The Foreclosure That Is and Wasn’t and The Foreclosure That Wasn’t and Is
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Foreclosures, Luxury Homes, Milton Real Estate
MILTON - There is a house in Highland Manor pictured on the left; you may have seen it. It’s the first house on the right as you pull in.
It has been on and off the market for the last two years. It was the last lot sold in the neighborhood a number of years after all the other lots were built. A builder who builds over in The Manor bought it and built a spec home which he wasn’t able to sell. That was a couple of years ago. The house was listed then at $820,000.
It is a great house as far as houses go. The builder does a very nice job: huge kitchen and keeping room, top of the line cabinets, amazing ceilings, spiral entrance stair case, beautiful floors and trim, four-sides brick and stone, cedar accents, large unfinished terrace level basement with lots of windows.
The problem has always been that it suffers from FHOTR syndrome. That is, First House On The Right, which means that the side yard abuts to Birmingham Road. While the location of the house in terms of the traffic is not ideal, the lot is level, which can’t be said for many lots in Highland Manor and there is a row of Leland cypress planted along the road to provide privacy. When inside the home, you don’t hear any street noise at all.
This house is listed in the MLS as a foreclosure. The thing is: It isn’t.
Yes, the builder, who has been living in the house himself to cut expenses, is very motivated to sell. The price has been reduced to $599,000 and I dare you to find as nice of a house for $600,000 within Milton. But it is NOT a foreclosure.
I asked the listing agent why it was listed as a foreclosure and he told me to "try to generate some interest for the seller." No doubt it is working because every buyer seems interested in foreclosure properties. But is this fair play. I joked with some fellow realtors a few months ago that we all ought to list our properties are foreclosures even though they weren’t … this guy has actually done it.
Regardless of the ethics of this marketing maneuver, never fear. The house will be a foreclosure in short order no doubt. Why would someone who is interested in buying the house deal now? The distress has been advertised. Why not wait until it actually forecloses and then try to get an even better deal?
Do you think this marketing technique is cleaver or is bound to be counter productive? If you like the house, though, and you can deal with the lot, we should take a look because someone is going to get a steal of a deal eventually.
The House that Wasn’t Listed as a Foreclosure But Is
Then there is the case of the actual foreclosure that wasn’t properly marketed in my opinion.
The picture on the left is not the house, but the barn. This is a 5-acre horse farm / french country estate for LESS THAN A MILLION DOLLARS ($949,000 actually) on Wood Road.
Wood Road is a dirt road running between Freemanville Road and Birmingham Highway. There are numerous family horse farms dotting the country side along Wood Road and a community of its own.
If I could chose any place to live in Milton, it would be either Wood Road or North Valley. I don’t even own horses and I love Wood Road and often cut through just so that I can enjoy the scenery.
So, I repeat, 5 acres, 6 bedrooms / 4 baths, French county estate, working horse farm, all-season riding ring. The barn is nicer than many houses. Check out the picture below to see how comfortable that horse looks.
This house was not marketed as a foreclosure in MLS. The only way I found it was accidentally in the tax records.
Now the listing agent had put some remarks in the comments section noting that it was a pre-foreclosure and to "bring all offers," but the buying public can’t search on that field and agents generally don’t know how to.
The best thing to do in a pre-foreclosure situation, and this is becoming common practice with agents, is to go ahead and list it as a foreclosure. The criteria for a pre-foreclosure would be that a short sale has been agreed to by the lender and/or the property has been advertised for foreclosure and a courthouse sale date set. This house met that criteria; the house in Highland Manor does not as far as I know…yet.
This horse estate where humans also get to live is not currently on the market now that it has foreclosed. I’m sure it is in the process of being relisted by the bank and will be coming back on the market shortly. For some horse-loving humans and human-loving horses, this is going to be a fantastic future home at a fraction of what you could buy this sort of property for two years ago.
I can hear a horse now living in some drafty barn prodding her owner to call me go take a look. Come on, your horse is worth it.
Hi Kevin,
Very interesting. Good read.
Best,
Adam Pendleton
Email me when the house on Wood Road goes back on the market. Thanks…
Keith
The house you have pictured on Wood Road is mine. We sold it through short sale not foreclosure. It is a fantastic home and Wood Road a wonderful place to live.