Corporate or bank owned?

Banks are getting more and more crafty in what they want realtors to say in the MLS. The latest is that the banks feel their properties are stigmatized when the listing says that it is an REO or is bank owned. So now we are seeing lots of listings that say that the house is 'corporate owned'.

'Corporate owned' used to mean that the house had been bought by a company when they transferred an employee, and the employee couldn't sell the house in a timely manner, so the company guaranteed the sale in order that the employee could move on to his new posting.

Buyers' agents need to know this distinction, because they will counsel their buyers to make offers based on different criteria if they think the property is bank owned or actually owned by the employer of the person who used to live there. Check the tax records first, and if that doesn't give the information you need, you'll have to ask the listing realtor.