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Radical cheap: $1,000 homes
* Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
* Thursday January 8, 2009, 12:31 pm EST
* Yahoo! Buzz
* Print
The real estate market is so awful that buyers are now scooping up homes for as
little as $1,000.
There are 18 listings in Flint, Mich., for under $3,000, according
to Realtor.com. There are 22 in Indianapolis, 46 in Cleveland and a
whopping 709 in Detroit. All of these communities have been hit hard by
foreclosures, and most of these homes are being sold by the lenders that
repossessed them.
"Foreclosures
have turned banks into property management companies," said Heather
Fernandez, a spokeswoman for Trulia.com, the real estate Web site. "And
it's often cheaper for them to give these homes away rather than try to
get market value for them."
In Detroit for instance, Century 21
Villa owner Randy Eissa has a three-bedroom, one-bath bungalow of about
1,000 square feet listed at just $500. It's a nice place with lots of
light, but it needs a total rehabilitation inside, which Eissa
estimates will cost between $15,000 and $20,000. But that's not bad,
considering that the home last sold for $72,000 in late 2007, according
to Zillow.com.
With prices this low, lenders aren't looking to
make any money on these deals. They just want to get these houses off
their books, so they don't have to bear the cost of maintaining them
and paying property taxes.
In fact, the $500, $1,000 or $3,000
that a buyer forks over often goes straight to the real estate brokers
as a commission. And often the lenders have to kick in extra cash to
make it worthwhile for a realtor even take the listings, according to
Eissa.
"Usually these homes are bank repossessions that the
lenders have already tried to sell on the market, perhaps then put up
for auction without success and then re-listed," he said.
Fixer uppers
These
houses are almost always small fixer-uppers. Wiring, plumbing and
heating systems have to be replaced, walls and ceilings sheet-rocked,
plumbing and light fixtures installed and new kitchen cabinets and
counters put in. Few come with working appliances.
Often buyers
are legally required to rehab these homes to bring them up to code. In
Detroit, buyers are required to sign Affidavits of Compliance
Responsibility, which obligates them to make repairs outlined in an
inspection report. Only after that can a certificate of occupancy will
be issued, which makes the house legal to live in.
But even factoring in these costs, they're still bargains.
And
as the housing crisis drags on, there are more and more four-figure
listings popping up, as lenders try to unload their repossessed
properties.
Cleveland is another city with many incredibly
inexpensive homes. On Ardenall Avenue, in East Cleveland, McMullen
Realty has a listing for a four-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath house for
$1,900. It's been vandalized inside, but the outside is in good shape.
It
features a deep front porch with Doric columns, double dormer windows
and a separate garage. It's an excellent opportunity, according to
agent Tonya Stoudamire. The last time it sold was in March of 2008 when
it went for $16,677, according to Zillow.
"East Cleveland has a beautiful housing stock," she said. "These houses just
need someone to come in and love them a little."
Another
property for sale in Birmingham Ala. is priced at $1,900. The
one-bedroom, one bathroom home was built in 1923 and has major fire
damage, according to its listing broker, Tom Murphy Realty. The listing
states that "Rooms are hard to distinguish."
But it's on a
nice-sized lot, about 0.38 acre, close to downtown and transportation
and has all utilities. Nearby, comparable homes in good condition sell
for about $100,000, according to Zillow.
Rehab money
Most
of these $1,000 homes can be renovated relatively inexpensively, and
buyers can actually get government help to finance these repairs. The
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has a special
loan program for just such purchases.
Its rehabilitation mortgage
insurance, available through FHA-approved lenders, was designed to
encourage banks to issue a single, long-term loan to buyers that covers
both the acquisition and rehabilitation of a property, according to HUD
spokesman Brian Sullivan.
He adds that there may also be grant money available from the $4 billion
Neighborhood Stabilization Program,
which was a part of the massive housing rescue bill passed by Congress
in July, to assist buyers with grants for down payments.
Buying
homes like these is certainly a leap of faith; they're generally not in
the best of neighborhoods and they're often surrounded by many other
vacant and deteriorating homes. Still, some of these neighborhoods may
turn around and provide residents with good, dirt-cheap housing.
"It's a sad time," said Stoudamire. "But it's also a time of opportunity,
especially for low and moderate income people."
