Yesterday I showed you the different search options you have available to find HUD listings. Today I’m going to go through one of the disclosure statements for a HUD home, to show you the things that are known problems with the home, if any.

I found a listing here locally in Fort Worth to use for our example…not a bad looking place, it definitely has curb appeal. :) The price is listed at $88,000.00, it’s a 3 bedroom 2 bath house, and it was built in 2002 so the likelihood of major issues are not as high.
House Photo

This house has a disclosure statement…so let’s go through that.

On the first page you’ll find the address, a photograph if there is one and the date the house was inspected.

Page One

On the second and third page is the Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Part 1 of HUD Disclosure Table of Contents Part Two of HUD Disclosure

A lot of things are covered in this report, for instance - this house needs work on the flooring, but so far that’s the only problem spotted in each subject of those listed in the Table of Contents.

Problem with the house flooring

Here you will see some of the other things they look at in an easy to read chart:

Inspection Chart

The great thing about all of this information being available to you so easily on the internet is you can find problems and use that information in your narrowing down process without ever talking to anyone. There are a lot of things you can do yourself to fix things you may find that are great weekend projects. This house having flooring problems is not necessarily something you should rule a house out for. You could quite possibly find a perfect house that someone just defaulted on and now it’s available to you. But don’t let simple issues like flooring detract you from an otherwise fantastic find.

Each home listed on the HUD site will have this kind of statement usually, but that does not mean that you should skip an inspection. These disclosures are not meant to tell you all the things an inspector can tell you. Right now the potential for finding a great house and getting a heck of a deal are higher than usual, this is the best time for someone without a lot of resources to do one of two things, buy their first home, or start investing in real estate. Both of these things increase your net worth and have the potential for making you a lot of money.

Here’s what I want you to do:

Check out HUD listings here.

Look through a few listings locally, and see what you can find that you may be interested in, if you have any questions, post it here and I’ll answer it this evening when I get home from work…

Happy Hunting!