Unpleasant Surprises for Online Real Estate Buyers

prostoalex writes "Buying expensive items online from the people you've never met without any guarantees on the seller's part might seem a bit risky even for an experienced Internet shopper. The 'hotness' of the real estate investment market apparently influences some cash-heavy investors to look for opportunities online. When the entire transaction is done via a click of the mouse, and the deed for newly bought real estate arrives in the mail, some unsuspecting buyers might discover that a cozy house near the bus line in the middle of a busy street might imply a criminalized neighborhood and proximity to crack house. The New York Times investigates negative experiences of people buying investment real estate online."

Comments

Buffalo, NY

[Anonymous Coward]

"Buffalo has been particularly hard hit by online flipping, as the city's persistent population decline and high foreclosure rates have created a glut of some 20,000 vacant houses."

Lots of fresh water, summer temps don't go above 90, winter temps above 0, sports teams, cheap housing...
I never could understand why Phoenix is gaining population and Buffalo is losing population.

Re:Buffalo, NY

[CrazyTalk]

As someone who grew up in Buffalo, I can sum it up in one word - jobs. OK, maybe two words - jobs and snow.

Re:Buffalo, NY

[Jon_S]

No, just the one word was right. Jobs. I have lived in Boston and the San Francisco Bay area and Buffalo is where I prefer... if you can get a good job. Perfect quality of life and climate (the snow is no big deal, not much different from when I grew up in Boston, and besides, it makes for great skiing). And as the article indirectly points out, real estate is very cheap. While only a fool would buy a house sight unseen in the East Side, my half acre lot with a beautiful ranch house and mature trees in an idyllic walkable community is only about $140,000 according to the bank. Of course, the reason things are so cheap is because of the lack of jobs.

I like to have people repeat the snow boogieman line, though. It helps keep the riff raff out!

Check it out first, dammit

[KiloByte]

If you buy something as expensive as a house without even bothering to take a look at it beforehand, you can't blame anyone but yourself. This is not a piece of bread -- you can't just shrug and throw it away.

Re:Check it out first, dammit

[babbling]

Damn right. In fact, any money spent online that doesn't go to well-established companies should always be money that you are willing to lose. There's never any guarantees about ebay sellers unless they have exceptional feedback for a LOT of auctions. (some dodgy sellers may "sell items" to friends to get positive feedback, before scamming other people)

Of course, some people deserve to lose their money more than others. I have far more sympathy for the bloke that lost $50 in a dodgy ebay auction than I do for someone who purchased property online without having seen it.

Re:Check it out first, dammit

[ROOK*CA]

Damn right. In fact, any money spent online that doesn't go to well-established companies should always be money that you are willing to lose.

Great point, I think I would take it even farther, when dealing with anybody less than a well-established company on the net, you should EXPECT to get ripped-off and take appropriate measures to protect yourself BEFORE you buy. Way too many people just assume that the government (or some other 3rd party) will protect them from fraud on the net, which IMHO is just plain foolish.

Re:Check it out first, dammit

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

It's the penny stock investor mentality. They see these properties listed for 10k and think "Wow, what a bargain!" and then they don't bother to check if the property has any liens or structural code violations. Same thing with the idiots who buy "historic" homes only to be shocked with municipal restrictions when they try to renovate the property.

This current RE bubble is going to end in such a disaster I can't even contemplate how the US will ever work its way out recession that follows. The whole damn economy is built around suburban expansion and people borrowing against their homes. Anyone have a financial bomb shelter??

Re:Check it out first, dammit

[Fred_A]

At least with V14gr4 you know what you're getting !

Re:Check it out first, dammit

[archeopterix]

If you buy something as expensive as a house without even bothering to take a look at it beforehand, you can't blame anyone but yourself. This is not a piece of bread -- you can't just shrug and throw it away.

Agreed. One shoud also bear in mind that:

• Running with unprotected scissors is dangerous, especially so if wearing high heels and running downstairs.
• American football is played with an oval ball.
• Starting a land war in Russia during the winter leads to defeat.
• You can teach a dog to do tricks, but it takes a long time for an oak tree to grow.

