Foreclosure Properties Deserve Customer Service, Too Last Fall, we started to represent banks in the sale of their foreclosure properties. We had always heard that a foreclosure property was a lot of work, but we they would be a great source of business for us. We had some new terminology to learn and quickly got up to speed with our responsibilities with a REO property.
To help us manage our new responsibilities, we hired someone to check on each foreclosure property weekly and complete a form for us. For some banks, this form is then forwarded onto the Asset Manager and for others, it goes into our file for the property. The form has basic information like, how much oil in tank, all doors locked, etc
We were having a problem with the heat at one particular home over the winter. The furnace had gone out a few times - causing no heat in the house. We stepped up our weekly check to every other day, as we could not determine the reason for the furnace to stop working. One particularly cold afternoon, we go the phone call that the furance had quite again. Before heading over to the property, we called the heating contractor so that he could meet us over there.
When we arrived, the temperature outside was close to 0 degrees and the temperature inside the home so cold, you could see your breath. The heating contractor determined that the well pump was the source of our problem. The well pump had gone bad, causing a situation where water couldn't feed into the baseboard heating. Without the water, the furnace had shut down - causing no heat in the home. We called the well pump contractor - who couldn't get there until the morning.
So know what? Our job in representing the bank in a foreclosure sale is to protect the asset. The home had previously been winterized, but we were worried that the no heat would cause the heating pipes to freeze. So off to Walmart we went. We filled up the shopping cart with 8 electric heaters and at 8:30 pm, set them up throughout the house. We then alerted the Asset Manager to the problem and the steps we had taken to protect the asset. He was very appreciative and expressed that he felt we'd gone above and beyond what was expected of us.
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The next day, the well pump contractor was at the house bright & early in the morning. He determined that the well pump neededreplacing. We put in the necessary paperwork to the Asset Manager to get the capital expense approved. Over the course of the next week, the new well pump was installed and we stopped by the asset daily to run a hose for 15 minutes so the water in the well tank would be clear of all the "stuff" that was stirred up during the pump replacement.
We can't tell you how many times we've gone to show foreclosure properties to our buyers and the lack of care from the listing agent is quite apparent. Perhaps, you may feel that we went overboard in trying to protect the asset, but we feel that foreclosure properties deserve customer service, too.
Bob & Richelle Ward, Realtors, ABR
Prudential Connecticut Realty
www.connecticuthomesforsale.com
Cell - (203) 470-9818
In Newtown, home prices have come down 22% off the "peak". If you purchased a home during the peak for $500,000, its value today is $390,000. Should the market continue to decline in 2009, this same home's value will be less a year from now. For example, if the real estate market declines another 6% in 2009, this same home would be worth $366,600 a year from now. 