The American Museum of Natural History can be so inspiring -- it was the genesis of Long Island Foreclosure Tours.
In the inaugural tour, up to 30 investors and house hunters are expected to be bused Saturday to about 10 vacant homes in Nassau, including Stewart Manor and Hicksville, with agents on the bus to e-mail and fax bids to the banks involved.
The business was launched after Sheri Cambareri, an agent at RE/MAX Village Properties in Mineola, noted to her boss last month that the traditional way of house selling and buying is so inefficient. The agent takes one client to look at one house and if there’s no sale -- often the case in this slower market -- one takes in no money.
She pined for the old days when she worked at the museum promoting what her broker-owner, David Farrell, called fancy, “20-star” group tours in exotic locales, where someone had to hold the champagne glass of guests walking off a yacht or the five best scientists of the tour topic would be on the trip as expert guides.
“I just wish I could do what I did when I was back at the museum -- I wish I could do tours,” Farrell heard Cambareri say.
Farrell said he told her, “You do tours. You’re an agent.”
That’s how they cooked up the foreclosure tour, an idea that has been done in other parts of the nation. The two helped set up Foreclosure Tours International, which will start trips in New York City next month and has a north New Jersey one in the works.
The tour, originally $50 per person, has been reduced to $25 for the final seats. On the bus or in the houses, various experts will be at hand for short presentations and questions. That includes a general contractor to give estimates of repairs, an appraiser, a home inspector, an attorney, Wells Fargo Home Loan officers and an auctioneer who specializes in foreclosures.
Farrell is surprised that such tours have not been rampant on Long Island. He said he researched the idea and thinks he’ll be doing the first-ever local foreclosure tour.
Said the broker: “It looks like it might be a viable, exciting thing.”