[Nathans_Dad]

My $.02:

1). Don't listen to anyone talk about the real estate market who is from Kalifornia unless you live in Kalifornia. Their market is so wacked it has no bearing on the rest of the country. Talk about the land of haves and have nots... People there are mostly either insanely rich from flipping houses or bitter as hell because the market has gone up so much they have no chance of buying their own home unless they win the super tri-ball lottery.

2). As to the foreclosures. I can speak a little to this since the home I bought 4 years ago was a foreclosure. There are auctions for these I believe, although I bought mine on the standard market. We basically just lucked into ours, our agent took us to the house, which had been on the market for 1 day. The VA had foreclosed on the home about 2 years prior and had put some money into it to make it marketable. They replaced all the carpets, thoroughly cleaned the home, repainted all the walls and did some general repairs. The VA has a policy of a silent auction with their foreclosures, basically you submit your bid and whoever has the highest bid above their minimum price gets the house. We were one of 6 bids on the home after 2 days on the market. We won by $250 over our now next door neighbors who wanted to buy it to flip. We purchased the house for $156k (2500 sq feet) , which was about $20k below market price at the time, and have made a few improvements, minor things like water softener, refinishing the deck, outside landscaping, painting interior, and tiling in our bathroom floor. Our realtor says we should be able to list the house somewhere around $240k when we put it on the market in about 6 weeks.