Buying a foreclosed home
Four Chicagoans share the good, the bad and the smelly of dealing with a foreclosure.
Mackenzie Reupert, 29
Wanted Two bedrooms with lots of light
Purchased Two-bedroom loft in the South Loop, August 2012
The search When her South Loop landlord raised the rent “astronomically,” Reupert, a physician assistant, knew it was time to part ways with her roommate and buy her own place. “My first attempt was a failure. I started looking in early 2012 and fell in love with a loft in a converted turn-of-the-century warehouse in the South Loop. It was a short sale—that involves the bank approving the sale of the place for less than what is owed on the mortgage. It fell through because the seller didn’t qualify with his bank. I got my $1,500 of earnest money back—that’s a good-faith deposit held in escrow—but I was bummed out. This place had been exactly what I wanted. A week later my Realtor called, saying that a unit with the same floor plan in the same building—just two floors lower—was in foreclosure. But he warned me that it wasn’t in the same condition. That turned out to be a huge understatement.”
The fix-it list “There was no toilet in the master bath. No kitchen cabinets. I’m not sure there had ever been kitchen appliances because there were no hookups for them. The kitchen sink was mounted on a flimsy particleboard vanity. Oh, and there were no closets in the whole loft. I hired a contractor—he had done a friend’s gut rehab—who installed a kitchen, upgraded the bathroom and built closets in just over three weeks. The nice part about that was getting to put my personal touch on the place. The downside was I had to make very fast decisions. It was less than a month from my closing to my moving in. Fortunately, I had a month left on my lease, so I lived there while major construction was going on. After I moved in, I did the painting and installed light fixtures. I ended up not compromising on what I really wanted—light, open space, location—but my place is very close to the El, which worried me. It hasn’t bothered me yet, but it will affect resale value in the future.”
The surprises Reupert’s unit came with a basement storage unit. “When I went to unlock it, I felt like I was on Storage Wars. I had no idea what I’d find. There were two boxes of electronic cigarettes and tons of men’s used shoes. And in one of the loft’s bathrooms, there was a hidden lockbox with 50 sets of keys. I have no idea what that was about. It’s an unsolved mystery. I gave the keys to the building manager and tossed the rest of the stuff.”
I wish I had known… “Everyone tells you how much work [renovating a foreclosure] is, but there is no way you understand that until you are living it. The responsibility is weighty.”
Final cost $210,000 for the loft, plus about $20,000 for renovations
Realtor Matt Laricy, Americorp, 708-250-2696, mlaricy@americorpre.com
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