Buying repossessed property. Does it somehow feel wrong profitting from anothers misfortune?
Don’t feel wrong about profiting from another’s misfortune as they have learned a very valuable lesson in losing the property and will probably never make that mistake again. Someone needs to buy up these vacant homes anyway since having them sit out there with no occupant is bad for the rest of the neighborhood.
I have purchased foreclosures for years, in fact, over 500 of them. The answer is that it depends on how you go about it. My philsophy has always been to work in a win-win situation. Have compassion and empathy and not greed and you will not only feel good about what you are doing, but you can help somone in need. For example, often I purchased homes the evening before a foreclosure. The seller’s previous deal fell thru for some reason, or they just finally got out of denial. I was able to give them cash (sometimes as much as $200,000 if there was a lot of equity) and payoff their liens, plus give them 2 months or so to relocate. That’s a great win — the seller got cash vs. losing their home and time to get re-situated. An example of greed would be if you saw that as an opportunity to take advantage of the person by offering them $10,000 for $300,000 of equity, or if, say you promised to sell them back their home even though you knew they couldn’t do it, etc. If you treat people the w
