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One problem that we are facing when trying to buy a house is related to the rate of foreclosures in MA. In the past year alone in MA, the rate of foreclosure has risen 33%. That's huge. This, of course, makes lenders more cautious about approving mortgages and more conservative with the loan amounts that they approve. It also has made it so that no realtor will even begin to show you houses unless you present them with a letter of pre-approval.
Increased foreclosure rates have also resulted in another unexpected situation. It turns out that many people are not happy about losing their house, and they focus their anger and hate on the house itself. Since most of the houses that we are looking at happen to be foreclosures, it has made for interesting house viewing.
House #1: The former owners were angry, so they cut the oil line to the house. The house reeks of oil and there are oil stains as well. The bank simple can not get anyone to make an offer.
House#2: Again, the former owners directed their anger at the house, specifically at the walls of the house. With a sledgehammer. They also left a good amount of trash throughout all the rooms.
House#3: It seems like the sledgehammer method is popular in this area, although in this house the owners left most of the walls alone and just attacked the entire kitchen.
House #4: This house was an interesting situation. Instead of destroying the kitchen as in house #3. the owner had simply taken the entire kitchen with him, leaving nothing behind.
I want to clarify that I am in no way mocking or laughing at people who are forced to foreclose. I think foreclosure is a very traumatic and sad event for people to have to go through, and I really do feel for them. Who knows, we could end up in that position some day (although we are taken careful steps to prevent that). I'm just laughing at the irony of the situation where we are hard pressed to find a decent house in this area in our price range, and every time we do it seems like the previous owners got the best of us through their anger.
We have one or two more house viewings coming up this week. Wish us luck!
2 comments:
what a shame!
Drywall would be simple enough to replace, but a cut gas line would really worry me.
Good luck on your hunt!
My ex husband did similar things to our old house when he stopped making the mortgage payments, then split out of the state.
I tried to get a mortgage to buy the house from him, but was denied the amount I needed to take over the mortgage and pay all of the fees related to the pending foreclosure.
Now it goes for sheriff sale in November - more than 3 years after he stopped paying the mortgage!
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