Pre-foreclosure next door- how scared should we be?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So the crazy lady next door refused to renew the lease on her rental tenants last year (really lovely family, btw) and raised the rent. No takers. Then she put it on the market to sell (as is) at a ridiculously high price. Again, no takers. We're trying to improve our home without going over the general property values/sold prices in the neighborhood, so I occasionally check realtor sites for homes in our neighborhood. I was poking around on Zillow and saw that the house is now listed as a pre-foreclosure with an auction possible. What does this really mean, and how concerned should we be that it's next door. We're not planning to move in the next year, but this surely isn't going to help our property value.

Curious, any update on your neighbor's preforeclosure? Btw, what makes this neighbor lady crazy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would only be concerned about who BUYS a foreclosed property. I.e. it will obviously be someone who could not have otherwise afforded the neighborhood. NOT good to have as a neighbor, from what I have seen.

Not necessarily. Could be someone who just knows a good deal when they see it. Not everyone is willing to overpay for a "move-in ready" house.

I bought my house in 2003 and it was a foreclosure. I know that my neighbors were very happy to see me buy the house and renovate it as they'd had a series of deadbeat renters there for years. I paid a little over $200k. There is a similar house just listed for just under 900k. there is no way in hell that I'd be able to buy my own house now, and the same applies to many of my neighbors who have lived on theblock for five years or more. On my block at least, having someone buy a foreclosure has been positive as it's tackled blighted homes on the street. I have to admit though I might feel a little odd toward whoever buys the almost 900k house though. That's crazy money. I expect most of the street might feel the same (though happy that their homes are apparently worth so much too).

[Anonymous]

The houses on either side of us went into foreclosure, both were bought by friendly people who take good care of the homes (big change from the previous families who couldn't afford them). Our property value was not affected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh, my. Good luck. I am really starting to worry about the market again; a house similar to mine in my neighborhood recently sold for about $125K above what I paid for mine in 2010; the family has been there four months and has no blinds or curtains up, which just strikes me as intensely weird when you live on a crowded city block. The one time I walked by and they had their door open, I noticed they have no furniture in their either. Like, nothing but a sofa and a flat screen TV in the living room. Now I am concerned that people are being offered and approved for loans they can't really afford again. Yikes.

ok, let's hear my side of the story. we are the family with no blinds. we moved from a small 2bd apt (rental) to our first and forever home, a 3bd house back in 2010. when we came to DC years ago, we came with only suitcases thinking we were staying for a year or two. thus, we rented small place and bought a few Ikea pieces to furnish the place. after 10 years and three moves, our furniture was in such bad shape that we just took it to the damp when we moved into out new house. we moved with mattresses on the floor, a junky sofa, the dinner table and chairs. with two FT jobs and two little kids, there is no much time to make a plan to furnish an entire house, especially if you are decor-challenged like me and get confused by the billions of ideas at apartment therapy or houzz. I want decent stuff that will last a long time, so we want to have a coherent plan before we buy something. and buying furniture for an entire house all at once is expensive. the courtains/blinds are the stuff you usually select after you have a basic furnishing and color scheme, so they should be last and not first. we did the bedrooms first (can't stay with clothes on the floor), and we finished furnishing the dining room last year (although there are no shades at the windows), and we just put shades in the living room, which we may finally do this year, especially since our youngest is turning 4, so we are finally planning to make the room into a living room and not a playroom. with work and kids, our social life has not been very active anyway. our mortgage + RE taxes is about 1/3 of the net income we bring in every month, our credit score is stellare and we are in relatively dafe jobs, so we can definitely afford our home. there are a lot of reasons why people may take a long time to furnish their homes

This story is similar to mine, too. (Also no window treatments in many rooms that are still being worked on.?)

On top of reasons other people have listed- I had a lot of interior work to do, plumbing issues, electrical, drywall replacement and soon a new roof. A lot of this did not come up in the home inspection but takes priority for time/money and makes painting/putting up blinds more difficult/useless effort until the work is done. Plus, it just doesn't bother me much!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh, my. Good luck. I am really starting to worry about the market again; a house similar to mine in my neighborhood recently sold for about $125K above what I paid for mine in 2010; the family has been there four months and has no blinds or curtains up, which just strikes me as intensely weird when you live on a crowded city block. The one time I walked by and they had their door open, I noticed they have no furniture in their either. Like, nothing but a sofa and a flat screen TV in the living room. Now I am concerned that people are being offered and approved for loans they can't really afford again. Yikes.