Re:Check it out first, dammit

[Threni]

> I can't even contemplate how the US will ever work its way out recession that
> follows

Stop buying expensive crap and learn to live happily and simply? I'm just guessing, but I doubt people from rich countries are any happier than people from poor countries. It doesn't cost much to survive in beautiful places like South Thailand, and it costs a fortune to live in stinky, dirty, crime-ridden London or New York. When did you ever go somewhere beautiful and see photos of cities with the slogan "get away from it all - go to London", for instance?

Re:Check it out first, dammit

[badfish99]

I don't know about New Yaok, but I've met lots of people from Thailand who have come to work in London. It may be stinky but it's much easier to make a living there, even though things are more expensive.

The weather is better too: not so hot.

Re:Check it out first, dammit

[onepoint]

>>Same thing with the idiots who buy "historic" homes only to be shocked with municipal restrictions when they try to renovate the property.

Historic Renovation is something that I did once ( I like to restore Victorians ). I will NEVER do a historic home again.

I could take a Victorian, restore it fully without using anything new ( maybe slight plumbing issues, but everything original and old ) and finish without a problem within 48 days. ( I had the best crew and we always worked 6 days a week ).

the only historic I did ( 1898 home ) took me 13 months from start to finish, it was mostly waiting for inspectors and approvals. NIGHTMARE, I would tell everyone to stay out of that market unless they have the ability to deal with government and local bullsh*t. Like they know the color of a house back then when I have the original paint sample from some of the timber.... uuhhgg what a-holes.

Michael

Re:Check it out first, dammit

[drwho]

Damn right. In fact, any money spent online that doesn't go to well-established companies should always be money that you are willing to lose.

This is an idiotic statement. There are plenty of good companies and individuals which are 'less well known'. Your ultra-conservative sentiment means you'll often end up paying more, getting less, and wondering why there's practical monopolies in the economy. Beyond this, even well known brands can be rip-offs - Radio Shack for instance, has knowningly sold completely defective products and left the consumer in the lurch. Enron and Parmalat were household names. Your statment is similar to the one "You get what you pay for" - which is also untrue and even dangerous. You pay what you negotiate, through some method or another.

This isn't to say that your sentiments aren't useful. If you and others spread the FUD about small companies, there will be less competition on ebay for the really good deals.

Re:Check it out first, dammit

[Eivind]

It's cost benefit.

On smaller purchases (not houses, unless you're a multi-millionaire) you can afford to lose a few, aslong as the expected gain is still positive.

I buy used ps2-games online. I *expect* to be ripped off once in a while. That's ok -- compared to the alternative for me, buying new in the shop, I typically save 20->70%, so even if I'm ripped off 1/10th of the time, it's still a huge win.

But like always: don't gamble what you cannot afford to lose. I *can* afford to lose the cost of a used game. Most people *cannot* afford to lose a significant portion or all of the money they invest in a house.

Can anyone name a dumber thing to buy online?

[ereshiere]

Real estate, of all things, is something that someone should look at first. Is the entire world becoming a shut-in?

PLEASE BE HELPING ME

[LiquidCoooled]

i have 50 million of your american dollers stored in bank account.
my bank manager (mr arran) tells me i need an american to sign them over.
if you can help me to withdraw it from bank i will give you 40 percant.
yes, thats right i said 40 percant. you will get a whole 15million american dollers for helping me.
sinerity yours
mr wamo

Darwin in action

[Ancient_Hacker]

If you drop $100K on something sight unseen, you deserve whatever you get.

Even a picture isnt enough-- there was a house in our neighborhood where the owner kept over 100 rabbits. With free run of the place. The house looked okay from the outside, maybe worth $260,000. But my friend the real-estate appraiser valued it at -$22000. That's how much it would cost to tear down the house, minus the value of the land.

