An abandoned house is a
vacant property. The folks at The Bennett Property Shop Realty are experienced in how to go about buying an abandoned house in Ottawa. Abandoned houses are most often the result
of the fact that the house’s former owners ran into financial difficulties and
“lost” their property ownership to their mortgagor and the former owners have
had to move out. Other abandoned houses are tied up in legal red-tape with one
level of government or another. Abandoned properties are sometimes neglected
and in need of repair; and they are also sometimes in the process of
foreclosure. Banks often take over ownership of houses and leave them abandoned
and unoccupied for a while.
Buying a Ottawa house is often a strategic investment because
these properties usually have very low - and usually below-market - prices.
The steps to buying an
abandoned house are:
1. Preparing your finances.
2. Researching the property.
3. Making a realistic offer.
The begin with, you first
want to make sure that you can actually afford to buy a new home. Although they
are generally cheaper than Ottawa houses for sale in the normal re-sale marketplace, abandoned
houses can still have large price tags. Unless you already have the cash, you
will need to qualify for a mortgage.
Do Your Research
When looking around for an
abandoned house to buy, you might want think about certain unoccupied or ill-
or sporadically maintained houses that you drive by on a regular basis. If you
do not have a particular house in mind, you can look in real-estate listings.
However, if the owner is absent, or if a legal entanglement is involved or if a
foreclosure is in process, there might not be any listings for that house. This
is precisely when an Ottawa real-estate agent can help you find an abandoned house to buy.
Determining who the owner
of the house often requires dedicated and well-informed research. Check county
deed records if you do not already know the name of the owner of the property
you are interested in. These records will also provide information on liens and
whether all of the property’s land taxes are in arrears or up-to-date.
Once you learn who owns the
property, have your agent contact the owner in order to make an offer on the
abandoned house. Interestingly, owners of properties that are going through the
foreclosure process are often surprised to find out that they still have rights
to the property (especially if it has been abandoned for some time), if the
foreclosure process has not been finalized yet.
If the house has already
been foreclosed, talk to the bank or lender as they are the current owners of the
property. This information will also be listed in the deed records. It is
important to know that banks are well-known to delay foreclosures and to move
slowly when it comes to selling an abandoned house.
Because abandoned houses
often have many technical problems, make sure to have the target in appraised
and inspected. These reports and estimates will give you a good idea of the
home's value as well as its likely repair costs; and this information will
greatly help you to determine how much to offer and what other conditions to
put into your offer to purchase the house.
Make an Offer
Once you have done your
research and planned your offering strategy, you are ready to make your offer
to the owner or the lender. In formulating your offer, the experts at The Bennett Property Shop Realty remind you that you should
always consider the additional costs - such as closing costs, fees, land
transfer taxes and repair costs. As a basic starting-point strategy, you should
bid lower than the value of the house as you can usually “up” your offer – but
can rarely reduce your offer.
Once your offer
is accepted, schedule a closing date, and begin preparing for renovations and
moving into it or renting it out.
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