Opening bid/ lowest biding bank would take

[Jenna Walker]

Market value 130k townhome and mortgage that is owed 98k. I would like to get the home at an court house auction. How much would be the initial bidding price range around and would bank ended up taking even lower amount than the total mortgage amount?

[Jonathan Greene]

My pleasure. Yeah, three times passed is not a surprise. Sometimes the bank wants to buy it back to list later as an REO and sometimes the upset value and opening bid is just too high at courthouse auction for it to be worth it. With only a 130k market value, I wouldn't be looking at it to renovate. There just isn't enough spread for it to be worth it at 98k unless it needs just cosmetic. Auction.com info is not reliable for extra liens. Only a title company can find out more information so if you plan on investing and buying foreclosures you want to develop a relationship with a local title company that can do quick searches for you to see if there are some hidden monsters there. There are a lot of potential pitfalls in foreclosure buying from the courthouse steps, the most being no inspections and the back liens that could come up later. You would have a bit more protection looking at sites like Hubzu, HomePath and Xome which are selling REOs, but on the market with some protection in that you can view them (with an agent) and they have generally cleaned them out and presented them at their best. Any questions at all, send me a message.