by Matt Kastner Dealing primarily with the foreclosure market in the past two years, lately I have been involved in many Fannie Mae transactions as both a buyer’s agent and a buyer. Unfortunately, although they are often some of the best deals on the market, that fact might be changing. If you are a real estate investor, Fannie has now stacked the deck against you. In the often misguided attempt to encourage home ownership across the United States, from now on, when a Fannie Mae foreclosure property hits the market, for the first 15 days it is listed no offers will be considered from investors. NONE.
When purchasing a HUD property, it is not uncommon for bid preference to go to owner-occupants. Especially in the first couple weeks of a listing. But they still consider offers from everybody. Fannie Mae, on the other hand, has been more even handed in their approach. Unofficially they might give some preference to owner occupants, but I never had an issue with it. Now, they suddenly won’t even look at your offer. This 180 in policy has me scratching my head to be honest.
The first property I encountered this on was actually a 4-family, which is even more odd. Most 4’s are not owner-occupied yet they are making this thing sit. From a business perspective, even if no owner-occupant buys the place before 15 days, this is going to really hurt all the proactive agents and buyers who make solid offers within a day or two of the listing coming on the market.
