It’s a vast shift from the last few years when would take any reasonable amount just to get rid of them.” “The banks seem to be offering more than they usually would - going for market value and above,” said Shannon Moore, broker and owner of Green Lion Realty in North Port. Lenders outbid third-parties to keep 3,754, or 77 percent.īanks paid $259.2 million for the properties, an increase of 34 percent from the amount they spent in the same 12-month period a year ago… In the 12 months ending June 1, 4,865 foreclosures were auctioned in Sarasota and Manatee counties. In some cases, lenders this year have bid up to 600 percent more than a property’s worth to retain foreclosures - one of the primary reasons the acquisition costs for competing real estate investors also has spiked in recent months. The degree of outbidding is not modest, at least in Southwest Florida (emphasis ours):
It’s ugly enough that way if the banks are doubling down by deciding to buy homes that they were formerly only servicing (as in simply acting as an agent), this practice goes from typical bank lemming-like behavior to affirmatively deranged. The article does not indicate whether the “banking giants” like Wells Fargo are only bidding on properties where the bank owns the loan or serviced loan for private label (non-Fannie and Freddie investors). They are speculating that the properties will appreciate even more in the next couple of years. It’s conventional to deem local journalism to be dead, but Josh Salman at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune has written well-researched investigative story on bank bidding at foreclosures in his neck of the woods, Big lenders bidding to keep homes, that has national implications.īanking giants from Wells Fargo to Fannie Mae are routinely paying top dollar on the auction steps to hold onto their own distressed properties, outbidding cash offers and paying well above assessed value, according to a review of thousands of Southwest Florida auction purchases.