David Levario, a 37-year-old construction worker from Montebello, found the tour valuable. "I like what they're offering," he said of LTV's listings. "I'm a hard-working man looking for a place for my family. I'm renting and tired of making other people money."
Most of his fellow blue-collar passengers were about his age. Between stops, they scoured each house's summary report. Inside the residences, they fingered appliance hookups, banged on walls, surveyed floor plans and tried to visualize how they'd fit in.
The unfortunate circumstances of the previous owners' departures weren't part of the conversation. Asked whether he felt sympathy for them, or wondered about the back stories, Robert Corral, 27, expressed the common view.
"A lot of people got [themselves] into the situation that got them foreclosed," said the Azusa equipment operator. "You don't want them losing their home, but it's a chance for me to do something."
LTV launched the tours after its owner saw a "60 Minutes" segment about Cesar Dias, a Stockton real estate broker and mortgage consultant who developed the tour-bus idea amid a sea of Central Valley foreclosures. It was a startling success, and Dias began franchising the Repo Home Tours for $20,000 a pop. Franchisees now are shuttling prospects through Santa Ana, San Diego, the Inland Empire, Las Vegas, even Texas and Florida. Competitors with similar names also have popped up.
It's understandable. Luring two dozen prospects onto a bus for a three-hour tour is the equivalent of an infomercial before a captive audience, LTV Chief Executive Cesar Haro said. Tour operators are able to promote each home on the ride over, explain down payments, offer loans and foster enthusiasm out of an otherwise dreary landscape. Home shoppers don't have to drive or pay high gas prices, and can focus on the pickings. To keep stomachs happy before the bus rolls, LTV serves passengers juice, Starbucks coffee and doughnuts.
"We're getting a lot of first-time buyers who couldn't afford a $600,000 house before," Haro said. "We're here to motivate them that there's an opportunity. But it's not like a used-car salesman pushing them to buy."
The homes, owned by Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo, Countrywide and other nameplate lenders, typically have been for sale roughly three months. Most people making an offer on a house they saw on the tour use Haro's real estate agents to represent them and EquiFinance, LTV's mortgage unit. Like many real estate firms, LTV locates foreclosures through the Multiple Listing Service or private channels. In almost every case, the foreclosure occurred because the previous owner had an adjustable-rate mortgage with little or no equity, Haro said.
