Buying a Bank Owned--How to negotiate repairs

[Booner72]

Hi there - here's my question:  Is there any way to negotiate getting things fixed if it's a house that has been foreclosed on?  My realtor says that it is "as is" and we either take it or leave it.  is that true?  That if appraiser sees something, we go in and fix, then appraiser checks that it is fixed, then we can move toward closing.

I'm asking because last night when we went to see the house again, a repair guy was there fixing the sprinklers and he noticed that some of the electrical outlets in the garage weren't working.  He is hired by a contractor in Nevada who must contract with Fannie to maintain these properties?  The fixer up guy says he is hoping they will fix the electrical for us, and told us not to tell anyone he was telling us this information.  He said he put in a work order last night for this issue.  (WHY is anyone working on that house and paying money to fix stuff if we are under contract?)

When we go inspect tomorrow we are going to take a heating professional w/ us because we noticed some weirdness around the forced-air box thing.  LIke it was taped up.  Also there is a cracked window in the bathroom, but it's double paned glass so IDK if that will be required to be fixed by the Appraiser.

Will we be able to get more money out of Fannie, ya think?  If so, how do I do it?  Another thing my agent says is "It will come out of your closing costs money.  They are giving you 5250 and you will have to fix things from that money."

[Anonymous]

Hi,

So we're currently under contract for our 1st home and it's owned by Fannie Mae. We were trying to go FHA vs conventional simply because one of my husbands scores is 6 points shy of 660, (min needed.) The house had two broken windows, (which won't pass FHA,) and some chipped paint, (again, another no-no) but other than that, the house wass solid. We put in a full asking price of 62,900 for the 5 bed 2 bath house with 2,690 sqft, and added a repair addendum of 1500 for repairs so it would pass FHA appraisal, Fannie Mae aggreed 1 day later, didn't challenge it, and it was listed as a "as-is" only house with no repairs.

We had the appraisal and inspection done, only $475 in repairs need to be made, the bank is paying for it, and we're scheduled to close in 2 weeks. You really never know till you ask, I think we lucked out simply because there was a previous offer on the house that was a lowball offer, and it fell through because they couldn't get financed. We waited 2 months when we found out the offer died. Fannie Mae was probably thrilled with our offer by comparison and wanted to be done with it.

Good luck to you!

[Booner72]

It was a Homepath?  Congrats!