Bank Owned Homes from El Mirage to Queen Creek:
Recently, I have been home shopping a lot with first time buyers. Just before my trip to Austria I got a foreclosure under contract in Queen Creek where I represent my clients as their buyers agent. My buyers were pretty much under the gun finding a new home since the landlord they were renting from was getting foreclosed upon. This time, however, they did not want to find a new home to rent since they had been tenants for 14 years and my clients felt they were long overdue for home-ownership. Having their thirty day notice in hand, making offers on short sales was not an option since my buyers were not in a position to deal with long response times. “We need to find something by yesterday” is what I kept hearing from them every day since I met them for the first time. Logically we had to boil down the search for properties to REOs (Bank Owned Properties). So, for the better part of two weeks, we started to cruise almost every subdivisions in Queen Creek looking to find a home fitting their budget, needs, and wants. At first, it was very discouraging. Only one, out of approximately ten homes, we explored was in move-in condition without requiring any major repairs necessary. After 5 days intensive shopping; we hit the jackpot and my buyers settled for 2400sqft , 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath home in Johnson Ranch, which was a former builder model. Of course it had all the “goodies” including a pool with a heated in-ground spa. 
At the same time, I was working with another nice couple, also first time home buyers. Whose needs were completely different. I had to shop in the exact opposite geographic area – Surprise and El Mirage, Arizona was the target area. If you follow my blog you probably have seen them on their shopping spree. Although their time frame of moving in is not as critical, they also would prefer a quicker response time once they put in an offer. So our main focus here was to find a bank-owned property in good condition. Easier said than done. Compared to Queen Creek finding a livable bankowned property in the Surprise and El Mirage area currently takes about exploring fifteen REOs to find one which is in move-in condition without any major deferred maintenance or repairs needed.
Of course the copper thieves are still active and are stealing the coils out of the AC-compressors across the valley, however there was one major difference between Queen-Creek and the Surpise/El Mirage area: Most of the repo -homes in Queen Creek had the power turned on, while none but only one out of the fifty (or so) homes in the West Valley had electricity. At first I thought it had something to do that there perhaps were proportionally more foreclosed homes with swimming-pools in lender inventories in Queen Creek. Keeping the pool-pump running helps preventing the pool from turning green, however after looking a little bit more closer into my “Pool versus No-Pool Power-On” theory I discovered that the bank-owned homes with drained pools also had the the electric service turned on. The only thing I can think of why the electricity is turned on at most REO properties in Queen Creek is most likely because of the competitive environment due to the insanely high listing inventory. But then, the inventory in the West Valley is not exactly low either…Go figure? At the end it all might have been just pure coincidence.
Apparently, I am not the only one who perceived the physical condition of REO properties in Queen Creek better. Steve Belt had a similar observation:
Subsequently, however, home condition wasn’t as bad as I feared. For whatever reason, the bank owned homes look better than Chris Butterworth found in Litchfield Park recently
Looking at a hand full of REOs compared to a huge listing inventory cannot give a clear conclusion where the “better condition” REOs are geographically located, however I find it fascinating that local real estate blogs may indicate that the overall physical condition of REO inventory in Queen Creek appears to be in slightly better shape compared to some areas in the West Valley.
It’s surprising that banks don’t just drop the price of an REO to a point where it will sell quickly given the high costs of owning an empty home. And what’s up with people thieving copper from the AC compressors; there can’t be a lot of money in that.
REO are getting tougher to go FHA these days. I think our lenders are a little bit of hypocrites. On one hand the bank (seller) does not want to fix anything. However on the other hand they (the bank borrower the buyer money) require the repairs to be done by the seller to close. Banks need to get smart to this real fast.
That’s a common problem that is happening around here too. Seems as though there is a market for the copper…it’s amazing what people will do. Seems as though it would be harder to sell a house without the electricity turned on…guess you need to look during the day