Foreclosure Investment WeBlog

Foreclosures Expected to Continue Increasing

admin — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:38:39 +0000

Moody’s Economy.com has answered the question of weather we will see a decline in foreclosures. Their comprehensive analysis, while including many aspects of the market was partially focused on the foreclosure outlook. Moody’s Economy.com expects a slow increase in jobs beginning in the spring of this year, but real job growth, that which affects unemployment is not expected until next year. Layoffs are halted, but hiring is also dormant. There is also an expectation that people under employed or temporarily employed will slow down unemployment’s retreat. Also on a positive note is the fact that foreclosures share of housing sales is declining from its 2009 peak.

In spite of these otherwise positive factors, foreclosures are expected to continue climbing. This is due to several factors. Strategic defaults are still increasing. Moody’s Economy.com’s definition of a strategic default is when a homeowner can pay his mortgage, but defaults anyway because the mortgage is more than the value of the house. This is also known as being upside down or under water. Strategic defaults continue to increase due to the large number of people who are upside down in their mortgage. There were more than 15,000 homeowners upside down in their mortgage in the last 2 quarters of 2009. Many homeowners become frustrated and tired of struggling to pay high mortgage payments that will never return anything. Another factor is the large number of homeowners that are currently delinquent 90 days or more on their mortgages. In addition to the previous factors loan modifications are expected to decrease, eliminating the only opportunity homeowners have to bring some balance to their payments.

Moody’s Economy.com Housing Market Evaluation

admin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 22:52:35 +0000

The question of weather the housing market has hit bottom is now being answered by Moody’s Economy.com and the answer is yes and no. In classical economist form, Moody’s gives us a run down on the ups and downs of the national housing market, which is summarized below.

Home sales have hit bottom and are increasing.

Single family and Multi-family housing construction is at the bottom and expected to begin increasing slowly in 2010.

Housing prices are expected to continue to decline from their 2006 peak an average of about 8% though 2010.

Foreclosures are expected in continue to increase due to slow job growth, decreasing loan modifications and the large number of homeowners behind 90 days or more on their mortgages. (More than 15000 in the last 2 quarters of 2009)

Available mortgage credit is not expected to change in 2010, although the FHA will remain aggressive in credit extension, neither the FHA nor the private market is expected to increase mortgage credit.

The Federal Funds rate is expected to remain low, while mortgage rates are expected to increase slightly from 5% to 5.5% by the end of this year.

Stay tuned for Moody’s analysis of foreclosures.

Housing Prices in Fort Worth/Arlington Area Undervalued.

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:49:41 +0000

It’s a great time to invest in the Fort Worth/Arlington area. As housing prices are currently undervalued, but are expected to climb soon. According to a report by Moody’s Economy.com Housing prices in the Fort Worth/Arlington area are undervalued. Moddy’s evaluation is based on price-to-income ratio, which fell from 3.95 in the forth quarter of 2005 to 1.89 in the third quarter of 2009. This is compared to an average price-to-income ratio of 2.02 for the 15 year period beginning in 1988 and ending in 2003. Moddy’s expects home prices in the area to continue to decline for a short time and then begin climbing higher. The price increase will be aided by the local labor market, which is expected to perform better than the national average. More on Moddy’s report coming later this week.

A Quick Tip on Buying Foreclosures

admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 03:49:26 +0000

It comes as no surprise that foreclosures are at an all time high. There were almost 6,000 properties scheduled for foreclosure in October in the DFW area. That means almost 6,000 potential deals. Short selling maybe necessary to get a deal, but banks are more willing to short sell than ever before. It’s a good time to invest. These days many investors are gun shy about real estate. This means opportunity for investors who want to buy properties cheap.

How do you cash in on these deals? There are several ways to do this. The easiest way is to send a letter to all the owners. A post card has a couple of advantages over a letter. 1^st it cost about 1/3 the price of a letter. 2^nd you don’t have to worry that your letter will not be opened. Everyone can immediately see what is on the post card. All you have to do is make sure you get their attention. Colored post cards with graphics are a good way to attract attention. You can create an attractive design and ask Office Depot to copy it for you on a colored post card stock. They will even cut it for you for a small charge. The result is a nice looking, but inexpensive post card. Then just print address labels and attach them and send them. Make sure your address labels contain owner addresses rather than property addresses. Many owners may have moved.