ok, let's hear my side of the story. we are the family with no blinds. we moved from a small 2bd apt (rental) to our first and forever home, a 3bd house back in 2010. when we came to DC years ago, we came with only suitcases thinking we were staying for a year or two. thus, we rented small place and bought a few Ikea pieces to furnish the place. after 10 years and three moves, our furniture was in such bad shape that we just took it to the damp when we moved into out new house. we moved with mattresses on the floor, a junky sofa, the dinner table and chairs. with two FT jobs and two little kids, there is no much time to make a plan to furnish an entire house, especially if you are decor-challenged like me and get confused by the billions of ideas at apartment therapy or houzz. I want decent stuff that will last a long time, so we want to have a coherent plan before we buy something. and buying furniture for an entire house all at once is expensive. the courtains/blinds are the stuff you usually select after you have a basic furnishing and color scheme, so they should be last and not first. we did the bedrooms first (can't stay with clothes on the floor), and we finished furnishing the dining room last year (although there are no shades at the windows), and we just put shades in the living room, which we may finally do this year, especially since our youngest is turning 4, so we are finally planning to make the room into a living room and not a playroom. with work and kids, our social life has not been very active anyway. our mortgage + RE taxes is about 1/3 of the net income we bring in every month, our credit score is stellare and we are in relatively dafe jobs, so we can definitely afford our home. there are a lot of reasons why people may take a long time to furnish their homes

This story is similar to mine, too. (Also no window treatments in many rooms that are still being worked on.?)

On top of reasons other people have listed- I had a lot of interior work to do, plumbing issues, electrical, drywall replacement and soon a new roof. A lot of this did not come up in the home inspection but takes priority for time/money and makes painting/putting up blinds more difficult/useless effort until the work is done. Plus, it just doesn't bother me much!

I would understand if this were a house in need of serious repair, but it's not. It was a total gut renovatioin, beautiful on the inside, everything new including all systems, windows, floors, appliances, etc. - I went to the open house. I guarantee you the buyers are in over their heads on this one.

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine bought a foreclosure a couple of years ago in SS. She's absolutely the best kind of neighbor. She has already put a lot of money into renovating the house. She's courteous. She's clean. She takes care of her yard.

I think it's really elitist and obnoxious to assume that the person who buys a foreclosure will be a bad neighbor because they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford the house. For one, it assumes that only wealthy people make good neighbors, and personally, I have found that not to be the case. Two, it's just not accurate. Plenty of stable people buy foreclosures. They use the money they save to invest in renovating the house.

Don't worry about who will buy the house. The biggest concern you have is how long the bank lets it sit and if the bank doesn't tend to the property.

The biggest eyesore foreclosures are not the ones auctioned off and bought quickly, but rather, they are the ones that sit for a long time empty under the bank ownership.

In this region, though, that is less of a problem, especially now when it seems there are lots of buyers out there.

Just get all of the city/county code phone numbers together so you know who to call if you notice the property isn't being cared for (overgrown lawn, et cetera).

You also need not worry about comps or resale. Most appraisers will not use foreclosures as comps, period. That is a very overblown worry. The only time they'll use foreclosures as comps is if there have been no other sales in the area, which is highly unlikely in the DC metro region.

Again, your biggest worry should be how long the bank holds on to it. If it is going to auction, that is probably a good thing. Likely a flipper/investor will buy it cheap, do some surface-level repairs/renovations and flip it.

In the end, it will be a good thing if someone who intends to live in the house buys it. It's far better to have a homeowner as a neighbor than a rental property. (That's not to say renters are bad, but landlords can be all over the spectrum, ranging from ones who take care of their rental properties to ones who just try to squeeze out as much rent as possible without keeping up with repairs.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh, my. Good luck. I am really starting to worry about the market again; a house similar to mine in my neighborhood recently sold for about $125K above what I paid for mine in 2010; the family has been there four months and has no blinds or curtains up, which just strikes me as intensely weird when you live on a crowded city block. The one time I walked by and they had their door open, I noticed they have no furniture in their either. Like, nothing but a sofa and a flat screen TV in the living room. Now I am concerned that people are being offered and approved for loans they can't really afford again. Yikes.

