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Many home buyers are looking for foreclosed homes with the hopes that they'll steal a deal and feel good about it. Unfortunately, it typically takes longer to close a deal if it's a foreclosed (bank-owned) home. If you are not limited on time and don't mind the risk of having to put in a lot of money to fix your home in the short run, a foreclosed home may be a good fit for you. 

For those who are first time home owners and aren't good at fixing and construction, I don't recommend you looking into a foreclosed home, unless you have the capital to hire professional help. More times than not, they are really run down and you can't obtain any information from the previous owners because this home now belongs to the bank. They are not liable to providing any history to you. You basically buy at your own risk.

If you are set on getting a foreclosed home, get ready for a 2-3 month closing period after you've submitted an offer. Sometimes it could take longer than that before you can get the keys and move in.

After you have put in your buying offer and the seller has accepted it, it's time to start calling the bank that gave you that pre-approved loan letter to start getting the motions into place.

The bank will not loan you the money if the appraised price of the home you want to buy is not below the amount of the loan or at most, equivalent to it. It can't be overpriced. Otherwise, you'll have to figure out a way to put down more money to offset the difference. You don't want to be overpaying for a house anyway so getting an appraisal done first is a good way to know that. If the appraisal is good, you will know that you can call your home inspection and termite inspection companies next. You don't want to waste money on these inspections if the bank is not going to approve the loan for that particular house. A home inspection can cost anywhere between $350 - 450 and a termite inspection can be between $100 - $150 for this part of town. So remember to call your bank right away after the offer contract has been accepted. 

And remember, if there is not a written contract and signatures from both sides, there is no binding contract in the real estate world. A verbal agreement to accept the offer is not enough in the court of law. 

You've found the home of your dreams and you're ready to put in an offer. If your agent did not show you the house's property disclosure yet, make sure you ask for it before you sign that offer contract and send it over to the seller. This is really important. There is a lot of things that you may learn about the house from this document that you may not be able to know from just viewing the property that one time.

It is the seller's responsibility to provide a property disclosure when they are selling the house. They mark down all the things that may need repairs and what type of roof or materials the home is made out of. They will also let you know how old the roof is and how old the heating and cooling units are on the sheet as well. 

With that being said, even though it is the seller's duty to provide this document to the buyers, it is not until you get a home inspection and a termite inspection that you can determine if there are real problems and undisclosed issues about the house so make sure you get those done when you are ready to schedule them. 

If you're a military veteran or in the military and eligible for VA loans on the purchase of a home, it's a great opportunity to take advantage of VA loans due to its better interest rates and no money down required for up to a certain amount (in the 400k range during the year that I wrote this post). However, there are specific guidelines your future home needs to meet in order to get that loan approved by the bank. And trust me, it's in your favor that they do have these standards as they don't want to loan you money on a home that is not up to par. And if you are a home buyer, you don't want to move into a home that needs a lot of fixing and causes any health hazards.

Like FHA loans, there are certain water standards that the home you are interested in has to meet in order to be approved for the  VA loan.

If the water is hooked up on city or public water, then there usually aren't any issues there because city/public water is always tested and well maintained by the local government. However, if the house is on well water then there is an inspection that needs to take place before to make sure it meets the health guidelines. Your VA loan will not get approved if there is a problem with the well water and it usually costs money to fix it. In that case, make sure you alert the seller with the inspection proof that they need to fix that in order for the house to be approved by the bank.

If the house is currently hooked up on well water but public/city water is available for that home, you must get it hooked up on the public city water. There is no choice in that instance. In many cases, if the house has never been hooked up on public water before, there is usually a high set-up cost for that. It's usually in the thousands.

So in order to save yourself some time and if you're in a hurry to move into a new home, I suggest looking for a home that is already currently hooked up on city/public water.