Convincing Owners in Pre-foreclosure

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:20:44 +0000

This is the 3rd part of a 3 part article on the stages of buying foreclosures. There are 3 stages to buying pre-foreclosures. These three stages, analyzing, hunting and convincing, are accomplished for the purpose of achieving one goal. That goal is to find an owner with sufficient equity, who is willing to sell his property before the auction and convince him to sell. Even those most dedicated to their task will may not be able to purchase every property analyzed for the auction. As disappointing as this is to one who has arduously toiled to come home victorious, it must be remembered that success is not achieved by processes of certainty. To be successful calculated risks have to be tolerated. The objective is not to buy every property analyzed but to buy enough properties to make the venture profitable. If enough time is spent you will be successful in the purchase of not one but several properties by this method. It is important to note that the 3 stages we are talking about today are for investors who wish to purchase a property for the long term or resale it for a profit. These stages could be used for short sales or loan modification programs with a few adjustments, but we will not specifically address those in this article.

The next essential ingredient to profitability is the current owner’s willingness to cooperate. It may seem unlikely that an owner would not cooperate given the owner’s situation, but it is actually far from it. Distressed people have a tendency to behave irrationally. Many have an undying optimism that their problem will be solved in a last minute miracle, which will render them financially sound. Sometimes the miracle happens. Sometimes it does not. Your next challenge then is to convince the owner of the gravity of his situation. This you do for his own benefit as well as yours. The biggest obstacle you will need to overcome is denial. Many homeowners believe that someone will help them solve the problem. One way to overcome this obstacle is to convince the homeowner that it is a good idea to have a backup plan. You will be the essential ingredient in this back up plan. If his 1st option goes though that is good, but if it doesn’t you will be prepared to purchase the property. Tell the homeowner that time is needed for you to purchase the property. Try to get him to sign a contingency contract. This is an earnest money contract that allows him an out, if his first option comes though. After this is signed you can start your due diligence and be prepared to purchase the property if the owner fails to resolve the problem.

Finding Pre-foreclosures

admin — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 23:13:18 +0000

This is the 2^nd part of a 3 part article on the stages of buying foreclosures. There are 3 stages to buying pre-foreclosures. These three stages, analyzing, hunting and convincing, are accomplished for the purpose of achieving one goal. That goal is to find an owner with sufficient equity, who is willing to sell his property before the auction and convince him to sell. Even those most dedicated to their task will may not be able to purchase every property analyzed for the auction. As disappointing as this is to one who has arduously toiled to come home victorious, it must be remembered that success is not achieved by processes of certainty. To be successful calculated risks have to be tolerated. The objective is not to buy every property analyzed but to buy enough properties to make the venture profitable. If enough time is spent you will be successful in the purchase of not one but several properties by this method. It is important to note that the 3 stages we are talking about today are for investors who wish to purchase a property for the long term or resale it for a profit. These stages could be used for short sales or loan modification programs with a few adjustments, but we will not specifically address those in this article.

The first part of this series discussed analyzing foreclosures. Your second challenge is to find the distressed owners within a short period of time so as to allow yourself sufficient time for negotiation and acceptance of your offer. This is not an easy task by any means. When a deed of trust is the security devise being foreclosed often you will have only a period of a few weeks to accomplish all three stages. In Texas you will only have 3 weeks notice of foreclosure for most properties. Only by intense dedication to the task and superior selectivity can this be accomplished in the time required. In this situation use the first resources available. This, in most cases, will be the initial foreclosure posting, which can be obtained at the courthouse and can be difficult to read. This is where a good foreclosure service will save you many hours of research. It should be noted that not all foreclosure services get the foreclosure directly from the courthouse and update immediately. Any delay in this process will cost you valuable time. So be sure the foreclosure service you choose gets the notices from the courthouse and updates immediately.

Analyzing Pre-forclosures

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:57:48 +0000

This is a 3 part article on the stages of buying foreclosures. There are 3 stages to buying pre-foreclosures. These three stages, analyzing, hunting and convincing, are accomplished for the purpose of achieving one goal. That goal is to find an owner with sufficient equity, who is willing to sell his property before the auction and convince him to sell. Even those most dedicated to their task will may not be able to purchase every property analyzed for the auction. As disappointing as this is to one who has arduously toiled to come home victorious, it must be remembered that success is not achieved by processes of certainty. To be successful calculated risks have to be tolerated. The objective is not to buy every property analyzed but to buy enough properties to make the venture profitable. If enough time is spent you will be successful in the purchase of not one but several properties by this method. It is important to note that the 3 stages we are talking about today are for investors who wish to purchase a property for the long term or resale it for a profit. These stages could be used for short sales or loan modification programs with a few adjustments, but we will not specifically address those in this article.

