Buying a foreclosure

My f-i-l put in a formal cash-only offer on a bank-owned property last week. I know foreclosures can take alittle longer to hear back - does anyone know generally how long it takes them to consider your offer. Since it is cash-only, he also submitted proof of available funds with his offer.

Re: Buying a foreclosure

We also bought a foreclosure but we have a mrgte. My experience was long. We put in 3 offers.1st two got denied b.c the bank accepted other offers. Those feel through & the last 1 was finally accepted. We increased our price slightly on each offer we made. All in all the process from 1st offer to close was 3 months.
Good luck

Re: Buying a foreclosure

Our experience buying a foreclosure was very quick and we didn't do only cash, we have a mortgage. We put an offer in on a friday, heard back on monday and closed about a month later.

Re: Buying a foreclosure

It really depends on where it is in the foreclosure process and the bank itself. Some banks take forever to respond!

Re: Buying a foreclosure

I don't have as much experience or knowledge about foreclosures as I do with short sales, but I will add a few things:

1. I know that the banks are usually much less negotiable with REO/post-foreclosure properties than with short sales because they've already foreclosed and incurred the costs/fees entailed with that. They know what number they want to walk away with.

2. It can be hard to buy a foreclosure if you are just looking to buy a single house. I know (from the experience of other people in my office) that the banks like to sell their REO properties as a package deal. So there are REO agents that the bank's use to list properties that they have taken back through foreclosure, and those REO agents have networks of builders and investors that will buy 5 REO properties at a time, as a block. So it works out better for the banks that way, and that's how they like to do it.

3. I think the PROCESS of buying an REO (bank owned) property is simpler and easier and quicker than with the short sale, and the banks don't take as long to respond (because they already have all the info they need and have decided they want to sell and know the number they want to get -- with short sales, there is a lot more uncertainty and information has to be obtained from several parties before the bank will approve a sale). So it shouldn't take that long to get a response.

Re: Buying a foreclosure

We Purchased a foreclosure with a cash offer and they accepted our offer very quickly. I think they accepted it in about a week, they want to see how many cash offers they were going to get. After they accepted it took about a month and a half to close.