Full disclosure: The Tim is employed by Redfin.
After Google’s recent announcement that they were pulling their real estate map features, I was somewhat disappointed that we had lost a mapped view of unlisted foreclosures. Fortunately, Redfin just today released a sweet new feature that I’ve been helping plan: Full map and details on all bank owned inventory.
While most (all?) other foreclosure search sites require you to register and/or pay just to get the actual address of bank owned homes (I’m looking at you, RealtyTrac), Redfin displays the full address, home details like beds/baths/size, and even which bank “bought” (repossessed) the home at the foreclosure auction (it’s under the “Listing Information” section as a bullet labeled “Buyer”). Click the map screenshot at right to do a live search right now.
In addition to being a valuable resource for home shoppers to keep an eye on upcoming inventory, this feature also allows us to get a nice visual of part of the “shadow inventory” problem, broken down by neighborhood.
Browsing around the Seattle area with only the purple unlisted REO icons turned on, you can see that the central Seattle/Bellevue corridor is fairly light on shadow inventory, with the problem increasing dramatically as you go further north or south. This lines up nicely with our recent analysis of on-market inventory.
Look for some detailed analysis of this data in the coming months over on the Redfin blog, as I am able to spend some time querying all this new information in our database and coming up with sweet ways to visualize it all.
“Ray is saying to make your best full price offer.”
Good God! Did I say that? I don’t think so. I believe I said in certain areas regionals are drop gapping their prices and these homes sell very quickly with multiple offers.
When you see a drop gap in price David you will know why everyone piles in. Until you see that you NEVER offer full price..
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: ray pepper @ 101 –
Yeah you did say that. What I said is that people would be foolish to pay full price for an REO. Now you’re saying, like all Real Estate agents do, that you wait until the seller decides to lower the price, and then all pile on. That’s not in the buyers best interest.
My point is, like in all Real Estate, you make offers that make sense for the buyer. You don’t wait around until the seller is directing the sale.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: David Losh @ 102 – David, some banks act strange. I once had a bank reject an offer without a counter and then within a week lower the price to within $5,000 of my offer. They apparently expect you to tell the truth when they ask for your highest and best offer! ;-)
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: David Losh @ 102 –
Oh, I see the problem now David. You don’t know what drop gapping is of a price..I’m sorry.
If a home is listed at 200k and you offer 120k the bank will ALWAYS reject if its an REO and you will get no response. However, if this same home drop gaps to 125k 2 months later (for whatever reason) then offering less then NEW sales price is a complete waste of time. Other offers will pile in. It happens over and over and over. When a homes ” # comes up and they decide to unload” you must be ready with cash.
You have taken yourself out of the game and its truly unfortunate because buying/selling now is the most lucrative it has ever been and I suspect in about 1 more year it will get even better. “Keep your powder dry Ray” – I’m told week after week from the people with the REAL money. So I do….Well, not really bought 3 in the last year–35k,130k,63k…..Homes 5 years ago were 145k,265k,and 275k respectively.
Its time to build yourself a portfolio David that could last a lifetime and many will retire off this last year and the next couple years to come off pure GEM investments.
“You don’t wait around until the seller is directing the sale”…very very wrong David…We ALWAYS wait around until the seller MUST sell. Its the only way.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
Glad to see Redfin getting up to speed on this.
Here’s my question. Say I go on Redfin now, find an REO not on the market and I go check it out. Drive by, peak in the windows, whatever.
Now I want to buy it. I don’t need an agent, lawyer, car salesman, or witch doctor.
I want to call the bank, and buy the property with cash down and finance through them if I don’t have all cash.
I’d like a title check and inspection, but chances are as an REO title is clean, and you get what you get as far as condition.
First question is who is the bank? Then, who do i talk to at the bank? Then what?
I guess I’m wondering why a bank would want to screw around with an agent if I’m here ready to buy it now.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 58 –
“If an agent commits malpractice regarding forms, I think the standard is that of an attorney, not some lower standard applicable to an agent.”
Kary,
That occurred to me Friday evening as I was driving home and I thought about commenting again on it. However, I’m not his attorney so I’m not going to do him any favors. I also realized that my primary mistake was engaging with Ray in the first place.
I hope for his sake and that of his clients that he never steers anybody wrong. If any of his clients are reading these comments I recommend saving a copy of his comments in post 60. His claim to know “contract law better then anyone” might be helpful in a legal malpractice lawsuit.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
Good stuff Ira. Keep’em coming.
By Ira Sacharoff @ 71:
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: ray pepper @ 104 –
I understand, and i’ll get to that in the next comment.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: LA Relo @ 105 –
It’s not what you know it’s who you know. You can find the bank, and the department that has the sale. They don’t want to deal with you. You are a problem.
What you want to be is a solution. You want to be the person who moves that file, so you have to find who has the file. It can be anywhere, but one person is going to handle that sale.
It might be the day that file is on top of the pile, it may be buried. What are you offering that will make that person check the file you want rather than close another one?
If you’re an agent, you may be able to close more than one file. If you just want to mess around, well the person with the file has other files to close, that day.
It’s actually a people business like any other Real Estate. There are people who work in that world, some for an entire career.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: Marc @ 106 – Ray here is not half as bad as Ardell in this thread:
http://www.trulia.com/voices/Home_Selling/Sellers_keeping_earnest_money_We_recently_had_a_-268888
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: Marc @ 106 –
” I also realized that my primary mistake was engaging with Ray in the first place.”
This is true Marc. Your swimming with sharks in the world of blogging. Your a new guppy that will get eaten alive when you continue to insinuate your superiority in practice over others. I’m here to remind everyone that those who bash (with no track record) need to be looked at further and watched with a careful eye.
BTW my commenting in the blogs would be very difficult to prove without proof that it was truly I that made these comments. I would like to see you present these threads in court to a judge in trying to attempt a malpractice suit. You would be laughed right out of the Courtroom.(which I’m sure has happened to you already!).
Marc, I hope you do NOT take my jabs at you too serious. Its all in good fun and I’m sure you run a tight ship with Craig but I cannot help but attack anyone that continues to infer their superiority. You both kind of remind me of conceited guys in the bars that would wait for the girls to come talk to them. At the end of the night they always went home together wondering what the problem was and how come nobody noticed them……….
I can’t wait for Craigs next entry on RCG. Hes the only reason I check in over there. I’m always ready to pounce on him yet as of late his entries on Strategic Default had no mention of his perceived superiority in practice…….So I behaved.
Rate this comment:
0 
0