During the past couple of years I have focused almost exclusively on selling HUD Homes. You may be a reader of my HUD homes blog where I preview new HUD listings and publish maps of Columbus HUD homes every Friday.
A few weeks ago my brokerage, Solutions for Real Estate, received a HUD listing contract. This means that we will continue to focus on selling HUD homes in the foreseeable future.
Earlier this week, I attended the largest conference of the default servicing industry. Everyone was there, banks, asset managers, property preservation companies and, of course, real estate agents that list foreclosed homes for the banks.
This opened my eyes to other sources of high quality bank-owned properties (REOs). Let’s take a closer look at one of these sources – Fannie Mae.
As you may know, Fannie Mae buys mortgages from banks. They are a government sponsored enterprise (GSE) whose mission is buy loans and home mortgages from banks, which in turn frees up the banks’ assets, so they have money to lend to home buyers.
This worked very well over the past few decades. Fannie Mae accumulated a huge portfolio of mortgages. When the real estate boom came to an end in 2007, Fannie Mae had to foreclose on many of these loans and ended up with the properties.
They have a large inventory of REOs, which the sell through local real estate agents. To find a Fannie Mae home you can go to HomePath.com, their home selling website, and search for properties all over the country. This website is really easy to use. You can click on a map to display all listing in the county of your choice.
There are currently 283 Fannie Mae homes listed in Franklin County – that’s about twice the number of HUD homes.
What are the benefits of buying a Fannie Mae home?
- Their homes are usually in good condition. Unlike HUD, Fannie Mae hires contractors to rehab some of the homes to get them ready for owner occupants.
- Fannie Mae offers low down payment financing without the extra cost of mortgage insurance, which may beat FHA loans.
- They give you up to 3.5% of the purchase price for closing costs (available till the end of 2010).
- There are more homes available for sale, so you have a better selection in most Columbus neighborhoods.
Click here to see a sample of 5 nice Fannie Mae homes.
These are good quality homes mostly in suburban school districts. If you want to check out more homes, go to Homepath.com, and call me at (614) 975-9650. I can help you get the best deal and make a smart home buying decision on any home for sale in Columbus.
Thanks for reading the susannenovak.com Blog!
Posted by: Susanne Novak, ABR, FIS, GRI
Columbus Real Estate Agent helping First Time Buyers.
(614) 975-9650