Re:Darwin in action

[acvh]

I read this article yesterday - the guy bought a house for THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS! Come on, you can't buy a good used car for that. All this article really tells us is that a leech who was trying to flip houses for a quick profit got burned by a bigger leech.

Re:Darwin in action

[igny]

I don't know about used cars, but I have a used bridge located on East coast of USA, which I can sell to you for mere $2999.95

Re:Darwin in action

[spiritraveller]

All this article really tells us is that a leech who was trying to flip houses for a quick profit got burned by a bigger leech.

It's not being a leech to buy something that you think is undervalued by the seller. Quite the opposite. It has the effect of smoothing out pricing in a market and making it more liquid.

No need to be jealous of those who find good deals before you do.

Re:Darwin in action

[lost_it]

It's not being a leech to buy something that you think is undervalued by the seller. Quite the opposite. It has the effect of smoothing out pricing in a market and making it more liquid.

Whatever you need to tell yourself to make it easier to sleep at night... I'm about to move and was considering moving to a nearby larger city (where a lot of my friends moved a few years ago), until I saw the housing prices. The prices have doubled in the past three years. I know that housing prices go up in fits and spurts, but there is no way those houses are really worth what they're listing for. But people buy them anyway--and I can see you saying it now, "But if the houses are being purchased at that price, then they were worth that price, by definition." Which is where I point out that most people expect a house to appreciate in value, but those houses will probably drop in value or at least not increase for the next several years.

Here's what happened in this market: the housing price started to go up a little faster than average (because people started realizing that this was a nice place to live). Then the flippers said, "Hey, prices are going up. I can buy a house now, sit on it for a few months, and then sell it at an even higher price." People that had to move into the area (or people that had to move into a larger house), paid through the nose and hoped for the best. But there are only so many people like that (and everyone else is avoiding buying real estate in that area). In fact, recently I've seen new listings go up for considerably lower prices than before. So it looks like the bubble is starting to burst, and these flippers will get stuck with selling houses at a loss.

To summarize, all flippers do is temporarily raise housing prices to whatever the flippers think is the "true value" before the market corrects itself.

Re:Darwin in action

[djdavetrouble]

Maybe if they had looked on google earth, they would have seen the liquor store on the corner, the holes in the roof, and the thugs standing on the corner slangin. I daresay that these people's mistake was not that they used the internet to buy property, but that they didn't use the internet enough. Look up median income, crime statistics, etc. etc. Then go look at it. I mean
even when you buy a used car, you want to take it for a drive first.

Do your DD

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

These speculators are no different than penny stock "investors" ... who could possibly feel sorry for them.

First...

[hoodofblack]

Yeah that would not be so good to have a house on a busy street next to a crack house...or a brothel...or a bar...or anything else other than a house.

Sight unseen

[Southpaw018]

Buying items from a reputable, well-tested online company like (for example) Newegg or Amazon is one thing.
Buying collectibles off eBay is one thing.

Buying a big ticket luxury item - ANY such item - cars, real estate, houses, deeds...that's misguided at best unless you live in proximity to the seller and can see it (inspect it) yourself presale. We have a term for people who will buy things like this with full and total trust in the seller. It's called "sucker."
Or, if you're a proponent of our legal system, "plaintiff."

Re:Sight unseen

[lheal]

Particularly if the seller calls you up and says:

"Hi there, Bob. Can I call you "Bob"? I know we've agreed on $15,000 for the boat, but all of a sudden I've ... I've had some personal ... I don't want to burden you with the details. My daughter is ... anyway, I'm in a fix. I need to either call off the deal, or ... tell you what: could you give me just $12,000 for the boat, but send it to me directly, not through E-Bay?"

"We'll just tell 'em we cancelled the deal ..."

You and your $12,000 will be soon parted.

Too good to be true

[Opportunist]

If something sounds too good to be true, it most likely is. Why do people stop thinking when greed becomes a factor?

