Are foreclosures more likely to be good residential real estate investments than traditional nonforclosed properties?
Some of the Quora real estate professionals have pointed to an important distinction about foreclosures; that a foreclosure sale is often different than purchasing a non-auction foreclosed property that became part of a bank-owned real estate portfolio (known as Real Estate Owned or "REO"). I have purchased several REO's (including 3 from Fannie Mae) that have proven to be excellent values and I didn't need to do a single repair as they were quite clean - often with fresh floor surfaces and paint. I used real estate professionals to represent my interests and navigate the processes that differ slightly from buying a home from a private party. The principal difference is lack of disclosure as these properties are sold "AS IS - WHERE IS," which is fair as the banks didn't live in the properties. I have attended many auctions of foreclosed properties and builder close-outs. I found auctions dangerous for these reasons:In foreclosure sales that take place on the courthouse steps, you may not be allowed to see the interior of the property and you could suffer a total loss if, for instance, one of the basement walls is about to collapse. You now own the land with a property that will be "red tagged" or condemned. In foreclosure and auction sales like Williams & Williams Auction that offer limited inspections and detailed property pictures in advance to bidders, the hotel ballroom or auction room environment creates intense crowd pressure to bid up.In builder close-out auctions, potential buyers have ample time to inspect the property and auctions are nicely catered affairs. The peril here is that buyers lack the benefit of "price discovery" as the properties haven't changed hands in the market over a period of years. So, you could easily overpay for a property in the heat of the moment. I believe that certain foreclosed 0r REO properties can offer a buyer what Warren Buffett and his mentor, Benjamin Graham, called, "a margin of safety," as the fat is has been wrung out of the property and some dispassionate employee of a financial institution has the authority to let it go at a price that makes sense.
Are foreclosures listed in the newspapers? If so, where and which ones?
Most foreclosures are in the public notice section but sometimes you will see a notice for a bank owned property. This is usually a foreclosure. Most realtors can point you to forclosures
Has anyone negotiated on a NEW home, particularly KB Home?
Since there are other builders pick a diffract one! KB homes are the absolute bottom of the sub-division barrel. The house is going to be trash, you are better off with ANY other builder. They do not "seem that bad" to you because you have no idea what you are looking at and are distracted by the nice paint. As far as negotiating, yes, you are actually buying from a real estate agent. They get a commission on the property and split it if you bring in your own agent. You will not get far by yourself, but an agent can get a lower price plus have them kick in some upgrades for free. Take your agent in the first time you see the homes, because the builders agent will argue that they are entitled to 100% of the commission if they are your initial contact. That is what the "guest book" is all about. Never sign one yourself, have your agent sign it for you.
Why are the listings on Zillow and Realtor different?
You've already gotten a bunch of great answers here as towhy the data can be different, but I'll add some color as a Zillow employee. As you’ve already learned Realtor.com dataalmost exclusively comes from the local MLS, so the listing has to be in thatsystem to appear on the site. Zillowgets a large percentage of our data this way too, but we also accept data fromhundreds of other data sources. Most ofthese other sources are Agent, Broker or Real Estate Franchise directfeeds. Usually these agents areinputting into the MLS, but sometimes they have their reasons why they don’t,and these direct feeds allow for the listing to still be advertised. We also take feeds from services that real estate agents useto syndicate their data across the web. Thisis helpful to agents whose MLSs and Brokers don’t participate in syndication orwho aren’t members of their MLSs. However, these services can require more manual management of thelisting data, which is where errs can occasionally happen. The data source is always noted at the bottomof every property detail page for the convenience of the agent and the viewer,so they know where the data is coming from and they can follow up if they spotanything inaccurate. In addition to this type of agent-sponsored listing, Zillow alsoworks with companies and individuals who represent other types of listing data:For Sale By Owner, foreclosure and pre foreclosure, new construction (builders),and rentals from both large communities and individual landlords. It is free for anyone (listing agent orhomeowner) to post to Zillow through our sister company Postlets.com. Lastly, we have a unique category of listings called Make MeMove – where the owner has not officially put their home on the market yet, butis publically stating the amount that it would take for them to turn the houseover to a new buyer. Some of these homeowners are more motivated than others, and you can see that in the prices theyare publishing. Hope this helps explains why listing data may vary from cityto city. Zillow also has data on about100 million homes online, with this data mostly coming to us via publicrecords. When we learn of a home orrental going on the market, we do our best to mash this public data togetherwith the listing data to give the viewer the most comprehensive view of the home as possible.