Susanne Novak, ABR, FIS, GRI - HUD, REO & Investment Specialist

You Have One More Day to Bid on Columbus HUD Homes

This rainy Friday starts a very important weekend. Not only is it a holiday weekend - Monday is Columbus Day, which means that banks and government agencies are closed. It is also the last weekend to go house hunting if you want to submit an offer on a HUD home and close before the November 30, 2009 deadline to claim your $8,000 tax credit.

Due to the time it takes to get the necessary paperwork from HUD and the purchase loan approved by your lender (not to talk about the uncertainties of the loan approval process), I strongly recommend that you submit your HUD offer this weekend. Call me today to schedule a few showings, and let's get a bid in by Monday midnight!

This week we see a jump in the median list price of Columbus HUD homes from $59,500 to to $70,000. It is mostly due to a lower number of cheap properties below $50K. You will find a few of our featured Columbus houses relisted on today's map (yellow markers). They include the home at 3280 Andrew James Drive in Hilliard (listed for $179K) and 1180 Nathan Drive (listed for $102K, also on the west side).

I have bidding stats for these HUD homes, so we can see what they sold for previously.

Call me TODAY at 975-9650 to see the newest HUD Homes!

Thanks for reading our Columbus HUD Homes Blog
Posted by: Susanne Novak, ABR, FIS, GRI
Columbus Realtors specializing in
HUD Homes, Shortsales, Investment Real Estate
(614) 975-9650

Listing Statistics

Total homes available: 61 (last week: 70)

Owner occupants: 49
All bidders: 12
New listings: 16
Sunday deadline: 21
Relisted/Price reduced: 12

Median Price: $70,000 (last week: $59,500)
Average Price: $79,544 (last week: $77,777)
Highest: $180,000
Lowest: $14,000

Homes less than $50,001: 24 (last week: 31)
Between $50,001 & $100,000: 20 (last week: 19)
More than $100,000: 17 (last week: 20)

Call me TODAY at 975-9650 to see the newest HUD Homes this weekend!

Thanks for reading our Columbus HUD Homes Blog
Posted by: Susanne Novak, ABR, FIS, GRI
Columbus Realtors specializing in
HUD Homes, Shortsales, Investment Real Estate
(614) 975-9650

Four HUD Home Bidding Tips for Real Estate Investors

Columbus HUD homes offer great potential for real estate investors and land lords. Unfortunately, there are not too many around. If you follow our blog you know that the number of HUD homes available to all bidders (investors) has shrunk considerably since the beginning of this year. Only 15% of all Columbus HUD homes listed each Friday are available to investors.

So what are the best strategies for investors to win one of the few remaining deals?

I want to offer you four tips to increase your chance of success when you are looking to buy a HUD home as an investor or landlord. Combined with the great information you find on this blog you will surely hit a winner!

Tip 1: Be Ready

You need to be prepared to submit an offer within 24 hours and act immediately, when a deal becomes available. Once the exclusive 10 or 5 day period for owner occupants is over, HUD will accept bids every single day. You can submit your offer in the afternoon and you will know the next morning, if you are the winner.

The best way to prepare for submitting offers quickly, is to have all your HUD documents signed and ready to go with your real estate agent. With active investors I usually have an earnest money check deposited with our brokerage and the contract documents pre-signed. You can simply call me and I will submit the offer for you before midnight. If you are the winning bidder, we can simply finish the paperwork and overnight it to HUD.

Less experienced agents often lose deals, because they did not submit the original paperwork to HUD within 48 hours of notification!

Tip 2: Focus on Re-Lists

As an investor your best chance to win a low ball offer is when you focus on properties that have been relisted. This means that a previous contract fell through and HUD has to start from scratch. With relists there is a 5 day exclusive for owner occupants, so investor can submit their bids on Wednesdays.

HUD is more motivated to sell relists to investors at a discount. If we notice that a property has been relisted a number of times we notify our customers. These are the best opportunities for investors, because occasionally HUD accepts discounts from the list price of 50% or more.

Tip 3: Look for HUD Homes that need Work

Owner occupants buy up all Columbus HUD homes that are listed as "Insured" for FHA purposes. This simply means they don't need any repairs. A large majority of HUD homes is listed as "Insured with Repair Escrow". Again, owner occupants buy many of these homes, but when the repair escrow exceeds $5,000, these Columbus houses become more difficult to finance and most owner occupants don't want to deal with them.

If you find a home that is "Uninsured" you should take a closer look. It is very likely that a owner occupant won't get financing for this home. FHA requirements are pretty tough right now. It is best to make a cash offer when HUD notices that they can't sell a home with FHA financing. We also see that the insured status of properties changes when they get relisted, because a buyer may have discovered problems during the inspection.