Someone sells you something for FAR less than what it should be worth, provided they're not lying. Bonus question for $1000: Why should they? Would you sell your house without at least getting a rough quote from some online service how much your hut is worth? Hey, we're talking a few 1000 bucks at the very least here, it's not like I'm selling some old junk that might be someone's treasure, a house is a house, and by its very nature, it has value! And everyone, literally everyone, knows that.

So why should you think someone does NOT know that a house is worth more than a few 1000 bucks, especially when it's somewhere in downtown?

Just like with used cars. When the year old car that's been driven only by a cute old granny, always just to church and back goes for less than 1000 bucks, would you buy it?

I wouldn't even buy the story, and certainly not the car!

Barnum was right

[ROOK*CA]

from the article:

"Mr. Hoyt said he had repeatedly appealed to eBay officials, asking the company to make specific changes, like informing sellers that they must comply with New York State disclosure laws and requiring a copy of written sales contracts. But Mr. Hoyt said he had received little cooperation from the company.

"What eBay is doing, in my opinion, is immoral," he said. "They have a responsibility to not facilitate activity like this."

Wait a minute, eBay has a seller rating system, eBay has an escrow service, so who in there right mind buys a HOUSE sight unseen, from an unrated or negatively rated seller, without using escrow? I think this is a problem with some people, they make stupid buying decisions and then turn around and want the listing agent (or the government) to take some sort of responsibility for it.

I'm not trying to relieve any of the responsibility for this off unscrupulous sellers (it is in fact immoral to intentionally rip off buyers), however at some point buyers need to have enough common sense to do at least a modicum of due diligence don't you think? Apparently people think that caveat emptor doesn't apply on the Internet, when in fact it's probably the most important consumer protection mechanism, especially when most of the tools you need to do your due diligence are at your fingertips (MLS services, city records, etc..,)

Also from the article, this one IMO is a true "gem"

"Mr. Krug said Mr. Tanner had asked him the same question. "I told him the first thing he did wrong was buy a computer," Mr. Krug said."

Amen Mr. Krug, Amen.

JRGhaddar

[JRGhaddar]

They don't tell you you're going to be across the street from a crack house. Yeah but if you get 3 more crack houses you can then upgrade to a bordello, and that's where the money is...

Sight unseen?

[erick99]

And I worry about buying a $20 item on eBay based on a description and a photo......

Re:Hmm

[ROOK*CA]

May not be the super nice advertised place hey said, but they could at least give it to a charity working with these type of people (read : homeless, prostitutes, etc.) and let them turn it into a safe house of sorts to supply food to people if nothing else.

Unless of course the cost of getting the building up to code or tearing it down is greater than the value of the place, in which case a charity isn't going to take it, since they would in effect be paying you to take the property off your hands. I'd imagine that's the goal of some of these Real Estate "flippers", sell it for way less than the value of the land and pass along the incumberances of the house to somebody else, in essence they are making the seller pay for the priviledge of paying the liabilities on the property. Which ends up being a ponzi scheme, everybody in the chain makes money except the last guy (who can't even then give the property away).

Re:In other news: water is wet.

[baryon351]

> This really surprises anyone? I thought terms like "ideal for a DYIer!" have always meant "about to collapse" ?

It surprises many people. There are plenty of people who, when faced by something that looks like a bargain, or looks like they're getting a good deal & ripping off the buyer will jump at a business chance without thinking things through, because the scammer has successfully planted an image in the buyer/victim's own mind. Imaginations are a powerful thing, and work against the victim.

A relative of mine (no relation apart from by marriage) came across his first nigerian scammer email a couple of years ago. He spent days thinking over the options and planning how to rip nigerianscammerguy off of all his money, instead of just getting 10% of the $50million promised.

I gave the guy a handy hint, advised him it's a scam and these guys will just try to take money from him and keep promising but never delivering. That's when he said he knew it must be a scam, and unveiled some 'foolproof' plan to get the money from the nigerianscammerguy but not reveal who he was or send them much money at all.

