Hey, where's the fire sale?

So we've settled on Marysville for our new home (well, my new home), but we're open to other cities as well. This weekend we discussed houses so much that I feel (1) like an expert on everything and (2) I feel like I don't know a thing about real estate.

My boyfriend has been lured by the temptation of purchasing a short sale or a foreclosure and I have to admit that it is very tempting! There are homes that are gorgeous and some that are brand new and they're sitting on the bank's books collecting dust and costing these financial institutions a ton of money.

I haven't been able to confirm this, but read this little tasty bit of info imparted to us by a real estate agent. For every foreclosed home the banks have on their books, they have to keep 7x that amount of liquid assets. That's 7x the assessed value of the home. So, for every $400,000 home on their books, they have to have $2.1 million dollars to cover it. Now doesn't that sound a little nuts and unreasonable? If this were really the case, you'd think that banks would be having a fire sale, bu they're not.

Potential home buyers who are wrangling with the banks are spending weeks waiting for responses and months waiting for closes that may not happen. This is making resales a lot more tempting. And the idea of jumping into this fray not so much. But I'm trying to keep an open mind.

One interesting development - I've received 3 viewings in a week and my boyfriend received 2 on this first listing day!

Stay tuned...