Getting the ball rolling

Hi,I'm Seb Frey - the Real Estate Guy. Catchy, huh? :) I have a couple of blogs that I already maintain - one at my main web site, SantaCruzHomeBroker.com - the other is on ActiveRain, which I don't really post on too often - mostly, I just put my REO listings on there.I don't talk too much about the REO side of my business on my own blog on my main site. I kind of want that blog to be a general-purpose real estate blog for buyers and sellers. I do mention REOs and foreclosures and short sales quite a bit on that blog, but mostly in passing.I think it will be nice to have a 3rd blog set up which I can write just about the REO part of my business - which at this point is about 80% of what I am doing, and the other 20% seems to be working with buyers on short sales and REOs, since that's where the best deals are to be had these days, for the most part.I think I'll just use this as a space to kind of write about the ins and outs of my business, so you can see what kind of issues come up and how I handle them. Please, tell me what I'm doing wrong. :)Today, I got a new property assignment from my favorite A#1 client, PAS (Premiere Asset Services, the REO arm of Wells Fargo). It was for a house out in Aptos - in a pretty nice older subdivision. Unfortunately, this part of the subdivision is a bit close to the freeway so you get some road noise, but hey, how often do you come across an REO property that's really just perfect in every way?The property had recently been on the market, but was just withdrawn 2 days ago. It hadn't been marked as vacant, so I figured I would find someone home. I printed out a copy of the Affordable Housing Guide for Santa Cruz County, which lists a bunch of local government agencies that help people find affordable housing - not like this house was cheap, it had been bought a couple of years ago for around $900,000 (can you say "top of the market"?). The guide also has legal resources - so people can learn their rights as someone who's been foreclosed on and is facing eviction, and it also contains contact information for transitional housing and shelters, for people who have kids, for example, and are freaked out that they'll literally be put on the streets, which isn't quite the case.Nice enough house, the landscaping overgrown, of course. I knocked on the door, a ferocious sounding dog barked in reply, after a minute or so the door was opened by a big tall guy, clearly not the Mary who was listed as the owner.Turns out, it was her grown son, late 20's, I'd say. Apparently, mom had fled the scene, leaving him with the house. "She told me she worked something out with her old Realtor where I could stay here through the summer," he told me. Yeah, right. I told him I didn't know anything about that, but in any event, I'd be negotiating a cash for keys deal with him, and how soon could he be out?We'll see how it goes. That's the most interesting thing that happened in an otherwise slow news day - lots of phone calls, lots of administrativa for the dozen or so escrows I have going now. I'll write again soon.
E-mail me when people leave their comments –

You need to be a member of REO Pro Network to add comments!

Join REO Pro Network

Comments

  • Hi, no, it is something I got from the county of Santa Cruz, a handout at a presentation they did at the board of Realtors. I scanned it, and then OCR'd it so I'd have crisp copies. I have this document on my web site, here:
    http://santacruzhomebroker.com/resources/affordable_housing.pdf
  • Hi Seb - The "Affordable Housing Guide For Santa Cruz County"...is that something you worked up on your own? Great idea to take along with your occupancy check!
  • Thanks for the blog and due to your commitment to REOPro I have added you as a Featured Member.
This reply was deleted.