Who knows much about buying houses?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm looking to buy a house in a few years so I check listings now and then to see what's going on. I found a house today that is for sale by owner at the price of $476. Dollars, not thousands. The pictures they have up looks like its a decent looking house.

What does this mean?? It must be an error right? Any one have any ideas of any possible reason why a person would be selling their house for that cheap???? Maybe you have to take over their mortage?

I'm confused by this. Any ideas would be appreciated.

I read an article about a similar property in America recently. The catch turned out to be that the new owner had to pay some outstanding local house related taxes, not sure what they were and the house was in a really bad area. When a property is that cheap there is always a catch - it still may be worth buying - but find out what the catch(es) are first.

You don't want to move in and the next day the workmen arrive to demolish it to make way for a new highway.

Those are a couple of good ideas. I know there has to be a catch, I'm just having a hard time imagining what it could be.

Thanks for the suggestions

There could be lots of catches, some financial some due to location and some due to condition of the house.

It could need re-wiring, re-plumbing, re-roofing, have rotten foundations or timber - or all of these!

Is it fire-damaged inside?

Is the property lease hold or full ownership? If leasehold when does the lease expire?

What building plans are there nearby - are they building a slaughterhouse at the end of the yard?

Is the house the scene of a mass murder. Does the house look a little like the one in "Halloween" - look out for little boys with knives

A few more:

Make sure the owner of the property has legal access to the road. There are houses that are worthless because there is no legal right of way to walk / drive from the highway to the property without trespassing on someone else's land!

Neighbours from hell? They can kill the price of a property. Is there a crack dealer next door or a brothel or kids who play heavy rock music loud all night with the windows open. Some neighbours can be VERY anti-social.

Can you safely park a car outside the property and expect it to be there the following morning or to still have four wheels?

What are the local schools like - if you have kids where will they be "educated".

don't know about how to buy houses, but I'm an expert at how not to buy them.]]

We got the whole treatment that they were doing to people who are in trouble now; they frogmarched us through the paperwork (choice - not even ours now that I think about it, to moving in was 2 weeks). Variable-rate loan, escalating home-owner's fees, etc. Cleaned me out financially in less than 3 years. Foreclosed, etc.

Don't be afraid to use a real-estate agent of your own, and check them out before you even show up. Get the best deal you can on a loan; go for fixed-rate if you can at all swing it, earnest money (don't do what I did and put down a pittance) should be about 20% of the purchase price, etc.

Hope yours goes better than mine.

I can't see a property on sale for $476 being anything other than a total tragedy. That price is just not normal. The tragedy probably being many of the above suggestions from others.

Perhaps it's a house that's for rent at $476 a month that someone put in the sales listings by mistake?

The lowest price I remember hearing about in the recent past in Scotland, for sale, was £8,000 - and these things always make the news. It was an apartment that was fire damaged to the core.

Apart from all of the above; the vendor may be a leaseholder and the lease only has a short time to run, being sold with sitting tenants, yaddah, yaddah.

Don't touch it you would only buying grief, if it was that much a bargain it would have been snapped up already.

I am guessing it could be a fixer-upper.

Apparently the woman who owns the house is just an idiot and meant $476,000

I contacted her to ask what was up and she responded with something like:
If I had sold the house a few years ago it would have been worth $700,000 but now with this economy, I put it up at $476.

,000 on the first number, none on the second. So either she's just really dumb or she's playing some sort of game to pull in people.

Yeah, I knew it wasn't legit, I was just confused by it so I wanted ideas of what it might be.
Thanks guys

Don't let that slow you down, find a good agent and keep looking. As someone noted above, you will have to put more money down now than previously.

$476 doesn't even cover the cost of the land. Be suspicious.

As a general principle, it's a good idea to buy stuff that will appeal to the average buyer (near transport, schools, shops etc), then if you decide you don't like it, it'll be easy to on-sell.