Posted by Bob(DE) on July 23, 2003 at 11:53:41:
Hi John
I am fairly new to REI, and still have a lot of learning in my future, but I recently bought my first home to live in northern DE, and it was a HUD home as well. So here is my views so far:
First my situation:
townhouse
Comps: recently 87-95k
My purchase price: 80k
Rehab costs so far: ~1k with a lot of my time
Total expected rehab costs: ~5k
The area I purchased in is in a reasonable area, built in 79?, and has a lot of new construction in the past 10 years around it with townhomes selling for 180k. in general I plan on living here for 1-3 years then renting it after that (house next door rents for $1050/mo). On the whole I have had a fairly positive experience so far. HUD will make no repairs to your house, so make sure you look at them carefully, and get a good home inspection! In my situation all problems were cosmetic, or are fairly routine.
Things I would look out for:
Get a good realtor who deals routinely with HUDs
Get a mortgage co who is comfortable financing it for you (I had some problems with this)
Inspect carefully
**you say it was built in 1900?inspect really carefully
other than that from the little info you posted it sounds ok to me?check comps in the area, rent comps in the area, take a walk through and ask yourself if it feels like a manageable project?if so get an inspection and go from there
I would also do a search for ?Net to hud? or something similar in the search function above?it will tell you the guidelines on how HUD accepts bids
Regards
Bob