Real Estate: A new kind of listing for agents specializing in foreclosure - Dayton Business Journal:

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Those are some of the trickws of the trade she learned in the 12 yearsz she has exclusively sold foreclosed properties throughher firm, A-1 REO Serviceds LLC, which had $15.2 million in salexs volume last year. The companyu ranked No. 28 on The Business Review’s lates t list of residential real estate More than a dozen agentss sell foreclosed homes inthe region, but few rely on the listingas for most of thei sales. “Sometimes I’m in neighborhoods where thered are shootingsand robberies,” said Vann, who is 55, a grandmotherr of six children, and feisty. “uI want to blend in with the communitywherse I’m going.
” But the naturr of the housing stock is changing as the slumpinh economy ensnares more upper-income people in the web of foreclosure. Casex in point: Vann recently closed on propertie s that soldfor $285,000 in Guilderland, $249,000 in West Sand Lake and $342,0009 in Burden Lake. Among her current listings is a 3 1/2-bath house with an in-groun pool in the Country Knolls subdivisionb of Ballston Lake for $289,900. Vann and others who deal with home foreclosure susually don’t know why the owners fell hopelesslyu behind on mortgage payments, but the reasons vary: job loss, medical bills, divorce, drug addictions and mentapl illness.
Some home ownera die without assigning someone to managetheir estate. “oI had one ... a couplr years ago where there was a great pay history and then they juststopped paying,” said Petef L. Burgess, an attorney in Cliftonm Park who handles foreclosures on behalfof lenders. “We served the papers, and the woman’s son callx up. He said she hasn’t opened her mail in abouty a year. He asked if he coulfd take careof it. Sure.
” Although many livee get disrupted every year when homees are taken backby lenders, foreclosures aren’t as big a problem in the Capitalo Region as they are in parts of the country wherwe home values skyrocketed in the early 2000s, and then crashede hard when the real estatd bubble burst. The deflated valuess meant homeowners couldn’t simplyu refinance to get a more affordabler monthly payment when interest rates roseon variable-rate mortgages. As a many lost properties to Bottom ofthe list? Not such a bad thingv During the first quarter of this the Capital Region had one of the lowest home foreclosurre rates in the nation, ranking No.
186 on a list of the top 203 metropolitahn statistical areas with populationsover 200,000, according to There were 287 properties in some stage of the foreclosure processa during the first three months of the year, or just 0.08 perceng of all owner-occupied and renter households in the region. Vann and one of her Todd Drake of Empire RealEstatw Management, said the first quarter of this year was slow becaus of moratoriums that were enacted by home mortgagw giants and . Those moratoriums, which have since been lifted, createsd a backlog of properties that are expectes to flow into the foreclosurre pipeline in thecoming months, Drakre said.
“We believe it’s going to catch up this Drake said. Vann said she had 152 closingalast year, most of which were through the . Empire Real Estatw Management in Latham sold 144 houses througbh the Capital Region MLS last plus 17 insurrounding areas, according to Drake. Totalp sales volume in the Capital Regionwas $13.11 million. Drake, 33, started his company seven years ago after handling some foreclosure sales while workinbg inanother agent’s office. He concentrates on foreclosuredsthese days, but also managese apartment buildings.
The business arrangement with lenders varies onforeclosed homes, but typically the real estatee agency is responsible for cleaning out, securiny and maintaining a foreclosed home untiol it’s sold.