Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Looking to buy a home, but not sure you want one that fell into foreclosure?
Good luck finding out before you tour the property.
It’s a little-known fact that Wells Fargo Bank’s Premier Asset Services
division, which sells bank-owned homes, instructs agents who sell these
houses to list the owner as “Owner of Record,” and not Wells
Fargo. Premier Asset Services also sells homes owned by other banks.
The Multiple Listing Service, which is used by real estate agents to list
properties, includes a category for bank-owned property. But here again,
agents are told by many banks not to disclose the fact that the property is,
in fact, owned by a bank.
A number of agents who sell bank-owned properties privately say most banks
have the same requirement. They say banks want their homes to be considered
equally with non-distressed homes.
Tyler Smith, vice president of REO Community Development for Premier Asset
Services, acknowledged that Wells Fargo prefers that the MLS not list a
property as bank-owned, if the listing is optional. In some parts of the
country, the MLS requires that the property be listed as bank-owned, and
Wells Fargo asks its agents to comply with the rule, Smith said. But in the
regional MLS that serves Palm Beach County, there is no requirement, and so
the disclosure is discouraged.
Eric Sain, president of the Regional MLS and a vice president of the Corcoran
Group on Palm Beach, could not be reached for comment about whether there
are plans to require that bank-owned property be listed that way on the MLS.
Smith said there is a “negative connotation” about bank-owned
property, especially the property’s condition. “We want to change the
perception” that bank-owned property is always damaged, Smith said. As
part of that effort, Premier Asset Services since October has begun an
aggressive program to repair foreclosed homes that need work.
The goal: To get buyers to take a look at a home without first concluding
there must be something wrong with it.
“We want them to get them in the property and see the work we’ve done and
that the house should be no different than the neighbor who is selling their
home,” Smith said. “We’re trying to change their notion of what a
(bank-owned) property looks like.”
Although Smith said most banks for some time have made it clear to agents they
don’t want the words “bank owned” in the MLS, only recently has
Wells Fargo begun to review the listings to ensure agents are complying with
its preference.
“Obviously, at first blush it looks like we’re trying to hide behind
something and a game is being played,” Smith said, “but we have
the interest of the community (in mind), to preserve the property and
stabilize the neighborhood” by selling foreclosed homes .
If a buyer wishes to put a contract on a bank-owned home, then it will become
clear through paperwork the property is a foreclosure, and any defects or
repairs can be corrected or reflected in the sales price, Smith said.
But some agents who don’t deal in bank-owned property say the lack of upfront
disclosure is troubling.
Kevin Dickenson of Prudential Florida Realty in Palm Beach Gardens said hiding
the fact that a home is a foreclosure wastes the time of the agent, and the
buyer, if the buyer isn’t interested in buying a foreclosed home. Despite
Premier Asset Services’ work to correct home repairs, Dickenson said there
are many foreclosed homes owned by other banks that still have deferred
maintenance, hidden defects and a host of problems caused by neglect or
vandalism.
In fact, Dickenson said he’s taken buyers to view homes, only to realize as
soon as he walked in the door that the home was bank-owned because it
smelled of mold or contained other obvious problems.
Of course, there are buyers who want to buy foreclosed homes, and seek them
out, expecting a good deal. In many cases, foreclosures are even the subject
of bidding wars among buyers, agents say.
But Dickenson said buyers should know what they’re about to see before they
get there. “I don’t want to show a bank-owned house to a client who
doesn’t want to own a bank-owned property because of the repairs,”
Dickenson said.
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