dream house rant

[terryknight]

I just need to vent my frustrations. I found out today a house I have been working on purchasing for 6 months now will not get the third party agreement from the bank to sell it to me. Greedy fing banks.

I found a great house what I've wanted, two lots one with a 3br/2ba house and 4 acres and the other with just under 15 acres. I put in a contract on both lots contingent on each other. I found out that 2 separate banks hold the papers on the two lots. one is a local bank, who I'm borrowing money from to buy said property, the other is a big national bank that doesn't seem to care about getting there money back. We've played with the number pulling money from one piece of land and putting it towards the other and everyone seemed happy, then settlement was pushed back then it was pushed back again and now the bank says we won't approve it, we won't sell at that price. Well if that's the case why didn't you tell me that two months ago.

Only good things is I'm still in the game and i have some cash in my pocket from raising money for this by selling my stake in the family farm back to my uncle.

Greedy bank might end up foreclosing on the house and then wind up with less money. ahhh it makes end angry

End rant

 

[Shimon]

Try writing an letter (a real letter not e-mail) to the bank. Maybe someone higher up on the food chain may read it and see reason. Or maybe it won't do anything...but it won't cost more than a stamp and a bit of time. Just lay out your argument in a rational and reasoned manner without sounding angry or pissed off.

 

[mjarrels]

Large banks don't loose money... the federal government bales them out. Too big to fail ring a bell?

mark

 

[terryknight]

Try writing an letter (a real letter not e-mail) to the bank. Maybe someone higher up on the food chain may read it and see reason. Or maybe it won't do anything...but it won't cost more than a stamp and a bit of time. Just lay out your argument in a rational and reasoned manner without sounding angry or pissed off.

the bank asked for why i offered what i did the real estate agent and i wrote letter saying x,y,z the bank has ignored it. though you bring up a piont that the bigger banks you rarely talk to the same person more than twice

Large banks don't loose money... the federal government bales them out. Too big to fail ring a bell?

mark

that's what the girl friend and i were talking about when we found out. it also reminds us of friends of ours that wanted to buy a home locally they had cash in hand went to a bank that was foreclosing on a house they liked, offered to pay off what was owed on the home, the bank couldn't be bothered or thought they could do better, the couple then saw they people who bought the home 6 months later, asked the new owners what they paid. the answer was $40K less than our friends offer. no wonder we are in this position

 

[murphy1244]

Wait for the Sheriffs sale. That's what I did and saved 100,000 less than the offer they turned down on a short sale.

 

[terryknight]

that's where it's heading. only problem i can see will be getting both lots

 

[davrow]

Around here the banks have contract agreements with specific real estate agents for short sales. The bank won't talk to you at all.

And the agents often will not pass offers along to the bank unless they are guaranteed both ends of the commission.

 

[EddieWalker]

It's not that the bank is greedy, it's that the person who is in charge of those assets at the bank is either overwhelmed and doesn't know all the local markets they are in, or is trying to make a profit for the bank in a losing situation and is only allowed to go down to a certain level. Over time, this changes and usually goes to a different person who is responsible of just getting rid of losing assets as quickly as possible. The trick is to time it just right when they give up on making their money back and just want it to go away. That's how I bought one of the three parcels that I own now. Unfortunately for others, after I bought from them, they figured they could sell their other parcels of land in the area for more money and it's remained for sale for ten years now. In my case, I also got lucky in contacting the right person and talking directly to him. My realtor was all talk, but when it came down to thinking outside the box, he just never seemed to get around to actually doing anything. I bought and sold over a dozen houses with him, but we hit a wall in buying this land and I had to take up the slack and start making phone calls.

Good luck
Eddie

 

[Cpjlube]

When my wife and I started looking for a house we looked at several bank owned properties in central Ohio.
One house was decent but needed about 30-40k to make it right. New kitchen cabinets, flooring, garage doors, a few windows. The bank wanted exactly what that house was worth if it was in great shape. We deducted the repairs and made our offer. It was immediately rejected. The bank stated they were dropping the price 10k per month till it sold. After about six months, it sold for exactly what we offered. Of course they had to mow the grass and pay the taxes for six months.....
We knew bank owned and short sales could be a nightmare. We just never found a way to actually talk to someone. All the houses we found were owned by large banks. If they were owned by smaller local banks, things may have been different.

 

[terryknight]

i've done the short sale thing for my current house. it was a local bank it went off without a hitch. the local bank this time around was great too. the national bank is doing something i find stupid. maybe it will work out in this favor, maybe i can buy it after it is foreclosed upon for much less we'll see. i'll take the money i have made and pay down my debts and keep looking. i just can't belive the "national" bank not taking it, but i'm not a banker

 

[1quik70]

I just bought 66 acres with a house that was in foreclosure by a big bank, and you are correct the right hand never seems to know what the left hand is doing. My aunt was my real estate agent, and she kept on them fairly well and the whole process was finished in less than 60 days. Find a phone number for a REAL person and blow them up until you get things accomplished.