Eventually, he ended up losing about $2500 to the scammers getting played right into their game. Why? While he knew it was a scam, he made the stupid mistake of believing the $50 million actually existed. It clouded his vision, and all he could see was a mental image of his bank statement with 7 digits in the black. Same with real estate, the buyers make an image in their mind of what they're buying, and don't lose it - even buyers of property who get to inspect it will see what they want to, unless there are major differences between description and reality.

Dear Slashdotter,

[archeopterix]

I am contacting you with this fabulous business offer. I am selling a property at a bargain price of $50000!. I have prepared some pictures here.

.. I got scammed like this

[neveragain4181]

Yeah, got hit by the unexpected shipping charges...

Google Earth might help

[digitaldc]

If you want to get a good overview of what you are buying, try typing the address in Google Earth and then see what lies around it.

Google Maps and Earth

[AnonymousPrick]

I see a lot of posts saying, "Don't buy sight unseen!"

But, no one has suggested using Google maps/earth. That's what I would do even if I were buying locally.

I was once on a trainging flight and as I passed over this really expensive neighborhood, I saw a quarry not more than a few hundred yards away, tucked in a very heavily forested area. I'm sure after they spent mega$$ on their McMansions, they were probably surprised by the blasting and all of the trucks going by.

Now, I'd make sure there wasn't any surprises like that if I were buying a home.

Could have been worse...

[spiritraveller]

If it had been contaminated with toxic waste (e.g. from a meth lab), he could have ended up owing thousands or millions to the government for clean up costs.

Not all online real estate deals are dangerous

[ami-in-hamburg]

Some online real estate deals are, for the most part, safe.

For example, wilderness purchases if you should have the inclination to build a getaway cabin. Granted, there are no structures most of the time, it's just the land.

Another example would be buying fringe properties. If you believe that a company or a city will eventually want to expand into a particular area, you might want to buy the land if you have the chance to get in early enough. You would have to look out for potential immenent domain problems though. A friend of mine inherited basically a huge field when his parents died in a small town in central Arizona. About 3 years ago, some company wanted to build a retirement village with a golf course. They paid him 7 Million for a stupid field. Sweet!

Other potential online purchases would be castles. Yes, that's right, castles. There are dozens and dozens of mansions and castles that sit in what was formerly East Germany. The original owners have simply abandoned them and the local authorities auction off the properties. Many times they go relatively cheap, like a couple thousand dollars cheap, if you don't mind the renovation costs. They can make great vacation spots or quiet retirement villas.

Re:I don't want to feed the trolls but

[ami-in-hamburg]

I believe it's because racism, bigotry, etc.. etc.. are generally fuled by fear. Therefore, cowards are the ones making the comments.

And still going....

[flipper65]

Just out of curiosity, I cruised over to ebay and searched for real estate in Buffalo. Surprise, surprise, a 'Mr. Burt' is listing a fixer upper for a very low price. Coincidence? I don't think so. I was going to insert something here about not buying sight unseen, but then I sat back and thought about it and realized that I might very well have done the same thing. Dropping 3K to own a bit of real estate doesn't seem like a bad flyer. How bad could you get hurt? This was actually a wake up call for me.

Loads freaky ebay stuff that's too good to be true

[AndroidCat]

Check this "dragon chopper" motorcycle. I'm sure that there'll be a number of buyers for these that will end up disappointed when it comes time to actually register and plate them. (For one thing: no place to hang the plate!) Little details like no break or turn lights, an EPA certification that's probably virtual, might make it hard to get on the road. Which is good .. because if you do get it up to the claimed 128 MPH (from a 200cc aircooled 1 cyl engine, narf!), slowing with the cable front breaks could be problematical even if the frame holds up. From a seller that got a shipping container from China, and once they're sold, he's gone. All these warning signs, and people still buy them online, sight unseen.

Still .. beautiful plumage!

Eh?

[ErikZ]

The guy spent 10k. On THREE houses.

A deal like that, one would expect them to be on the edge of an active volcano.

At this point, you level those houses and rebuild on the property. 3k doesn't get you a house, it gets you land with house shaped debris on it.

Use that web thingy.

