Banks Giving Away Houses For Free?

[flip_it_fast]

Hmm it seems the banks are giving away homes for free these days. Well at least this one.

I think this happened in Jacksonville, Florida. A man bought an $80,000 house in 2006 with 8,000 down and an arm for $72,000 at 9.5%. In 2008 the higher payments started and he stopped making them. When his house was about to go into foreclosure he had paid less than $1,000 towards the principal.

In the meantime however, the property dropped value significantly and so the investor on the loan decided to write off the loan balance. Giving the man the property.

The 1,200 sq ft two bed one bath is now appraised at $46,000. The man plans to mow the lawn, repaint, and try to sell it. One thing he'll have to contend with is the prolific amount of mold inside. The mold grew after the coils to the air conditioner were stolen while the house was vacant.

I've never heard of anything like this happening before. It's crazy.

[luv2flip]

Someone must of made a mistake, nothing is free in this world

[flip_it_fast]

Lol I will second that! Nothing is free for me thats for sure!

I just couldn't believe this story when I read it. I cannot believe that they would have just written this off. If it did happen like that then this dude was very lucky indeed.

[flippinout]

This is rather surprising and I just wonder if it is because businesses are allowed to write off some of their losses? But the funny part of that is that even though businesses can do this, most times you still owe the original amount and it is still collectible.

For the bank to have done this and given the man back the house without him having to payoff the rest of what was owed is really astounding.

Plus, I wonder if this will still be listed on his Credit Report as a bad debt? It would seem to me that that is what most likely would happen and even though he got the house back, having that debt on his credit report would not be good at all and would definitely keep him from getting further loans.