ok, let's hear my side of the story. we are the family with no blinds. we moved from a small 2bd apt (rental) to our first and forever home, a 3bd house back in 2010. when we came to DC years ago, we came with only suitcases thinking we were staying for a year or two. thus, we rented small place and bought a few Ikea pieces to furnish the place. after 10 years and three moves, our furniture was in such bad shape that we just took it to the damp when we moved into out new house. we moved with mattresses on the floor, a junky sofa, the dinner table and chairs. with two FT jobs and two little kids, there is no much time to make a plan to furnish an entire house, especially if you are decor-challenged like me and get confused by the billions of ideas at apartment therapy or houzz. I want decent stuff that will last a long time, so we want to have a coherent plan before we buy something. and buying furniture for an entire house all at once is expensive. the courtains/blinds are the stuff you usually select after you have a basic furnishing and color scheme, so they should be last and not first. we did the bedrooms first (can't stay with clothes on the floor), and we finished furnishing the dining room last year (although there are no shades at the windows), and we just put shades in the living room, which we may finally do this year, especially since our youngest is turning 4, so we are finally planning to make the room into a living room and not a playroom. with work and kids, our social life has not been very active anyway. our mortgage + RE taxes is about 1/3 of the net income we bring in every month, our credit score is stellare and we are in relatively dafe jobs, so we can definitely afford our home. there are a lot of reasons why people may take a long time to furnish their homes

This story is similar to mine, too. (Also no window treatments in many rooms that are still being worked on.?)

On top of reasons other people have listed- I had a lot of interior work to do, plumbing issues, electrical, drywall replacement and soon a new roof. A lot of this did not come up in the home inspection but takes priority for time/money and makes painting/putting up blinds more difficult/useless effort until the work is done. Plus, it just doesn't bother me much!

I would understand if this were a house in need of serious repair, but it's not. It was a total gut renovatioin, beautiful on the inside, everything new including all systems, windows, floors, appliances, etc. - I went to the open house. I guarantee you the buyers are in over their heads on this one.

You know nothing about the buyers! So what, they don't have blinds. Stop being such a busy body. It is actually probably a good sign that they haven't purchased a lot of furniture or stuff. Perhaps they're doing like most people should: They're waiting a year to adjust to the new monthly mortgage payments before spending a bunch of money on decorations.

From my observations, the people who have ended up in foreclosure are the people that went on buying sprees in addition to buying their house -- flat screen tvs, all sorts of unnecessary updates like bars and hardscaping and just not being prudent.

I know people who worked hard to finally buy a house of their dreams, and it was a stretch, so they had to wait to buy all of the furniture and decorations they wanted. They were responsible.

Again, you shouldn't speculate on such things and make assumptions. My experience has been that the flashy people who I assumed must be wealthy and financially secure because of all of the crap they bought turned out to be the ones drowning in debt.

[Anonymous]

Okay, PP. I'm not saying they have to furnish the place top to bottom with expensive furniture. Just put up some cheap fucking curtains already! Sorry, but it is beyond weird to me to live on a crowded city block with no curtains in your house. How do you have sex, undress to take a shower, or do any other private thing with your house totally exposed to your neighbors? Bizarre.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the crazy lady next door refused to renew the lease on her rental tenants last year (really lovely family, btw) and raised the rent. No takers. Then she put it on the market to sell (as is) at a ridiculously high price. Again, no takers. We're trying to improve our home without going over the general property values/sold prices in the neighborhood, so I occasionally check realtor sites for homes in our neighborhood. I was poking around on Zillow and saw that the house is now listed as a pre-foreclosure with an auction possible. What does this really mean, and how concerned should we be that it's next door. We're not planning to move in the next year, but this surely isn't going to help our property value.

Curious, any update on your neighbor's preforeclosure? Btw, what makes this neighbor lady crazy?

OP here- 'crazy' was a poor choice of words. I don't know her well- just what the tenants had said- she lived in the home when it was first built and likely has an emotional attachment to it. She really overvalued the home and refused to fix or update anything, but kept raising their rent. There are things that definitely need repair (visible rot on wood trim, etc). The home was listed for sale higher than any other in our neighborhood (including beautiful total renos and much larger homes), so it just seemed nuts to us. Here's hoping it moves quickly and the person/family who buys it plan to live there and maintain it. We're not looking for new best friends to live next door, just don't want the bank to sit on it forever. Good to know about the potential for foreclosures to be ignored at comps- that was our main concern since we're updating our home and have sunk a good chunk of change so far. Thanks, all!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay, PP. I'm not saying they have to furnish the place top to bottom with expensive furniture. Just put up some cheap fucking curtains already! Sorry, but it is beyond weird to me to live on a crowded city block with no curtains in your house. How do you have sex, undress to take a shower, or do any other private thing with your house totally exposed to your neighbors? Bizarre.

