I have never had a bank take 2-3 months to respond to an offer on an REO. Many of my REO clients respond in a day or less. If you were talking about a short sale, then I could agree with that, but an REO? Have any of the REO agents here ever experienced anything like that?

OHAgent, it depends on the market. I personally see more properties on the West Coast in Calfornia, where properties have suffered 20% to 30% fade on mid to high 6 figure properties, banks are not going to take a 60c handle if they think they can wait out for a better price. Assuming you're in state of Ohio, prices there are a little lower, might be easier for the banks to take a hit.

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I'm in CA & banks are taking $100-150K haricuts every day of the week right now.

2-3 months? HA! I am located in the foreclosure capital of the world - Las Vegas, and I have never seen a bank take more than 10 days to respond to an offer on an REO!

If you offered full price on a home that had multiple offers here in Vegas, you probably wouldn't get the home. Most REO properties are selling for over list price. List price is irrelevant anyway. The banks price their homes according to a liquidation appraisal they have done prior to listing the home. They are priced to get multiple offers and create a bidding war.

You are also asking for $11,000 in costs too along with an FHA loan. Banks look at what they will net and they also know that FHA loans take longer to close.

New twist in the bidding, one buyer has backed out of the deal while the other is looking for a government grant. So our chances are much better now.

Still awaiting word.

Banks are not going to deal with government grant for REO loans, if you're paying cash and your offer is decent, you should take it down. But like I said, REOs and short sales always drag on. These other experts disagree with me. Hopefully you prove me wrong Teke.

Got a call today from the bank's agent. They pulled a power move and offered the home at $12K more than the original list price and what we're offering. So I basically told her our "Final and Best" offer was our final and best offer. Then she went on to say that if we offered 3K more we'd most likely be assured the deal is done. I told her our offer stands at list price. I'm about ready to walk away from the deal at this point.

I told her the value of homes in the area is dropping by the week and she seemed to understand this. She told me that she had told the bank we're offering a good price but they still wanted to come back with this. I also told her that if we don't hear a definitive answer before the end of the day we're going to go look at some homes this weekend and we may pull our offer if we find something better.

Just curios if in the case your offer is accepted, are they going to pay your commission, too? I had bought a house for ourselves in 2004(bank owned), and they said they're not paying Buyer's Agent commission because I am the Buyer. I said"okay, remove my commssion but I won't bid higher than asking price minus commission which means if house is listed for $206,000, I offer only $2000,000 as-is, no closing cost, no repairs(excellent condition of house)because 3% of commission is $6,000. They took it, and we got a house. Good luck to you!

They are paying my commission. I don't understand the reasoning in this philosophy of not paying commission if the buyer is also the agent. If I decide to walk they're going to pay commission anyway, might as well pay it to me and let's dfo the offer right now. I tend to take these things too personal I guess, but I see it as the bank saying, "we're willing to pay anyone in the world commssion except you".

It's BANK mentality. Direct from an assett managers mouth that I talke to once (The reason we don't pay the buyers commission if you are the buyer is you directly benefit from getting the house at a great price)

It's a power play from the bank. Personally if I am buying for investment I don't care I just lowball the offer and make it up there. Sometimes If I give the listing broker all the commission then they will push my offer more.

It's not right but sometimes listing brokers only push there double-end deals and if it's a great price I will make plenty on the rental or resale so it's a non-issue for me. Whatever I can do to beat out the competition WITHOUT paying more money.

Just got a call form the agent, the bank has accepted our offer. The agent said she had to sell them on our offer price. So now comes escrow.

CONGRATS!! Stick to your guns and make the AM's sweat!

Buyer's market.

I think that depends on the seller and on exactly what the buyer is doing. I had 2 REO sales in the past month in which the buyer was getting a grant from the state. Both closed on time with no problems.

I'm sorry. I don't care where you are located, where the house is located, how big the loss is or anything else. There is no way they are taking 2-3 months to respond to an offer on an REO. A short sale, maybe, but not an REO.