Special offer

How to Succeed with Offers on Bank/Asset Manager Properties

By
Mortgage and Lending with Abbey Mortgage & Investments, Inc.

Frankly, I feel pity for the Asset Managers charged with maintaining, listing and liquidating foreclosed properties. They have a tough job and must do it almost entirely through others' eyes, with no opportunity to jump in their car and check out the property. Additionally, they don't really have any long term business relationships in your market, which go a long way toward smoothing out the relationships during the process.

We don't deal directly with these folks(even though our qualification letters invite any one and everyone to call us with questions they may have about our loan), since our borrowers are negotiating through realtors, etc. However, i have observed a few opportunities to make their life easier, which translates directly into a better success rate for you, the investor.

Offers are often requested as "highest and best" from the AM's when multiple buyers are bidding. A cash offer at the highest price will likely prevail - AND reduce your profit as an investor by the same amount of money!

Why not make your reasonable offer with special criteria? -

Cash, with a special note explaining that any financing contingency is expressly waived, notwithstanding whether debt is used or not. At this point, you have relieved any concerns about financing contingency fallout and the investor knows that your earnerst money is really on the line if you fail to purchase the home. Naturally, you want to make sure Abbey Mortgage & Investments is fully up to speed and provided you with a commitment on the property!

Waive the Inspection Contingency. But wait, lot's of investors use the inspection contingency as one last bite at the apple in terms of reducing the price just a little bit more. EXACTLY! Here, you need to be sure you have really gone over the property, including the roof and sewer lines before you commit. For an Asset Manager, however, this is music to their ears, since they were not born yesterday and even if your price is not the highest, they know you won't be back at the negotiating table.

A FAST close may be not be within their ability, given all the paper shuffling, Deed Signing, Settlement statement approval and all the other steps they need to go through to be prepared to close the transaction. Nevertheless, for you to be standing there ready to close with no contingencies other than a clear title and a 24 hour before closing walk through, communicates to them your readiness to follow through on your contract. This is a solid deal for them to consider.

Finally, my observation is that more deals get done when the bank property listing agent is also the buyer's agent. So, if you locate properties without the help of your buyer agent, you should submit directly through the listing agent. I don't KNOW why this works, but it certainly has a good track record.

With these four steps and some supporting documents to provide additional comfort and confidence to the Asset Manager in a bank deal, I predict you will increase your chances of success in acquiring the property, and if you benefit from any level of debt on your Fix and Flip or Fix and Hold transactions, Abbey Mortgage will make double sure you are on the route to success!

Charles Stallions Real Estate Services
Charles Stallions Real Estate Services Inc - Gulf Breeze, FL
Buyers Agent 800-309-3414 Pace and Gulf Breeze,Fl.

Love being a buyers agent if for no other reason than this.

Feb 10, 2012 02:04 PM
Kevin A. Guttman-Author, ReverseMortgageSpecialist
NMLS #384936 - Colorado Springs, CO
877-251-9709

How does an investor know at what percentage of the asking price to offer, IF they follow your suggestions above?

Feb 11, 2012 02:10 AM
Robert Kearney
Abbey Mortgage & Investments, Inc. - Denver, CO

Kevin,

This is a wonderful question and there are two answers, one is guaranteed to win deals and the other is guaranteed to provide profitability on the deals the buyer does prevail on.

  1. There is a current conventional wisdom that Asset Managers have about 90% of the listing price as their "bottom dollar." Sadly, the often unrealistic pricing on these bank owned properties makes them an undesirable win.
  2. Follow the best practices in the blog posting of mine: http://actvra.in/sNB in this posting, I note the "ruthless discipline" of fix and flip investors in only being willing to pay UP TO what the property is really worth to them...of course, any negotiation needs to start at less than the max one will pay.

I hope you find this helpful. One last recommendation is to include a Hard Money Lender on the investor's team, If it's me from Abbey Mortgage & Investments, Inc., Great, but, in any event a savvy hard money lender can often save an investor from paying too much or missing a defect that will cost big money. 

Feb 11, 2012 06:15 AM
Ken's Home Team LLC. | 360.609.0226 | Portland, OR & Vancouver, WA Real Estate Team
Ken's Home Team LLC. - Vancouver, WA
- SOLD IS OUR FAVORITE 4 LETTER WORD -

 

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May 03, 2012 12:05 AM