Hey all! So here is the deal. My husband and I will be relocating to Southern Washington this fall and are thinking of buying a house. We will be there for three years and we figured since we get BAH anyway, we may as well look into this. I see alot of adds for buying forclosed homes and how much money you can save.. Is this a scam? I mean, I assume the houses probably need work and we are willing to put a decent amount of work into a place.. We have alot of a family in the area and everyone seems to have a skill that would be useful.. What about financing? Do you have to have just cash for such a thing? This would be our first time buying a home.. He is an E-5, 7 years in. I have not checked our credit score this year but it was in the mid 600's last time I did and see no reason this would have declined.. What kind of loan would you need to do something like this? How little could you get away with having down? Sorry to bombard you with questions.. Pretty much any information on this sort of thing would be great... Jackie
As long as the home is habitable to move directly into then you can get a VA loan on a foreclosure. If it's not then you can get a rehab loan to buy and renovate the house on the front end. The last house I bought was a foreclosure and it needed some TLC but nothing really major and I saved over $30,000 on it. The deals are out there. Do your research though too. Don't let the real estate agent take 100% control. Look around and ask around about neighborhoods. The realtors aren't legally allowed to give their opinion on wether a neighborhood is good or not. If you know that you will only be there for 3 years then definitely buy a house based more on the investment side and not the dream home side. Are you moving to Fort Lewis? I was there for a few days about 10 years ago. Gorgeous base.
Thank you so much for the information.. My husband and I are originally from an area just south of Olympia so I have been to Fort Lewis many times, but he actually took recruiting duty and it's looking like we will be somewhere between Kelso and Vancouver.. We'll be the only military in sight.. It will be so weird! Anyway, thanks again. I will deffinatly do more research..
Originally posted by MortgageGuru: As long as the home is habitable to move directly into then you can get a VA loan on a foreclosure. If it's not then you can get a rehab loan to buy and renovate the house on the front end. The last house I bought was a foreclosure and it needed some TLC but nothing really major and I saved over $30,000 on it. The deals are out there. Do your research though too. Don't let the real estate agent take 100% control. Look around and ask around about neighborhoods. The realtors aren't legally allowed to give their opinion on wether a neighborhood is good or not. If you know that you will only be there for 3 years then definitely buy a house based more on the investment side and not the dream home side. Are you moving to Fort Lewis? I was there for a few days about 10 years ago. Gorgeous base.
Paul See my profile for contact information
Hi Paul, I do not know if you remember me or not. I just wanted to say that I am glad to know it is possible to apply for a VA Home Loan which can help you with rehabilitation on a foreclosed home. I recently talked to a real estate company that have foreclosed VA homes available and they told me up front that VA would not help pay for any rehab needed to a foreclosed VA homes. I was told that I had to fix the home up on my own with my own money. I tell you what, since I have been trying to buy a home I have found out so much underhanded things going on when it comes to buying a home. I will definitely use this information for future reference.
I just wanted you to know that I got my VA loan approved even with my not too good credit and I am in the processing of finding a home that suits me which is definitely hard but I am not going to give up. I had to get rid of my 1st real estate agent because she kept trying to sell me a home which did not fit the criteria I wanted in a home. I have a new real estate agent now and she seems to be working out good so far.
Thanks for helping me get this VA loan which I did not realize that I was capable of affording after all of the negative things I had heard about how hard it was to get a VA loan. I am truly glad that the information that you gave me paid off. I have to say that I had my doubts about applying for this loan simply because I knew that my credit was not too good. Thank you ever so much.
YOU COULD GET A HOME IMPROVMENT LOAN FROM IF YOU OR YOUR HUSBAND HAS AN ACCOUNT WITH THEM. IM KINDA IN THE SAME BOAT BUT I HAVE 0 CREDIT AND MY WIFE HAS BAD CREDIT. SO I HAVE TO PAY OFF HER DEBTS SO HER SCORE COULD AT LEAST GO UP SOME. I HOPE I HELPED YOU OUT SOME
Edited for advertising 27AUG07
This message has been edited. Last edited by: MortgageGuru,
I have several properties for sale, if you bring us a buyer, we'll give you $1000 if they buy: All are easy to buy, we may make the down payment! So, if you are looking or someone in your family is a realtor, contact Larry. Please leave a message:
I also need a good realtor!
Thou Shalt Not Advertise....
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I do not know if this question have been asked before, but I need to know if once you have gotten your VA Home Loan approved and you find a house that need a few repairs to it, should you get a home inspection done first so that you can actually see what repairs actually needs to be done and send the home inspection report to VA to get help with some or maybe all of the repairs done with the VA Home Loan you have for mortgage payments purposes?
Yes and no. Yes because under VA you can do and energy efficient mortgage or rehab a home. No because very few lenders will underwrite those loans. The energy efficient ones are much more common. If what you are looking at doing is all cosmetic in nature then it is not doable. If you are looking at rehabing a property completely then the lender will probably want to set it up as an FHA 201(k) rehab loan.
The VA has a program for assistance for Service Connected Disabled vets who need modifications to their housing. If your disabilities are compensated for Service Connection you should inquire into this program.
The specially adapted housing grant carries a pro and a con to it. Pro is that it is probably the most direct help anyone could ever get for making a house suitable for special needs. The con to it is that the lender can not close the loan for you to buy the property unless the property is habitable already at closing. So using the grant to rehab the house would only be an option if the house is already move in ready.
Thanks again Dave and Mortgage Guru for both of your responses, it sure does save me a lot of time to receive these type of responses from you all as opposed to waiting for my lawyer to respond back.
I have yet another question. If the home that you are acquiring already had a pre-inspection done, should you still have your own home inspection done?
Why would the seller's real estate company want you to sign a form stating that you are aware of a pre-inspection being done just because you saw it written right above the for sale sign in front of the home?