The disclosures for most HUD homes indicate that there is mold in the house. Do not automatically reject these homes. Inspect them before you make an offer to decide for yourself what level of mold remediation is necessary.

Tip 4: Bid on Wednesdays

I suggest you submit your offer on Wednesday. Why? Because the HUD homes that were relisted on the previous Friday are reserved for owner occupants for 5 days - until Tuesday midnight. These relists offer a great opportunity for real estate investors to get a lower offer accepted. You probably know that we call these homes boomerangs, because some of them have been coming back every month as one contract after the other falls through.

Here's One Final Bonus Tip!

When you make an offer on a relisted home, do not offer more than the previously accepted bid. This may sound obvious, but you won't believe how many buyers and agents submit offers that are substantially higher than previously accepted contracts.

Although HUD publishes bidding results, these numbers are no longer available on their website when a property is relisted. Except for our customers! We keep a database of HUD bidding statistics exclusively for our clients. If you work with us, you will know what HUD accepted previously, and we will submit an offer that is competitive, but not too high.

Call me at (614) 975-9650! I'd like to help you develop a customized bidding strategy to win all your HUD Home offers!

Thanks for reading our Columbus HUD Homes Blog
Posted by: Susanne Novak, ABR, FIS, GRI
Columbus Realtors specializing in
HUD Homes, Shortsales, Investment Real Estate
(614) 975-9650

Listing Statistics of this Week

Total homes available: 70 (last week: 63)

Owner occupants: 61
All bidders: 9
New listings: 21
Sunday deadline: 25
Relisted/Price reduced: 15

Median Price: $59,500 (last week: $63,000)
Average Price: $77,777 (last week: $76,159)
Highest: $188,000
Lowest: $5,400

Homes less than $50,001: 31 (last week: 21)
Between $50,001 & $100,000: 19 (last week: 17)
More than $100,000: 20 (last week: 11)

Call me TODAY at 975-9650 to see the newest HUD Homes this weekend!

Thanks for reading our Columbus HUD Homes Blog
Posted by: Susanne Novak, ABR, FIS, GRI
Columbus Realtors specializing in
HUD Homes, Shortsales, Investment Real Estate
(614) 975-9650 http://ColumbusOhioHUDHomes.com

Why Owner Occupants Beat Investors on HUD Homes 85% of the Time

Owner occupant buyers must feel like in paradise. The selection of suburban Columbus HUD homes is excellent and extremely affordable. That's why owner occupants beat investors 8 out of 10 times on HUD home offers. Out of the 70 Columbus houses listed for sale by HUD, only 9 are available for all bidders (investors), while the rest is reserved for owner occupants.

Here are 2 charts to illustrate HUD listing statistics since the beginning of the year. We show the 4 different types of listings in the colors you are used to from our HUD Maps:

• RED [New]: new HUD home listings (10 exclusive for owner occupants)
• YELLOW [Relist]: relisted HUD homes and price reductions (5 days exclusive for owner occupants)
• BLUE [Sunday]: previous Friday's new listings with a bidding deadline of Sunday midnight (still exclusive for owner occupants)
• GREEN [Investors]: HUD homes available for all bidders (investors) with a daily bidding deadline

The first one shows the total number of Columbus HUD homes available each Friday. Essentially, that's the information you can see in our email newsletter every Friday. Look at the last column to the right. It shows today's listings. You can see that the total number of listings (height of column) is 70, while the number of new listings (red) is 21.

The second chart shows the same information as a percentage of all HUD listings. Here you can see the percentage of homes available for investors (green) relative to the total number of HUD homes. For instance, in the last column (today's listings) homes for all bidders (green) are only 15% of the all listings.

You can clearly see 3 major trends:

1. The total number of HUD homes has gone down to 50% since the beginning of the year.
2. The number of HUD homes available to investors (green portion of chart) has dwindled to 15% of the total number of homes vs. almost 50% at the beginning of the year.
3. Since the end of August, when we hit an all-time low, we saw a consistent increase in listed HUD homes.

These charts clearly show that owner occupants are dominating the HUD homes market and the share of investors has become very small. This is due to the fact that it has become very hard for investors to secure financing for investment properties, while HUD offers very generous incentives for owner occupants to buy their homes. There is no doubt in my mind that this is in the best interest of HUD, as they can sell their homes to owner occupants for or above list price, while investors will demand a substantial discount.

Call me TODAY at 975-9650 to see the newest HUD Homes this weekend!

Thanks for reading our Columbus HUD Homes Blog
Posted by: Susanne Novak, ABR, FIS, GRI
Columbus Realtors specializing in
HUD Homes, Shortsales, Investment Real Estate
(614) 975-9650 http://ColumbusOhioHUDHomes.com