This is a question that virtually every buyer with whom I’ve worked in that last three years has asked in one way or another.
The answer is: No.
It’s understandable that those of us with active empathy centers in our brains may feel badly, walking through a vacant house that was home to someone and from which that someone was kicked out. But the sad fact is that, whatever damage might be done to the former owner’s credit, state of mind and life situation has already happened by the time you as a buyer walk through the front door. You are not taking advantage of someone else’s misfortune. You are looking at a property owned by a bank.
A bank.
And a bank is about as far from being a sympathetic figure as you’re likely to find in this historically grotesque economic chapter in American history.
If you still feel pangs of guilt, consider this: Buying that foreclosure will remove it from the market, thereby reducing the surplus population. I mean, surplus inventory.
Sorry. All this real estate drama has me in a Dickensian frame of mind.
So, look at all homes that meet your needs. Make your decision on which one rings your chimes, regardless of the circumstance of the seller.
That’s how it’s done.
