Selling Foreclosures

How do you know what to resell your foreclosures for?

A few years ago, everyone was bragging about how much money they made on real estate, how easy it was to make quick money. But over the past few years, the market has changed, and it has gotten a little harder to make money off real estate. However, with a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of work, you can still make quite a bit of money, more than enough to make investing in real estate worth it!

The first way to know how much to resell your foreclosures is to look at the appraisal values of the other houses in the neighborhood. This will give you an idea of what the other houses are worth. Next, look at the “upgrades” that the houses have, and compare them to the upgrades in your house (upgrades are things that don’t come in every house-tile, a sprinkler system, an alarm system, extra cabinets in the kitchen…basically anything that the builder would have had to pay extra above the basic price). If you are trying to figure out the resell value before you actually make an offer on the foreclosures, you still need to look at the appraisals in the neighborhood, but you also need to consider what kind of work you are willing to put into the house. Depending on the neighborhood, certain upgrades will help bring up the price of the house (in some neighborhoods tile, granite countertops, etc, would be expected, and without them you might not have much interest in the house for the price that you are asking). Once you have considered all the above, you will begin to get an idea of your resell price.

There are a few things to remember when coming up with a final number for your resell value for your foreclosure. First, just because the exact same house with all the same upgrades (or even without a few!) is selling for a specific price, does NOT mean that you should sell your foreclosures for the exact same price. Remember: you are tying to sell this house fast-as fast as possible, because this is how you make your money. If you can tell buyers that come to look at the house that the exact same house (or a house that is not as nice) is selling for ______ price down the street, and that yours has the same upgrades, or extras (or more!), and that you are only selling for _______ price, your house is going to be a lot more enticing. The point is to get as much out of your foreclosures or bank foreclosures as fast as possible. Sure, you could probably get more, but it might take longer to sell. By asking slightly less you could sell the house quicker, and be moving on to your next foreclosure (which could make you even more money) in the time that you would be sitting around waiting for a buyer if you were asking a higher price.