Analyzing

The properties at the auction will not all be bargains. In fact, many will not be worth the time required to inspect them. Your objective is to discard these low value properties quickly. This can be done only with the aid of a quick, but thorough analysis. The most frequent problem you will incur is the lack of sufficient equity in a property. Loan to value is thus the vital first calculation in your analysis. I you are using a good foreclosure service identifying properties with a low loan to value relationship should be easy. If you are not then you will need to first calculate the approximate value of the property. This can be done with the aid of comparable sales which are available from many sources. Once this is accomplished you will need to calculate the loan balance of the property. This is done by estimating the loan payments and then deducting the principal payments to arrive at an approximate loan balance. To do this you will need a calculator that can do present value calculations. Once you have arrived at the approximate loan value you should add about 6-8 months of back payments. This is about how long it takes the bank to foreclose on a property.

Types of Foreclosure in Texas

admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:53:08 +0000

Types of Foreclosure in Texas

There are several types of foreclosure in Texas. Each of these has slightly different rules, which complicates the purchase of them. The 8 types we will cover here are 1^st lien note, 2^nd lien note, Home Equity Loans, Vendors Lien, Judgment, Mechanics Lien, Tax and Homeowner’s Fees.

1^st Lien Note – By far the most common type of foreclosure is a 1^st lien note. 1^st lien notes are usually money to purchase a house and are usually the largest loans on the house. The 1st lien note will specify the property as collateral. A 1^st lien foreclosure wipes out all junior liens. That means anyone else who has loaned money on the property will lose their investment. For the purchaser of this property, it means junior lien holders will not have to be paid. This includes second liens, judgments but not Tax liens. The purchaser will have to include the Tax Liens when determining the profitability of the investment. These amounts are fairly easy to determine by calling the taxing authorities (be careful there are several). Non-judicial foreclosure is the most common way of foreclosing on 1^st lien notes. This means that no courts are involved
2^nd Lien Note – A second lien note is money that is borrowed after the purchase of the property. The 2^nd lien note will specify the property as collateral. It is junior to the 1^st lien note and therefore will not wipe out the 1^st lien note. It also doesn’t wipe out Tax liens. It will wipe out all junior liens, including judgments. To the buyer of this property, this means you will need to be very careful if buying a second lien note. You must 1^st determine how much is owned on the 1^st lien note. This is not easy to do without the borrower’s permission. If the borrower is behind on the 2^nd lien payments, there is a good chance he is also behind on the 2^nd lien payments. Usually the 2^nd lien lender is the same as the 1^st lien lender unless it is a Home Equity Loan. Non-judicial foreclosure is the most common way of foreclosing on 2^nd lien notes
Home Equity Loan – A Home Equity Loan is special type of 2^nd lien note. These loans were not allowed in Texas until 1997. Prior to this time a 2^nd loan could not be made on a homestead property. The biggest difference is that a Home Equity Loan requires a judicial foreclosure. This means the lender must first sue the borrower and then get a court order to sell the property at auction.
Vendor’s Lien – A Vendor’s Lien is a 1^st Lien that has been seller financed. The biggest difference is that a Vendor’s Lien requires a judicial foreclosure. This means the lender must first sue the borrower and then get a court order to sell the property at auction.
Judgment – A judgment comes as a result of a law suit. In Texas, the judgment is only collectable if the judgment can be attached to real estate which is not occupied by an owner occupant, in other words, investment property. In general, the more difficult the judgment is to collect the greater discount you will receive on properties foreclosed. In Texas, many judgment holders are glad to get any thing for there judgment after holding it a few years. A judgment does not wipe out any other liens on the property. This leaves the buyer with the burden of checking all other liens on the property, including the 1^st lien, which as stated before is difficult to verify without the borrower’s permission.
Mechanics Lien – A mechanics lien is the result of someone working on the property. If the contractor is not paid, he can file a lien on the property for the amount owed. This is called a mechanics lien. A mechanics lien requires a judicial foreclosure. This means the contractor must first sue the owner of the property and then get a court order to sell the property at auction.
Property Tax – Property tax is due on January 1^st in Texas. By February 1^st it is late. At this point it becomes a lien even if not filed as such. A property tax Lien has priority over all other liens, including 1^st liens, federal tax liens and state tax liens. The property is cleared of these liens as long as the taxing authority makes a reasonable attempt to notify the party concerned. Although they are cleared from the property they are still owed by the property owner. The property owner is able to claim rights to and redeem the property up to 2 years after the sale by paying the taxes plus a fine.
Homeowner’s Liens – These are liens filed by homeowners association for the payment of subdivision or condominium maintenance fees. Texas allows non-judicial foreclosure of these liens. All superior liens on the property remain attached to the property. Although there is no right of redemption, a purchaser at the auction can not resale the property within six months of the sale date.

