Thread: Foreclosed Property for $1,350...what's the catch?

Hey everyone, thanks for the advice and discussion in this thread. It definitely helps.

Update: The price was too good to be true. A couple of sites were listing it at $1,350 for some reason (probably to draw people in). I guess it's a HUD house and it's actually going for $230,000 on other websites.

Thanks for the help everyone, and I'll still look around for decent deals if they are at all real.

What's the lot size?

Im not sure about Chicago real estate but that sounds like a great deal, regardless of the condition of the actually home. You'd be essentially paying for land value and at that price it's worth the buy and hold. Unless you can afford to rebuild a bigger/better property and either flip it or rent, you may be best to buy it now with the price as low as it is, and hold it for a few years and sell it in a better market.

Also, run some comps of the area and see what your paying for. A title search wouldn't hurt either. Zillow is one place to start.

Originally Posted by Luigi2Times

Update: The price was too good to be true. A couple of sites were listing it at $1,350 for some reason (probably to draw people in). I guess it's a HUD house and it's actually going for $230,000 on other websites.

Thanks for the help everyone, and I'll still look around for decent deals if they are at all real.

I won't say it but I said it It is called bait and switch....

Originally Posted by Luigi2Times

Update: The price was too good to be true. A couple of sites were listing it at $1,350 for some reason (probably to draw people in). I guess it's a HUD house and it's actually going for $230,000 on other websites.

Thanks for the help everyone, and I'll still look around for decent deals if they are at all real.

Sometimes the price they put in, on whatever website, is not the listed asking price, but a potential monthly mortgage.

The 1,350 might just be the starting bid, when I was looking before I saw a lot of places listed at $1000 and it was just the opening bid for people to start from, most of the places ended up around 25-30k

sounds like a nightmare... to good to be true

The thing that really got me was the first couple websites listed it at $1,350 under the "price" column when every other property was listed from $20k and up in the same column. I didn't think they would put only One of thousands of properties that low to draw anyone in...if all the properties were that low, I would have known something was up.

@ luigi2times

I know there are tons of properties in Chicago in foreclosure, bank sales etc.

A friend of mine buys fixes them and rents them out as now is not the market to sell.

He generally purchases homes from 10-20k, banks won't finance these you need to have your own money to purchase, close, and renovate these homes. or have some strong investors.

Thanks ragazzi_07, I saw there are tons of places in Chicago that are in that range, but most are in questionable areas. It is definitely a renting market right now but since Chicago is overbuilt by alot, rent prices need to be competitive (from what I hear) since there can be alot of vacancies depending which area you are dealing with. But it's a good time to buy and own some decent real estate.