[paiute]

Really, before you dropped a few thousand on a house you had never seen, wouldn't you at least

look at it in Google Maps?
search the local papers for stories mentioning the street, streets nearby, the neighborhood?
call someone who lived near to it - maybe a business - and ask what they thought of the place?
check any online information from the city/county/state - assessed values, etc?

I know jack about real estate, and I would be doing those in the first ten minutes after the thought to invest came to me.

Re:Barnum would like you

[ROOK*CA]

I haven't known anybody who HAS NOT gotten scammed from eBay at least once.

Well I haven't (ever been scammed on eBay) and I've bought literally thousands of items so I'm not "one of those suckers" but apparently everybody you know IS to some degree. My comment regarding escrow and seller ratings were not intended to be all inclusive, in other words based on the article it does not appear that these buyers even went that far. eBay attempts to provide the minimal protections that can be implemented without interfering with the free market nature of their service and I for one think they do a decent job given the intent & limitations. This would be why I specifically pointed out Caveat Emptor and that many of the tools for DUE DILLIGENCE (such as MLS, City Records, etc.,) were at your fingertips, but apparently you didn't read that far.

Re:In other news: water is wet.

[Technician]

I just bought a house. (not online) One word of advice.. even if you see the property, hire a property inspector. A good one will tell you about all kinds of things like leaking plumbing in the crawl space, dry rot in the roof sheeting, and wireing splices not up to code. I bought my place knowing ahead of time one of the underground sprinklers was broken, the hot tub didn't work, a bad splice in the attic (twisted and taped), and the sub panel for the shop didn't meet code (3 wire service without a seprate ground in a sub panel is not permitted). It is true the house had a few things needing fixing, but the inspection report got $8,000 knocked off due to the extra expenses needed to bring it up to code in addition to the seller having an electrician update the panel.

Use the online yellow pages and find a home inspector. They will provide photos of everyting from the condition of the gutters to the torn screen window, to the rotting bottem panel on the garage door. It was worth every cent of the $750 I paid for the inspection.

Get a licensed home inspector.

I found a pleasant surprise....

[MonoSynth]

....for Dutch online real estate buyers :)

go to www.funda.nl (the country's biggest real estate website) and search for 'konijn' (Dutch for 'rabbit') :)

Get a buyer's agent

[HangingChad]

I can sympathize with why people don't like dealing with agents. Many of them are just trying to sell you something, they don't return phone calls half the time and sometimes you're rightly suspicious they're not telling you the whole story. But working with the worst agent in the area is better than dealing directly with the seller online. There are a whole raft of safeguards you give up without agency representation.

But at least working with an agent in most states you have specific legal protections that are lacking in online transactions. It's a lot easier to take action in most states against a crooked agent than a crooked seller. Most times they're mandated to have E&O, the real estate agent's professional liability insurance. State oversight boards are notoriously brutal and inflexible. Real estate agents had such a bad reputation that many states laid the hammer down. As a spurned buyer your chances of getting justice from the state real estate commission or the courts are extremely high if your agent might reasonably have known about a potential problem.

The buyer's agent normally gets their cut from the seller. 90% of the time it doesn't cost you anything to have an agent if you're a buyer. In some areas buyer's agents charge up front fees, so ask first.

Truthfully, even if I had to pay them out of my pocket I'd still use a real estate agent for buying property, especially if it's out of town. If something is really wrong they've got a fiduciary duty to inform you about anything material to the value of the property. If they don't they're risking their license and an E&O claim against their broker. I've found the combination of internet research and a good local agent to be the best combination for my property purchases. Trust but verify what they're telling me.

Re:Get a buyer's agent

[EricTheGreen]

Excellent advice, except for...

The buyer's agent normally gets their cut from the seller.

Run, do not walk, from anyone presenting him/herself as a buyer's agent, but being paid by the seller. By definition, the agent's interests then align with the property seller, not yours.

The check needs to come from you, preferably as a retainer + post-close commission, rather than set-fee up front.

Diversity?

