A few days I wrote an article about the National Association of Realtors® taking
a stance and adding to their Standards of Practice the verbage “don’t give out the
lockbox code!”. While reading and commenting it reminded me of something
that is taking place with HUD owned homes: The locks are re-keyed with the
same HUD key being able to open any HUD home in my area.
This past December I had another buyer client purchase a HUD home.
Thankfully, she was a cash buyer so closing happened relatively quickly
(Start to finish 30 days). One of my (and her) biggest concerns during the
process was the security of the home post offer to the time it was
legally hers.
Here are a couple of things that you can do to protect yourselves
prior to closing on your HUD owned home and changing the locks:
make sure the photos are dated. (Extensive means take photos of each
room, close ups of the appliances, water heater, furnace, plumbing
system, etc.)
once again, make sure they are dated.
Ask a neighbor or two to keep an eye on it. We did this
with Ashleys home. I gave a neighbor my card and asked him to call
me if he spotted anything amiss. He was cheerful about helping as it is
his neighborhood also!
Babysit the home. Ask your agent to stop by the home frequently
to check and make sure everything is as it should be. I stopped by the
home every 2-3 days to peek inside. We’re out and about anyway, to
pop in only took a few minutes out of my day.
Have a final walk through. I cannot stress the importance of
this. If you can manage it, have it just prior to closing. With Ashleys
home we met at the house at 7:15 in the morning to look it over once
again just before we drove to the 9:00 closing. Anything can happen
the night before closing and you wouldn’t know if it you had your walk
through a day or two before.
If you do all of the above you will be much more successful in
getting HUD (and it’s designated agent in your area) to repair
or replace anything should anything come up missing or
vandalized prior to your closing on the home.
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