What is your best horror story

[Pittsburgh Pete]

I can see how that would be horrible for you, PP. Updating your zone in a tanking market?!? How would one keep up with the changing rate of decline? WOW, it would be a stretch to assume all those REOs were in average to good condition from the street, but I guess you must be comfortable with plunging into the unknown. I mean, climbing those beanstocks you must get pretty high up there.:Eyecrazy:

While sales volume is down, the average sales price and prices in general have continued to increase in the Pittsburgh Metro market. There are pockets of stagnation and decline but my zones have continued to show appreciation. Also, REO's and foreclosures in this market are substantially lower than those found in other areas of the country. Gotta know your market!!!

The beanstalk gives a very nice perspective of the market and those toiling below.

 

[Hamlet]

While sales volume is down, the average sales price and prices in general have continued to increase in the Pittsburgh Metro market. There are pockets of stagnation and decline but my zones have continued to show appreciation. Also, REO's and foreclosures in this market are substantially lower than those found in other areas of the country. Gotta know your market!!!

The beanstalk gives a very nice perspective of the market and those toiling below.

So fortunate for you that your market isn't tanking....I can see where your nightmare would come if your market WAS tanking...updating that zone would be a nightmare. People are known to get pizzed off when they are foreclosed and have been known to take little things like the kitchen cabinets with them while smearing the walls with some unknown, gross substance, therefore my reference to assuming REO condition from the public street.

 

[Ariba]

How about this for a REO property! I talked to guys that secure these properties and they told me that his company secures over 500,000 bankowned properties nationwide. They are just a small player. I declined their invitation to be to be interviewed for the story.


http://www.myfoxcolorado.com/myfox/...ale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

 

[ROBERT JONES]

Doing a "vacant" REO in Lawnside, NJ. Enter, start writing, look up and there are a man and a woman dressed in bed sheets coming at me. Their faces were covered with gold paint from huffing. I high tailed it and called cops.

Other worst time was getting attacked by 3 dogs at once while doing a horse farm. I now have horrible pain from tendon issues and arthritis in my thumb from the bites.

 

[imjiminnh]

Just when you thought it was safe to go in the woods

I'd just inspected a nice rural antique, and had gone around the back to measure when I heard a grunt. I turned around slowly and took this photo. Some days the .25 I carry doesn't seem enough.

Jim

 

[HP12CScott2012]

More squalor:

one can sense a true, "pride of ownership" feel to these photos.

the instance where the appraiser was talking on the phone, diverted attention, and had a squatter lunge from a closet towards him freaks me out

(my first post, yahooo!!)

 

[TracyHudson]

You all are scaring me!! I haven't had anything worse than kicking cat turds across the basement. Going into foreclosures that haven't been emptied yet gives me the wierds, but someone was hustling, cause most of those are less than a week after the owners got locked out.

 

[Thomas N. Morgan]

The story about the buried mfg. home reminded me of something I saw while trying to get listing on 5 acres near a hwy. intersection, The owner, who lived in a mfg. home was showing me around.

We came upon an area of disturbed earth. In response to my question, he told me that the former owner had built a large ferro-cement boat some years ago. He decided it was not sea-worthy. It was too big and too heavy to haul away, so he got a bulldozer and buried it.

 

[wickedness1]

We had a similar "mess" with one of our appraisals. Newer house about 5 years old, beautiful pond in the front yard. Great layout on the property..everything seems normal at first.

Until my husband tripped over rebar and a chunk of concrete in the middle of the yard. Well, it turns out the the house was built on the old wash basin of a gravel quarry. TALK ABOUT A MESS!!! Concrete buildings buried throughout the yard. The EPA had been there several times for clean-up efforts of buried oil tankers still full of oil.

As it turns out, the original house was supposed to be a modular but the builder could not get a modular on stable ground. The builder moved the build site 7 times before he found stable enough ground to build on.

Of course, the original loan was funded on a DRIVE BY Appraisal...original appraiser has NO CLUE what they just appraised.

I spent days on end at the recorders office tracking back through the record's on the quarry. Wound up finding an original ariel map that clearly showed the subject property as the gravel wash basin. Who knows what kind of chemicals were used to.

We were appraising it for Bankruptcy purposes because the trustee wanted it. Needless to say the trustee didn't want it after he received our report. Talk about not getting paid enough for an assignment!


We recommended EPA inspections, clean up costs...WHAT A MESS!!!

And the client was an absolute ARSE to boot!:Eyecrazy::Eyecrazy:

 

[train]

A few come to mind:

1. There's the stripper who's telling me she just got home from spending the night in jail.

2. I was doing an appraisal for the wife in a divorce case. I had followed the wife to this property. The lot was about 400-500 feet deep. Wooded at the front with the dirt drive going to the rear of the lot where it opened up where the house was. I was taking my pictures in the front when I hear this truck pull up. This guy gets out--probably 6'5" and 250 lbs. He pulls a gun out and very nicely says "get the f*#k off my property. My repsonse is "no problem". So I hop in my truck and BACK OUT 400 feet down the dirt drive and he's following me to make sure I leave. I had to stop and have a beer before I went back to the office.

3. Very early in my career I had an assignment for a foreclosure in a not too nice part of town. The loan officer suggested that we have the police meet me out there as it had been a crack house. So, the cop is there waiting for me. I do my outside stuff and when I'm ready to go in, the cop tells me to wait until he clears each room. So, he pulls out his gun and proceeds to clear the house for me. Well, I get to the living room and I notice a huge brown stain on the wall. I start to ask the cop and before I could even get the question out, he says, "yeah, that's blood."

4. VA foreclosure--master bath is wallpapered with **** and there are several used vibrators on the floor.

5. This one still bothers me. I was on my way to an inspection on a fairly busy 2-lane highway. Up ahead in the distance, I see some smoke. As I come around the corner, there are 2 cars on side of the road. One is a large SUV and the other is a small car--Honda Civic or something like that. The small car is on fire--engulfed in flames and I see a couple of people hopping around by the SUV pulling young kids out from the back. I pulled over, but I just froze--I didn't know what to do. Then the car behind me stops and the guy jumps out immediately and runs over to help. I still beat myself up that I didn't help. I look over and see this man on his knees sobbing hysterically. As I found out later that day, the two vehicles were heading the opposite way. For some reason, the small car veered into the path of the SUV. This is the really disturbing part--the driver was still in the car that was on fire. The man who was sobbing was the driver's father who was following him. The driver was an 18 year old kid who apparently dozed off at the wheel. He never had a chance.