[QMO]

"Diversity" means one thing : CRIME and WELFARE

Interesting that you put "diversity" in quotes.

When we moved to our current apartment my wife looked up some crime stats for various neighborhoods.

With 100 as the national average:
Some areas of Newark, NJ were 400 or more.
The small town where I went to high school (about 2000 pop, 50 miles from nearest Mc Donald's) was about 25 or so, IIRC. The town has significant Mexican (ex-pat) and Navajo populations.
The town where our apartment is, rated 4. That's right, single digit, 4.

This is the most diverse place I've ever lived, or visited. On my short block (duplexes and single-family homes) there are at least 6 native languages.
My daughter's first grade class had a variety of Christians along with Jews, Muslims, Buddists, and I don't know what religion the kid from Mongolia follows. The school has maybe 20 students that would qualify for free or reduced school lunch.
When I'm in church on Sunday I talk to people from Nigeria, Jamaica, Haiti, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Germany, Philipines, Eastern Europe, etc.

We happened to drive through one of those very high crime areas of Newark and my daughter had a question. "Why is everyone the same color?"

Result: In my (perhaps not statistically significant experience) it is the lack of diversity that has a positive correlation with crime and welfare. So, I think it's interesting that you put "diversity" in quotes.

The trouble is that I doubt that I'll ever be able to afford to buy a home in the town where I live.

What knack?

[MrNougat]

From TFA: This might help explain why Greg Tanner, who says he has a knack for "turning one dollar into two dollars," is now more than $30,000 in debt.

Sounds like it should be the other way around. He's doing great turning two dollars into one.

Island

[lazarus]

I bought a 6 acre freshwater island sight-unseen on-line two years ago. Of course I did call around to make sure that the local planning office knew of the island and would give me a building permit for it. I also checked google satellite imagery to check on the overall shape and location of the island before I bought it. But I had 24 hours to do all of the research and make all of the connections before I signed on the dotted line.

Result? In my case I couldn't be happier. It is exactly what I was hoping for (well, except for the really bad case of poison ivy I got there last summer...) Bottom line: Use *all* of the technology you have access to if you have to make a decision like that. Even antiquated ones like the telephone.

My Family Sold a House Online

[maggard]

About 10 years ago my mother and her sister bought a summer house in Nova Scotia, Canada. Both are from there, though nowhere near where they bought the house and they now live in Boston, Mass. & Vancouver, B.C. respectively. However it was a pretty place, along a river, 100 acres, two barns, woods, orchard, fantastic year-round neighbors, good deal, etc.

However my aunt is a real estate agent and after a few years of flying cross-country for vacations wondered if her investment money wouldn't be more productive elsewhere. So almost on a lark she listed on an online auction site, no commitment to sell. And the bidding went insane!

So she called up Mom, confessed what she had done, then agreed that if the silly numbers were true they'd sell. They ended up having a prospective buyer fly up from Texas and stay in the house for a few days. The buyer loved the place, made an offer that was jaw-dropping by local real estate values, and the place was sold.

However, the buyer was from Texas, i.e. a US citizen. This hadn't been an issue for my mother, after 40-some years in the US she has always remained Canadian, but they did warn the buyer they'd have to look into local laws, particularly as they were dog-breeders and planning to use the barns for kennels, etc.

(By the way, Nova Scotia is cheap and trying hard to make itself attractive to retirees; if you're looking for a vacation place or to retire it's a great place to consider!)

Anyway, within a few years the new buyer had to sell. They'd not done their homework and had instead simply moved and started selling dogs. Apparently when informed they'd have to leave the country and immigrate the legal way they didn't find a peer online to sell the house to and instead sold at a rate far more in keeping with the local norms, and thus took a complete bath on the whole process.

So my family had a GREAT experience, others might not do so well...

Oh, and there's my buddy Richard, who buys a new eMachine PC on sale every year, images it's drive, pulls out and replaces the parts he doesn't care for, then a year later sets it back up the way he got it and sells it online, every time for more then he'd bought it for a year earlier! There really is another sucker online every minute!