Polo Vazquez- Real Estate

Real estate Agent, investor, flipper and property manager. ask me anything about real estate!

[Makayla | Real Estate Investor @REIMakayla]

Fannie Mae blocks every investor in America from bidding on thousands of foreclosed houses for the first 20 days they're listed. Then it pays up to 3% of your closing costs when you buy one

Fannie Mae is one of the two government-backed companies standing behind most American mortgages. When it takes a house back, it has a rule: regular families get first shot. People like me are locked out

I'm the one being blocked. I'm telling you anyway, because in most cities the houses sit through the whole 20 days with no offers:

The program is called First Look. Fannie Mae puts every house it owns on its own website, HomePath. com. For the first 20 days a listing is live, only three kinds of buyers can make an offer: people who will live in the house, nonprofits, and public agencies. Investors can't submit. Not a low offer, not a cash offer, nothing. Day 21, we're allowed in. Freddie Mac, the other government-backed company, runs the exact same window on its houses

Why they do it: after 2008, the government decided its mortgage companies should put families in the foreclosed houses, not landlords. So they built a head start and gave it a name. Almost nobody outside the industry has heard it

Then the money. Fannie Mae runs a second program called HomePath Ready Buyer. You take their free online homebuyer course before you make an offer. When you close, they pay up to 3% of the purchase price toward your closing costs

Stack it:

House: $160,000
FHA down payment at 3.5%: $5,600
Closing costs: about $5,000
Fannie Mae pays: up to $4,800 of that

You're into a house for roughly $6,000, with no investor bidding against you, on a property that's already priced like a foreclosure

Why the houses sit for 20 days: they're foreclosures. Somebody stopped paying and stopped maintaining. Brown carpet, a dead lawn, a kitchen from another decade. They're sold as-is, Fannie won't fix anything, and first-time buyers hear "as-is" and run. You can still inspect it. You should. Then you look at the clean house on the same street and do the subtraction

The playbook:

1. HomePath. com. Filter your city. First Look listings show the countdown
2. Get an agent registered with HomePath. Any agent can register. Most haven't
3. Inspect BEFORE you offer. As-is means as-is
4. Finish the Ready Buyer course before you submit. No certificate, no 3%
5. If the house needs work, the same FHA loan that buys it can fund the renovation
6. Offer on day 3, not day 19. If it's clean it'll have competition from other families. If it's ugly, you'll be alone

"Foreclosures are wrecks"

Some are. That's the discount. The clean ones get six offers on day one. The one that needs $18,000 of paint and floors sits for three weeks because nobody can picture it finished. That's the one

Here's the confession: on day 21 I bid on the ones you didn't. Every 20-day window a family didn't use is a house I got at a foreclosure price

The government built a 20-day head start for you and put your name on it. I hear the countdown every day

I will teach you how to flip houses. Link in my bio, fill out the form and I'll hit you back

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

@annvandersteel This would be big. We will have to see what the outcome is and if other counties will follow

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

@dig_deeper1 I do agree that they are going to keep going down for a while longer as well!

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

@dig_deeper1 Yes but everyone will be doing this as well at the same time. Bringing the prices of those assets up. It's better to buy now when nobody is looking at them.

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

@GrulkeLamonte It's all region dependant. Where I'm at, a good amount of worked have been kicked out of the country. Skilled labor is hard to find meaning the ones left are charging more than ever.

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

@Endure2Thrive Oh yeah. O drive 70% of the time on it Now. But when I bought it it was trash. Had I traded in my car I would had lost out on it

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

@themoviedadsc I used it for 3 windshields and about 5 chips and my payment doubled. When I tried to change insurances nobody would accept me. Worst part is, I was paying extra for glass coverage. Insurance is a scam

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

@realMarkWygant @TKopelman 20 properties sound like a decent amount. Im surprised it wasn't enough. How many do you think is the magic number?

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

Texas foreclosure activity is quietly heating up. 📊
​Statewide filings are hovering around ~4,200/month, with 1 in every ~3,065 housing units seeing a foreclosure filing.
​The primary pressure points:
• Surging property insurance premiums
• Tax burden adjustments
• Strained adjustable & DSCR debt
​Houston (Harris County) leads total volume, followed by Bexar and Dallas.
​As inventory loosens, off-market opportunities will show up for buyers who know how to solve distressed debt before the courthouse steps.
​Are you seeing more distressed deals in your market? 🧵👇
​#TexasRealEstate #RealEstateInvesting #Foreclosures #TexasHousing

[Amy Nixon @texasrunnerDFW]

Foreclosures are heating up in Texas in 2026, with 3 North Texas counties in the spotlight:

Collin
Tarrant
Denton

20,739 homes have gone into foreclosure in Texas in the first half of 2026

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

@Reiwholesaler Bro has 8 rentals. It's he is doing better than most people. Let him have a little bit of a victory dance. Most people just have debt

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

@Endure2Thrive In Texas, the problem is that the "fixed" mortgage payment is not really fixed. If we have a big storm, insurance doubles. If you home prices goes up, your property taxes increase. Slowly but surely, your mortgage payment creeps up.

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

@nickgerli1 Prices in my region are having a correction. They haven't gone down much but just staying flatt while inflation is 4-5% is correction. Slow... But slow is good

[Nick Gerli @nickgerli1]

The reason the U.S. has a housing affordability crisis isn't because of mortgage rates.

Today's mortgage rate levels of around 6.5% as historically very normal.

With the long-term 136 year average at 6.4%.

Moreover, today's rates are way below where they were in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, when mortgage rates were hovering near 10%.

Meaning that central issue with affordability today isn't mortgage rates.

Rather, it's prices.

Real home prices are 90% above long-term averages.

Indicating that housing has appreciated way faster than inflation and people's incomes.

Which is ultimately what is creating this four-year housing recession with record low demand.

Fix the price problem, and you fix affordability.

Check the most overvalued areas at: https://t.co/zlKe2138Ij.

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

@GuyTalksFinance I bought my first home for $140k. Downpayment was $30k. Today it's worth $220k. My $30k are now $90k in equity. Plus I've paid down the mortgage by another $20k. Bonus: it's now rented and makes me money every month to

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

@ChrisTwiggsPM Very interesting point.

[Chris - Property Management @ChrisTwiggsPM]

Property we were hired to manage earlier this year. Small multifamily

100% occupied but rents were 40% OVER market

I've said it ten's of times on this app...you do NOT want the tenants that are willing to over pay

Why don't they care how much the rent is?

Because they have no intention of paying it

Owner hired us because they weren't paying

After confirming the property could support market rents (I knew it could, I helped him buy the thing on a CFD) we got to work

Running good now

All in all, his pursuit of higher rents cost him $28,000 in unpaid rent, clean up, repairs, and attorney fees

[Polo Vazquez- Real Estate @RealtorPolo]

Most owners don’t lose money on bad markets. They lose money on:
​Lax tenant screening
​Delayed maintenance
​Outdated lease agreements
​Zero vacancy strategy
​Property management isn't an overhead expense—it’s portfolio insurance.