Foreclosure Vultures Gorge On Crashing Market in Seattle

November 26th, 2008

In Seattle foreclosure vultures are gorging on a crashing market. It is just a great opportunity for some to snap up deals.

Life is sunny for Matt Steel as he drives around Mercer Island hunting for the best foreclosure deals. He terms these as “some of the most prime real estate in the world.” Foreclosures have spared no region – including exclusive regions where customized houses are perched on hilltops overlooking Lake Washington. Steel goes out to locate the houses that are scheduled for auction in the following two days.

One of the foreclosed units measures 6,100 sq ft with a brown compound and a fountain in front of the patio. He quietly looks around to find that this house has a waterfront and there is no other building blocking the majestic view. He peers into the house that looks lived in with sparse furniture. It appears that a single father lives here whose daughter drops in for the weekends. Most probably the divorce was the cause of the foreclosure and caused the owner to fail on payments amounting to $134,000.
Matt Steel heads a company that purchases foreclosed units. He has to measure its condition and find out what is behind the foreclosure. His main target is to find out if the borrowers are still in occupation of the house because then the problem of eviction arises.

In a single day Steel inspects about eight houses. One of these is a mansion worth millions of dollars. It has copper laced railing on the balconies. The cobwebs on the wrought iron designer gates indicate that nobody has been entering or exiting for quite sometime. A faucet fixed to house refused to function – a sign that the water supply had been turned off. He came to the sure conclusion that the house was vacant. The garden was overgrown. It made Steel pause and muse as to what could have caused such a house to fall to foreclosure.

On Friday 156 properties in King County are listed for auction. Steel works with six other agents. They will visit as many foreclosure houses as they can and then apprise potential buyers about the “hot picks.” They will also attend the foreclosure auctions held at Seattle and Bellevue to purchase the units on behalf of the buyers and also sometimes for themselves. Foreclosures have made life so busy for Steel that he often has to rough out nights on his office couch.