Foreclosure deals could bring rude awakening

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Anyone who’s shopping for a house in the Charlotte area these days has probably come across a foreclosure property … or two … or lots more than that.

They’re everywhere, scattered throughout Mecklenburg County like dandelion seeds blown by the wind.

And anyone who’s talked to a real estate agent about foreclosure properties has probably heard the agent go on and on about how much of a deal the house is, how much house you can get for, in some cases, a quarter or half of what it would be worth in a normal market — maybe even less.

Indeed, with so many foreclosed and nonforeclosed homes on the market in the region, it’s a buyer’s market if there ever was one.

But all these foreclosure properties and so-called bargains are making me worried.

It’s easy to get sucked in by the allure of buying a, say, 2,800-square-foot, four-bedroom, three-bathroom house for $150,000 to $160,000.

It’s also easy to forget that that house won’t necessarily be valued at $150,000 in the future and that it could come with a tax bill the buyer might not be able to afford, not to mention the costs to heat and cool a home of that size.

With my lease on my townhouse set to expire later this year, I’ve been in house-hunting mode in Mecklenburg County.

I’ve seen prices so low, I can’t believe my eyes.

On Wednesday, I saw a listing online for a 2,600-square-foot, two-story, four-bedroom, four-bathroom house, complete with a two-car garage, in Cornelius for $149,999. It was built in 2007, so it’s pretty much a brand new house as far as I’m concerned.

The house is an REO property, which doesn’t mean it belongs to an American rock band that was popular in the 1980s. Instead, it stands for “real estate owned” and means that a bank or a lender owns it as a result of foreclosure.

Now, at $149,999, that’s a pretty good deal, and I’m sure a buyer would be able to get it for less than that.

According to the Mecklenburg County Real Estate Lookup System — an online database where nosy people can see what their neighbor’s property tax bills are — that property is valued at $162,400, which meant it had a tax bill of $1,860.12 that was due Sept. 1. That breaks down to $1,362.05 in Mecklenburg County taxes, $15 in solid-waste fees to the county and $446.60 in taxes to Cornelius.

In other words, you might be buying a house for $149,999, but you could be paying the taxes on a house valued for more than that. And, in the future, the tax bill will likely be even higher.

A buyer who is seduced by the idea of owning that much house might have a rude awakening years down the road, when they suddenly can’t afford their property taxes and have to take a part-time job cleaning toilets at the NASCAR Hall of Fame — if it’s still in business by then, that is — to avoid losing their home.

But what if all the buyers of dirt-cheap foreclosed homes can’t find a way to pay their bills? Will all of those properties be back on the market again in a few years, creating another avalanche of foreclosures that will affect our economy?

So please, before you buy a sweet foreclosure property with a bedroom for every day of the week, do your homework.

Make sure you can pay the property taxes and the costs to keep it toasty in the winter and frosty in the summer.

Losing your house would stink. Plus, packing and unpacking boxes is a pain.

Editor Deon Roberts can be reached at [email protected].