Sacramento Real Estate Views

Scary Things Found In Foreclosures

I Thought I Was Going To Pee My Pants!

Going into foreclosed properties is always a little unsettling.  You know that someone used to live there and that they lost their home for whatever reason.  When I first began representing buyers purchasing foreclosures, it was upsetting.  I’ve gotten used to it but today, although I was prepared for it, I got quite a scare.

Single family homes tend to be ok.  You let yourself in, hold your nose and go look.  Easy!

Multi family homes, duplexes and larger, are a little dicey.  You just never know what you’re going to find. Especially in south Sacramento.

The 5th Avenue Triplex

So I’m with my buyer, a guy from Oregon who is very excited about investing in the Sacramento real estate market.  He’s sees a real opportunity here.  He’s a lot of fun to work with.

We’re poking around these 2 triplexes on 5th Avenue, off of Martin Luther King Blvd., noticing how odd it was that some of the doors were wide open and unsecured.  Someone had tried to board it up but to no avail.

When I found one of the units door wide open and a sleeping bag on the floor of one of the closets, I got nervous and needed to get the H*** out of there.

Oh Sure, Trust Yourself, That’s It!

I went around to the front unit, thinking it was out in the open and safe, to a door where the board had been removed.  I opened it up and started inside until I smelled fresh cigarette smoke.  Chills went down my spine as gripped my 5 D cell MagLite tightly and said, “yoo hoo, is anyone here?”

Just then a 6’ 3” hung over or drunk homeless guy comes out of nowhere and says “Yes, can I help you?” O-M-G!

I slowly backed away as he explained to me that it made no sense to him, with all of these empty homes, that he should have to put himself in danger by sleeping in some ally.

Although he scared the living daylights out of me, coming out of a dark foreclosed triplex, I had to agree with him to some degree however, it was completely against the law for him to be there, not to mention, very scary for me.

The Dilemma

I was a bit conflicted about what to do next.  This is a bank owned property.  It was listed by my company and felt an obligation to at least let the listing agent know what I found.  That’s what I did but I considered honoring his request to keep this “between us”.  Honestly, what harm was he doing?  He was looking out for himself, living in a home that, seemingly, no one is taking the time to secure.  I can’t say that, if I were in his position, I wouldn’t do exactly the same thing.

This market and this economy is producing some weird things.  Whatever you’re doing, be careful out there.  Although in hind sight this guy meant me absolutely no harm, I was ready to defend myself and my client if needed.  We would all be wise to do the same thing.

Thanks for visiting and be careful out there!

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Tags: foreclosures sacramento

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 20th, 2009 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Real Estate Market Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1. Greg Cowart said at June 22nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm

   That had to be, at the very least, an interesting conversation!

   Hopefully we’ll see the number of foreclosed homes sitting vacant in Sacramento drop as things pick up. I’m also anxious to see if the new light being shined on short sales will help avoid foreclosure altogether for those looking at the possibility of going into foreclosure over the next 6-12 months. I guess we’ll have to wait and see?

   Thanks for the interesting post, Robert!

   ~Greg

2. Jim Cronin said at June 23rd, 2009 at 3:30 pm

   Holy crap. You should make sure to submit this to the carnival. You’ll get some national sympathy and empathy.

3. robsaxe said at June 24th, 2009 at 6:22 am

   Thanks for the comments! It was a little on the scary side. Thankfully, he was harmless.

4. Ben Roberts | EXITrealestat540.com said at July 2nd, 2009 at 7:11 am

   I agree 100% with Jim… great post and what a story. I’ve had nearly the same thing happen but when I asked if anyone was there, they ran out the backdoor…literally, ran.

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