One of the agents in my real estate office just sold a house yesterday for $345,000.  I had taken the bank an offer on the same house six months ago for $565,000 which they turned down because the bank was owed $620,000.  I tried to convince the bank that $565,000 was a good offer.

So many times when a house is foreclosed on, the person losing their property takes everything in the house out.  In this particular case, the seller took all the appliances, granite counter tops, ceiling fans, and all the fixtures – even the knobs off the cabinets. 

Obviously this particular house did not show well because who is going to buy a house that has been torn apart.  So the bank lost a lot of money because the house was in such poor shape. 

They also lost a lot of money by not taking the $565,000 offer that I had six months ago.  Believe me, the real estate market has not dropped that much in six months, its just that they did not take the offer when they should have because they did not own the house yet – it is a short sale situation and they were probably thinking they could get more. 

One of the main questions people ask me about real estate foreclosures is what the bank thinking of?  Many people ask me if they paid the bank’s loan off if they would give me the house.  Of course they would always do that because in 99% of the cases the house is not worth the amount of money owed on the loan.  If it was worth more, the previous owner would have sold it and stuck the money in his pocket.

It is hard to predict exactly what banks will do; some banks are good at getting back to us and negotiating with us, others are trying to hold out for everything they can.  In essence, banks are no different than regular sellers.  Some are more motivated than others.

If you have any questions concerning the best buys on foreclosures, please visit my website and click on my Hilton Head Island Foreclosure Listings.

In the next week we will also be releasing our own website; HiltonHeadForeclosures.com.  I will keep you posted on that.

Now is a great time and there are some great foreclosures out there.