owners live that way or deliberately destroy the house before they left.

Patricia-I should give you my antique glass door knobs. They would look great in your house.

Cindy... You never know what you will find in a REO home. Good luck with the sale

Fun post. I agree it's usually better when the appliances are gone. Maybe we can convince them to steal the carpet too. LOL

Hi Cindy,

I just sold a REO that had everything you mentioned plus the furnance, toilets, bathtub, and the kitchen sink. Unbelieveable.

Aloha Cindy,

Your clients were lucky. I have seen properties where someone pored cement down the toilet and shower and bathtubs and then proceeded to take everything that was possible to remove and then went to town on the dry wall. there are some really angry people out there who are losing their homes and the funny thing is that the government just mad sure that the banks who make profits on the bad loans will not have to share in the losses now that the market has turned.

Cindy - I just recently saw one that was literally stripped to core. Not a sink, toilet, faucets, light fixture or appliance in the place. It's absolutely despicable what some people will do to these properties.

Cindy,

My favorite was during the last down turn, an empty bag of concrete by every toilet.

Take care!

RJH

Hi Cindy,

I have to tell you - I had this problem a year ago. I was doing a walk through and something seemed "off." Suddenly I realized that all the face plates for lights and outlets were GONE! Yep, the owner had systematically removed them - saving himself about $10.50 expense for his new place...I ran to Home Depot and got them some faceplates as part of the closing gift!

I heard of a home being vandalized, and they stole all the copper plumbing pipes....I had a seller take the shelves out of a closet, and another take the security bars off the windows! YOu just never know!

OCT

2008

Unfortunately this is happening all over -- it is a sign of the times.

LOL, i've seen the same

This sounds like a great opportunity to utilize our purchase and renovate program. The buyer can create the home of their dreams.

Ouch .. Cindy ... there are always weird things missing in REO's ...

Pippa

It isn't just on craigslist that properties are being advertised for rent.

One of my listings was advertised on yahoo. A potential renter drove to the property to check it out, so she alerted me. She forwarded a copy of the ad and the email she received in response to her inquiry to the for rent ad. So I reported the email address to yahoo, but I don't know if anything was done.

Be careful out there.

Hey, Cindy. Well I've got you beat by a kitchen sink. At an inspection a couple of months ago, they had taken toilets, bathroom sinks, kitchen sink, kitchen counters and cabinets, electric outlets, light switches, light fixtures, doorknobs, interior doors, all appliances, and probably a couple of things that I'm forgetting. They left a baby grand piano. Hmmmmmmmmm. Seems to me they could have sold the piano with much less trouble and made more money. Alas....

I declined to do an inspection on the place, one of the few times that I've ever done that. They already knew the problems; they just wanted a to-do list, and I don't create to-do lists for the cost of a home inspection.

I never thought of Craigs list for anything but Real Estate.. Thanks for the tip.

I recently had a client who bought most of what he needed for his renovation on Ebay. The appliances, door handles, almost everything was ordered from Ebay and at a great price.

That is hilarious. I think next time, somebody may be surprised by "everything but the roof".

Craig's List rocks in so many ways! Of course there and eBay as well...

Wow! Too funny. I would expect that from an REO. You can't assume that the past owners who were foreclosed on were too happy about being forced to leave. Revenge probably made them feel better.

Cindy,

That's a great story. On the flip side, I have a new listing where I almost wish they had taken everything 'cause it needs to be a tear down or a total redo! Isn;t it great that your clients can see beyond what is and think about what it could be? Good for you . . .and them.

Michael

So Funny, but did they leave the cat and dog.

Cindy - There seems to be more of this ever day, it actually makes me a bit sad.

Some will go to any extent to leave their own misery behind, love the idea of going on craigslist, maybe a thrift store might have some old knobs too

It is amazing what the people will take. I saw one where everything was missing (shower doors), but the worst part was they took the pool equipment - and the pool was sooooo green you could not see the bottom of it. And when I looked close, there were fish - apparently vector control put in mosquito fish to take care of the mosquitos. . . .

Did they strip out the copper wire too?

Reminds me of one I showed a couple of weeks ago. Every single doorknob, cabinet pull, and light fixture were gone. No appliances, but they left the kitchen sink.

OCT

2008

You may find those doorknobs on Ebay -- I guess the previous owners didn't want to leave anything behind -- did they take the water heater, A/C and the furnace? ~ Evelyn

Thanks to everyone for all the great comments. It seems as if this property isn't the only one that you have found that was stripped by the previous owners. Fortunately the couldn't strip out all the copper pipe or take the furnance as someone of you have encountered. The other good thing is no pets were left behind which is beyond understanding if you are have pets that are part of your family.

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