On a side note, the first home I purchased was also in foreclosure; My wife and I made an offer contingent on financing, my parents also made an offer of the same amount with cash and no contingencies. The bank took their offer immediately, you may want to purchase the lot adjacent to the property, and then re-write your offer with NO contingencies and it may get a better response?

 

[PaulMel]

I agree with Walker and Murphy1244. My sister went to an auction for the land she wanted. It was a huge marital divorce scraping out of hundreds of acres. She got land with home less then $900 an acre. No one showed for the auction. She could have gotten it for $700 acre....it was her first auction and she didn't know all the ropes. She almost got a second lot with it, but it skipped over the land directly next to hers to purchAse by the way they cut lots to sell.
God bless you and best of luck!
PaulMel

 

[grsthegreat]

two things...

1. no mater if the bank looses $$$ or not, FDIC pays the bank the difference.

2. Youll be hard pressed to find any bank nowdays that will finance raw land.


i have 10 acres from me up for sale, no banks will touch a loan no matter what i put down. Im holding off to see if owner will sell to me and hold a 10 year note. shes thinking about it.

I have a chunk of $$ but dont want to tie it up in raw land either. have no intention of building on property. just would like to keep someone else from building on it and spoiling my view. but its priced way over what i feel its worth. I figured if a bank would carry a 15 - 20 year note on it id agree to the price, but not a 100% cash deal.

and after talking to 3 banks...ones ive had dealings with for over 15 years, no one will budge on raw land

 

[newbury]

And there also can be a "local" in the mix. When we were buying our house in Mississippi a beautiful house with 10 acres came up on foreclosure. We tried dealing with three realtors, nobody could do anything in a timely manner. The house was overpriced for the market but worth it to us because it was close to relatives. It sat there for months with us trying to call someone almost daily, we tried dealing with the bank that held it but they said we HAD to talk to the realtor. . We finally found out that the realtor in charge of it had a habit of buying the houses himself and flipping them.
Sure enough, after refusing to talk to us for a few weeks the bank dropped the price by about $10K and it sold to that realtor in minutes.

I hope he never manages to sell that house.

As far as buying "raw" land - look to the Farm Credit Bureau. That's where we got the loan for the last 70 acres we bought. The banks would not touch raw land w/ a 10 foot pole.

 

[300UGUY]

I bought a piece of property that the bank had for 2 years. After I made my offer, it took 2 months for the right person to approve the offer, actually they countered for only 1k more. I bought it for less than 1/3 of what the bank had in it. Banks now are very cautious.

 

[terryknight]

it doesn't matter at this point it's going to go to foreclosure, so we'll see when the auction comes around, whenever that happens

 

[terryknight]

Here is the latest in this story, this is all second hand from my realtor. The owner said to the bank go ahead foreclose, it is your problem now, and gave them the keys (he is keeping the land and still paying on it). The bank asked the listing realtor to stay on, she said no you guys don't listen to me. The bank then called my realtor today and said they would be willing to accept the offer if I would resubmit it. Right now I put all the money into short term CDs I can't get it till the end of July. I have also allocated some of the money for other things/projects. I am swamped for the next 2 weeks or so then i need to get out and look at the house see if it was left in good shape and if the appliances were left or not. the ball is in my court.

 

[TnAndy]

One thing I didn't see mentioned in the replies:

Often a bank won't deal because once they do, they have to book the ACTUAL sales price ( and take the loss ) rather than keeping an inflated "asset" on their books.....even though it is a non-performing asset ( they are getting no payments ), they get to keep it on the books at the full loan price.....an often imaginary figure they know full well they will NEVER see.

It has to do with their reserve requirements. Once the loss is admitted ( times how ever many of these turkeys they own ), they have less ability to lend due to reserve requirements.....or they have to secure more capital. It's all a huge game......and why a bunch of banks are actually insolvent IF these phony assets were actually counted they way they ought to be.

 

[sld]

Neighbor of my Mom was trying to buy a foreclosed house with 5 acres. In good shape it would sell for around 250k. This guy offered 200k and the bank rejected it. Some time later, he offered 175k and again was rejected. Months later, the bank shut the power off trying to save money. During a huge rain storm the guy went to the house and took pictures of 6 feet of water in the basement thru a basement window. No power = no sump pump. He showed them the pics, offered 90k as is, and the bank took it right away.

It took some work but the guy fixed the place up real nice. There seems to be no logic in how banks make these decisions.

 

[mark02tj]

Right now I put all the money into short term CDs I can't get it till the end of July.

Don't let this be a factor - you can always get your money. There may be "a penalty for early withdrawal" but it's merely a reduction in the amount of interest they'll pay you. In other words, if the CD is for 1.5% and you take it out ahead of time, you may only get .25% instead. But it's not like you put $1000 into a CD and the bank will only give you back $900 if you pull it out early. You'll get back all of your money but you just won't make as much interest.

Plus, by the time you go through all of the contracts, title searching, loan approvals, etc., you might be close to the end of July anyway.

Forgive me if you already knew the CD info - I'm not trying to talk down to you. I'm a (non-practicing) CPA and I know that when I was in practice people were often confused by some of this stuff.