To say that I was very concerned about the condition of the bank owned homes that I would find in Queen Creek during my initial tour Sunday is an understatement. I was honestly scared to heck that property condition would be so bad that my newest client would get soured on the prospect of buying a home in the area, and resort to renting. Still, I’m not easily daunted (and fortunately, neither is she), so we set out on our first tour together of homes priced under $125k, with a reported 4 bedrooms, 2 levels, and bank owned in the town of Queen Creek.

Our tour comprised just 8 properties this first day. As luck would have it, the first home was the worst of the bunch. In an ideal world, you always save the best for last, but I also like to front load with something tantalizing anyway. Unfortunately, I missed the mark on that. There was so much wrong with the home, I’m not going to begin to describe it.

Subsequently, however, home condition wasn’t as bad as I feared. For whatever reason, the bank owned homes look better than Chris Butterworth found in Litchfield Park recently. Half of the homes did have at least one missing major appliance (either a stove or a dishwasher). All of the homes needed at least some repainting done and all of the homes needed the carpets to be cleaned. A couple of the homes had had some landscaping work recently done to get the yards at least respectable, probably due to the HOA’s. What surprised me the most was that none of them smelled bad. Naturally, only a couple of them had the power on. It seems $10/month is too much for these banks to afford so that you can look in the garage or a powder bath with some light. Next month, when daytime temps consistently blow past 100 degrees, having the power off, and no A/C at all, will make any afternoon showings nearly intolerable.

Unfortunately, none of the homes we looked at actually had 4 real bedrooms. Instead, all had 3 bedrooms and a loft, thus each of these listings suffered from rules violations in our MLS. Personally, that was certainly annoying, although my client was satisfied, as the loft works for her needs of an “office” in the 4th bedroom. One of the homes had a loft and a den, which was the closest thing to being accurate that we saw.

I was unable to gain entrance to one of the properties on our list. It had the spin-alphabet lockbox, but no combo was noted in the listing. A call into the listing agent yesterday has yet to be returned, and thus the 237 days on market is not very surprising. I have to believe this bank is getting what it paid for.

As advice for the banks, I very much concur with Chris Butterworth: make the property condition nicer. The prices are indeed tempting, but if the banks improve property condition just a tad, any buyer objection becomes completely mute. For many of the homes, ensuring the carpets were cleaned (thus removing doubt about whether they need to be replaced), all appliances were present and working, and all cabinets doors/drawers were present and working would have made a huge difference. These improvements would ensure the buyer, short on cash to begin with, has a home that is move-in ready. I know the banks want to price these problems into the home, but they did so with varying degrees of success.

I think most buyers can look past the painting problems, and I wouldn’t advise banks to address painting problems. Paint is certainly an area where most home buyers feel they can do it themselves.

The one area where I think the banks are seriously missing the pricing mark, was in regard to the homes that had vinyl flooring. My client was really turned off by all of these homes, as the expense of putting in tile, coupled with the fact she couldn’t do it herself, made each of them complete deal breakers. A home with vinyl flooring must be priced substantially lower than a home with tiled flooring for them to be comparable.

Finally, it’s the saturation of bank owned properties in Queen Creek that allows me to be so critical of property condition. The Lending Tree adage of, “When banks compete, you win” would appear to be very much a reality for buyers considering a home in Queen Creek today.

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