FAIRFAX COUNTY BANK OWNED PROPERTIES - CASH BUYERS FIND GOOD INVESTMENTS - REHABILITATE FOR INSTANT EQUITY.

Bank owned homes are offering good opportunities for cash home buyers, investment buyers, constructions companies, consortium investors, nest egg investors - all seeking buying opportunities.

BUY NOW - REHABILITATE - RESELL FOR PROFIT - A TRADITIONAL WAY TO RECYCLE REAL ESTATE.

MANY HOMES PERFECT FOR REHABILITATION ARE ON THE MARKET. It isn't unusual to see bank owned homes for sale in need of total whole house rehabilitation. Former home owners often neglect critical maintenance when faced with foreclosure. The economy has forced many home owners into financial distress resulting in bank foreclosures. Home buyers who plan to occupy a property following rehabilitation often buy these homes and finance the rehabilitation through "home rehabilitation financing". However, many prospective home buyers do not always have the vision to see the value in buying a fixer-upper. Most home buyers prefer to buy a home that is move in ready. Home buyers often believe that the financing is more complicated than it need be and they gravitate to a home that need minor cosmetic repairs and upgrades.

CHANGING MARKET VALUE FROM THE BOTTOM "DISTRESSED PROPERTY" TO TOP OF THE MARKET

"NEW CONDITION - READY TO MOVE IN".

CASH INVESTOR BUYERS ARE AN IMPORTANT CONSUMER GROUP. Cash investment buyers often have the vision and the ability to BUY - REHABILITATE - and RESELL homes in need of extensive repair and upgrades.

UPGRADE THE KITCHEN. The kitchen is usually a primary focus when a property undergoes extensive rehabilitation. Kitchens are easily redesigned with new flooring, wooden cabinets, state of the art appliances, granite or Corian countertops and built-in features such as wall ovens that make a kitchen more "cook friendly" and help resell.

UPGRADE THE EXTERIOR - FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE IMPORTANT. Basics for rehabilitation of home exteriors often include a new roof, new siding, pointing up brick, railings on stoops, shutters, and removing overgrown yards and installing attractive landscaping.

CASH INVESTMENT HOME BUYERS OFTEN REALIZE 20-25% EQUITY. Bank owned homes will quite often sell for far under list prices to cash buyers. Investment consortiums, nest egg investors and construction companies are often in a position to benefit from investing in bank owned properties. Once a property is transformed from a distress property into an attractive home, buyers will want to buy and move right in.

BANK OWNED PROPERTIES PERFECT FOR REHABILITATION ARE IN ALL PRICE RANGES AND AREAS

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"BUY ME AND FIX ME UP - I'LL BE A WONDERFUL HOME FOR SOMEONE."

The home above is typical of a home Vienna Virginia, a luxury area of Northern Virginia, ready for rehabilitation. The property is ready for rehabilitation throughout the exterior and interior. However, a new kitchen, bathrooms, rec room in the basement of this Rambler and new landscaping and repairs to the exterior would add $Thousands to the market value of this property.

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Courtesy, Lenn Harley, Broker, Homefinders.com, 800-711-7988. Helping home buyers in Maryland and Northern Virginia. .

To Search for Homes for Sale in Northern Virginia, visit our HOMESDATABASE site for buyers who would like to tour the real estate listings on line with photos, prices, descriptions and features.

I had clients not too long ago that wanted to find a home in Vienna, VA. After renting there for a year they fell in love with this little town which is right off the end of the Metro's Orange Line (Vienna/ Fairfax/GMU). They knew exactly what they wanted in a home: rambler with addition or split level, flat yard, within walking distance from Maple Ave, etc. However, one of the most important features is that the home had to be located within one of four school districts which they had also ranked. They had done their due diligence on the schools and they wanted their little girls to attend one of the following: Louis Archer, Cunningham Park, Flint Hill, and Vienna Elementary Schools.

The difficulty for a Realtor to find a school within a school district is that many listing agents do not provide that information. There is a good reason why some may not include it: they don't want to be held liable if the information is wrong or if it changes during the time period the house is listed so many times they will just write "call the school district." I knew that setting up a search within the MLS based on the fields for school information would result in incomplete data. On the other hand, setting up a search for all of Vienna or a large portion of Vienna would include too many homes that were not in one of those four school districts. I certainly wouldn't want my clients to call the district for every home that turned up in a search (and for liability purposes, we Realtors also shy away from calling the school districts ourselves). So what did I do?

I put my artskills to good use. I went to the county website and looked up the school districts map for each of my client's preferred schools. MLS allows us to do a map search and basically draw out an area with the mouse if we choose to. Carefully, I copied the school district map onto the MLS map using my mouse, purposefully making the boundaries on my map a little bigger than the county map. It was painstainkingly slow --but the work was definitely worth it (and although my clients may not have known exactly how I was able to do it, I know they appreciated it). It did make me wonder why the school districts can't be drawn out in simple squares and rectangles, instead they have so many twists and turns which made the process a little more difficult (but I am not complaining, I love this job :o)).

Once each map was successfully copied, I saved the search within each map including the other criteria. I explained to my clients that the results would not be perfect and approximately 10% of the results would not be in the desired district so I recommended that they double check with the school district by either calling or at least looking up the address on the county website. However, doing all the work on the front end, would drastically reduce the number of properties to worry about. All in all, I think we only visited about 4 houses before they found the one--because we were able to eliminate so many others beforehand. And with two small children, looking at dozens and dozens of properties was definitely not in their game plan.

For those of us who live/play/work in and around Tysons Corner, Virginia...

Unless you’ve been in a coma for the last few years (and if you have been, my sympathies, but I’m glad you’re back), you’ve heard about the Dulles Metrorail project that is happening in Tysons Corner.

You’ve probably already sat in worse-than-usual traffic along Route 7. I didn’t think worse traffic was possible, but it turns out that ripping up the service roads did the trick. We now have lunchtime rush-hour delays. I am limited to running errands from 8pm–10pm. Sweet.

If you’re like me, you’re wondering what’s going on and what’s going to happen as the project progresses. For information, go to www.dullesmetro.com.

Here you’ll find maps (I love maps) showing the locations of future stations and recent news about the project. If nothing else, visit the site for the traffic advisories.

We’ll have to live with a few years of growing pains, but here’s hoping it makes Tysons a better place to live/play/work. Until then, sit back and enjoy the ride.

Tiny Varner is a licensed Realtor® in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. She loves her job.

Moving to Vienna Virginia or selling a home in Vienna VA? If you are planning on buying or selling a home, condo, town home or real estate in Vienna VA contact us! We are your Vienna VA Realtors and Vienna real estate agents! The national and Vienna real estate market have changed recently. It is taking longer to sell a home, and yes there are price reductions, but homes are still selling in Vienna VA. It takes more than a sign in the ground to sell a home in Vienna VA, it takes experience. You will need an expert to guide you in your quest to buy or sell a home these days. You'll need the counsel of an experienced and seasoned agent to guide you through the minefields. Since over 85% of our business is directly Internet related, we can market homes 24/7/365 days a year globally! We are very successful in selling homes, and creating a sales strategy customized to selling your home or real estate in Vienna VA!

Current Real Estate Activity for Vienna VA - 4/4/2009

• 245 Active Detached Single Family Homes for Sale
• 5 Status is 'Cntg/KO'
• 47 'Cntg/NO KO'
• 29 'Contract'

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