Richmond Home Shopper

Richmond Area Foreclosures…

Area home sales have picked up, however prices continue to fall, although prices region-wide are down by less in the second quarter of 2010 than they were in the first quarter. The average sales price in the Central Virginia region was $229,545 in the second quarter of 2010, down four percent from the second quarter 2009 average. The median sales price was $196,383, also down four percent from a year earlier. Foreclosures are certailnly playing a role in this drop. Read the rest of this entry »

Richmond Short Sales Will Get Easier!

The U.S. Treasury Department on Monday released a plan to speed up and encourage Short Sales as a means to help families avoid foreclosure. We’ve been offering Short Sale proposals to public officials for over a year, and although the new guidelines aren’t everything we were hoping for, they do represent a significant improvement over the current situation.

Short Sales have been difficult to close, and these new measures are a huge step in the right direction. One major highlight: A lender must give a yes or no answer to an offer within 10 days. Also included: a moving allowance, incentives for sellers and lenders, commission rules, and a stipulation that releases sellers from debt liabilities.  Here’s an initial Reuters news story outlining the new policies. Read the rest of this entry »

Richmond Foreclosures; A Good Deal?

Rarely does a week go by that we don’t hear from a home buyer; “I want a great deal.” No one wants to pay asking price for a home these days so many home buyers are looking for Richmond area foreclosures to get a deal. But are you really getting a great deal when you purchase a home from the bank?

The short answer to this question is maybe. Property values throughout the county have dropped considerably over the last couple of years. If you compare current home values in Richmond with what value of homes were three years ago, home buyers are getting a great deal across the market whether its a foreclosure or not. Read the rest of this entry »

Home Inspection Helps Ensure Dream Deals Don’t Turn into Nightmares

ARA- You found your dream deal on a Richmond area home, but will that great price tag come with a different kind of higher cost? Buying a repossessed property, short sale or a home offered at a bargain price — because of its condition — can mean you’re assuming much higher risks.

Repossessed and short sale homes are often abandoned and neglected, leaving them with much more potential for unforeseen structural defects, plumbing, electrical, heating systems, environmental issues and many other problems. Fixing these woes can cost far more than the financial savings from a distressed property purchase. There also may be unknown defects, such as mold or radon, that could affect your family’s health and safety. Read the rest of this entry »

How to Avoid Losing Your Home to Foreclosure

(ARA) – Over the past year, we’ve been inundated with daily headlines about the growing foreclosure crisis. While the Richmond area has not experienced a Foreclosure crisis, local homeowners have lost their homes to foreclosure, with speculation among housing industry experts that things may get worse.

Herculean efforts are being made on the part of federal and state governments, mortgage lenders and nonprofit organizations to prevent foreclosures, culminating in the bailout package recently passed by Congress. Read the rest of this entry »

How to Buy a Pre-Foreclosure House

This article I recently found on HGTV.com and was re-published from RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure resource guide.  We see foreclosures in the news quite a bit and hear that there are some fantastic deals out there.  This article I thought provided great information on how to find a bargain and how to go about the process!

Six steps to finding a Foreclosure Bargain! By RealtyTrac | Published: 2/03/2008

The pre-foreclosure stage — the period from when a Notice of Default or LisPendens has been issued until the time the lender puts the property up for an auction — can last several months, so buying during this time requires a lot of patience and persistence. It typically offers the best bargains, but it’s also the most difficult stage to purchase a distressed home. Understand that the owner still has a chance to stop the foreclosure process by paying off what is owed or by selling the property. Here’s what to do: Read the rest of this entry »

Richmond Foreclosures on the Rise!

Foreclosures in the Richmond Metro area are on the rise again.  Over 1100 homes received foreclosure filings almost triple year over year. Bank repo’s, auction sales and defaults are included in this total. In Virginia as a whole, foreclosure notices are up 185% year over year. Notices did fall in September versus August, one bright spot, but nothing you could call trend. The Richmond area ranked 88th among metro areas in the country for foreclosures.

Nationwide there was a 71 percent increase in the number of homes which received at least one foreclosure-related notice in the third quarter of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007. Read the rest of this entry »