All Aboard!!! Repo Express Now Departing…

What’s the latest trend in real estate? Try bus tour selling!

Taking their captivated (or captured) audiences from property to property in a bus is one way companies are “working” their properties. This new trend is being seen all over California. According to the San Jose Mercury News, “Banks [explained the brokers and real estate agents who organize REO bus tours] do not regard these wood and stucco buildings as places to sleep, dream and raise families. They consider them losses on their books – and need to sell them quickly, even if it’s for tens of thousands – or more – below the so-called market price.”

In San Diego, the Union Tribune reported on the Coshow Real Estate Group who runs the “REPO Express bus” taking potential buyers to look at foreclosed condos in East Village, Hillcrest, Little Italy, Cortez Hill, Bankers Hill and the Gaslamp Quarter. “Large inventories of these real-estate-owned properties have made lenders increasingly willing to negotiate. Several condos on yesterday’s tour had been marked down tens of thousands of dollars below original asking prices and comparable resale listings provided by Coshow.”

Among the 20 passengers on the Repo Express this Saturday was Beatrice Doblado of Fletcher Hills. “Doblado, 68, said she bought foreclosed homes during the housing slump in the mid-1990s ‘and it has paid royally.’ Now, she is looking for a home to live in.” All the other passengers on the bus had the same goal in mind: finding a great deal.

Condos ranged from a downtown two-bedroom in the Renaissance complex with an asking price of $605,900 (previously listed at $649,900) to a Little Italy one-bedroom fixer in the Acqua Vista complex for $205,900.

Not a bad deal if you’re in the market for an REO. Being escorted around on someone else’s gas money is usually a good thing… if you don’t mind being stuck on a bus and being herded around like cattle for three hours.

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