Now I think you are just plain weird with way too much time on your hands. Instead of judging them, why don't you roll out the welcome wagon and meet them? Maybe one of their children just died or they lost a beloved friend to a long-time illness. You really have no idea what is going on in their lives, yet you believe you do because you spend so much time staring in their windows!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the crazy lady next door refused to renew the lease on her rental tenants last year (really lovely family, btw) and raised the rent. No takers. Then she put it on the market to sell (as is) at a ridiculously high price. Again, no takers. We're trying to improve our home without going over the general property values/sold prices in the neighborhood, so I occasionally check realtor sites for homes in our neighborhood. I was poking around on Zillow and saw that the house is now listed as a pre-foreclosure with an auction possible. What does this really mean, and how concerned should we be that it's next door. We're not planning to move in the next year, but this surely isn't going to help our property value.

Curious, any update on your neighbor's preforeclosure? Btw, what makes this neighbor lady crazy?

OP here- 'crazy' was a poor choice of words. I don't know her well- just what the tenants had said- she lived in the home when it was first built and likely has an emotional attachment to it. She really overvalued the home and refused to fix or update anything, but kept raising their rent. There are things that definitely need repair (visible rot on wood trim, etc). The home was listed for sale higher than any other in our neighborhood (including beautiful total renos and much larger homes), so it just seemed nuts to us. Here's hoping it moves quickly and the person/family who buys it plan to live there and maintain it. We're not looking for new best friends to live next door, just don't want the bank to sit on it forever. Good to know about the potential for foreclosures to be ignored at comps- that was our main concern since we're updating our home and have sunk a good chunk of change so far. Thanks, all!

Ok, this is not us, but my DH can be like this. He tends to overvalue our RE and can be resistant to spending any money, even for maintenance and repairs. He always thinks we can get more for it then I believe.

[Anonymous]

Its not elitist at all. It is realistic. When you live next to a former foreclosure with a**holes that have moved in - and would not otherwise have been there - you talk to me. Their chip on their shoulder is about the "new" houses - which happen to be big and beautiful. Jealousy is a bad thing and it does not go away, admit it or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay, PP. I'm not saying they have to furnish the place top to bottom with expensive furniture. Just put up some cheap fucking curtains already! Sorry, but it is beyond weird to me to live on a crowded city block with no curtains in your house. How do you have sex, undress to take a shower, or do any other private thing with your house totally exposed to your neighbors? Bizarre.

You sound obsessed and nosy, and like you are assuming the worst about your new neighbors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the crazy lady next door refused to renew the lease on her rental tenants last year (really lovely family, btw) and raised the rent. No takers. Then she put it on the market to sell (as is) at a ridiculously high price. Again, no takers. We're trying to improve our home without going over the general property values/sold prices in the neighborhood, so I occasionally check realtor sites for homes in our neighborhood. I was poking around on Zillow and saw that the house is now listed as a pre-foreclosure with an auction possible. What does this really mean, and how concerned should we be that it's next door. We're not planning to move in the next year, but this surely isn't going to help our property value.

Curious, any update on your neighbor's preforeclosure? Btw, what makes this neighbor lady crazy?

OP here- 'crazy' was a poor choice of words. I don't know her well- just what the tenants had said- she lived in the home when it was first built and likely has an emotional attachment to it. She really overvalued the home and refused to fix or update anything, but kept raising their rent. There are things that definitely need repair (visible rot on wood trim, etc). The home was listed for sale higher than any other in our neighborhood (including beautiful total renos and much larger homes), so it just seemed nuts to us. Here's hoping it moves quickly and the person/family who buys it plan to live there and maintain it. We're not looking for new best friends to live next door, just don't want the bank to sit on it forever. Good to know about the potential for foreclosures to be ignored at comps- that was our main concern since we're updating our home and have sunk a good chunk of change so far. Thanks, all!

Is the owner/crazy lady now still living in the house?

I think the biggest problem with foreclosures is that the former homeowners will sometimes refuse to move out, and the new buyers will need to call the police to remove the former owners.

With a pre-foreclosure at least, that's actually a good thing since it means the seller is somewhat motivated to sell. With foreclosures, often the former owners will give a big "F.U." to the bank and destroy the interior of the home.
The pre-foreclosure just means they've run out of money are stopped paying the bills, and that foreclosure is imminent, but not yet upon them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay, PP. I'm not saying they have to furnish the place top to bottom with expensive furniture. Just put up some cheap fucking curtains already! Sorry, but it is beyond weird to me to live on a crowded city block with no curtains in your house. How do you have sex, undress to take a shower, or do any other private thing with your house totally exposed to your neighbors? Bizarre.

You sound obsessed and nosy, and like you are assuming the worst about your new neighbors.

I suppose. They are never around, otherwise I'd say hello. I'd love to know what kind of people live in semi-attached rowhouses without curtains. I don't want MY neighbors seeing me have sex, shower, or get dressed. Call me nuts, but I like to have some privacy in my own home.