Disclaimer-This article was not written by an attorney nor is it meant to give legal advice. Its purpose is to give the reader a general idea of the lien types foreclosed in Texas. For detailed information on a particular property a title search is recommended. For additional questions consult your attorney.

Buying Tax Foreclosures at the Auction

admin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:42:52 +0000

The tricky part about auctions is analyzing all of the property values and looking at the properties before hand. The earlier you can get the list of properties to be auctioned the better off you will be. In Texas, you need a local company. The national companies update their systems too slowly for Texas’s 3 week foreclosure process.

Your analysis must be very accurate because the decision to purchase can not be rescinded after the auction. The property analysis should include a search of the comparable sales in the area to determine the property’s resale value. It should also include a search of the county court house records for liens posted to the property. A visit to the property is required to determine the property’s condition. An estimate of repairs must also be made. You can see the problem with doing this type of in-depth analysis on 100’s of properties for sale at the auction.

Most of the properties you will not be able to purchase. Sometimes you can not buy anything. It is the nature of auctions. This time consuming analysis is one of the reasons such incredible bargains are available at tax sales.

As the story goes a man complained to his friend that he had purchased a property at a tax auction that was 3 feet under water. “Did you complain to the auctioneer?” His friend asked. “Yes” the man replied. “And you got your money back?” “No” the man replied, “he offered to sell me a boat.” The moral of the story is always inspect the property before bidding on it because you won’t get a refund from your tax assessor.

Take the time to analysis and look at every property that you intend to bid on. No matter how good the deal seems, never purchase a property that you have not looked at. This will be very difficult at first when you see the bargains that are presented frequently at these auctions. In one foreclosure auction I attended, 2 houses sold for $5,000. Unfortunately we had not looked at the properties, but the tax appraisal was $60,000.

There is such a thing as useless land. It may be too small to build on or in an area where the property values don’t justify building. It could be environmentally contaminated in which case the loss would be much more than the purchase price because the current owner is responsible for the clean up. Do not let this scare you away from auctions, but please exercise caution. After analyzing the properties prepare a maximum bid amount for every property you intend to bid on and write this number next to that properties address. Do not exceed your minimum bid amount. This may seem obvious, but it can be difficult to stand your ground in the heat of intense bidding. It is the excitement of the auction that ruins the investor.

There is a tendency for beginning investors to question their analysis once a property has passed their maximum bid amount and seemingly intelligent people continue to bid the price upward. Trust your analysis. The other buyers may be retail buyers who want to live in the house or they may be amateur investors who have not had the benefit of training. In some cases, the buyers simply have not done any research or analysis on the properties, which they are bidding. Some may believe you can not go wrong with real estate. You can if you pay too much. For whatever reason, many properties sell for more than we are willing to pay in a typical tax auction.

Beware of Raging Optimism

admin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:37:10 +0000

We’ve all been guilty of it. We see a property and start calculating how much we can make on it. Then we use optimistic figures for the sales price or the rent. There is a lot of interpretation in analyzing comparable sales. Choose the ones that are in the mid-range. High sales are usually due to properties that are in extraordinary condition. Bargain properties are rarely in extraordinary condition even after repairs. If you’re holding for the long term, remember to calculate your rents correctly. You should include 2 months vacancy in addition to some repairs and general maintenance when the tenants move out. Don’t get caught in the trap of calculating 12 months rent at the highest rental rate. That never happens. You can calculate 1 month vacancy, if you are offering below market rents, but it is almost impossible to get top rents and a low vacancy rate. Raging optimism can create bad decisions on marginal properties. So beware of raging optimism. In business caution is definitely better than valor.

Profits in Foreclosures

admin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:41:15 +0000

If you haven’t tried investing in foreclosures, then you are missing the biggest source of cheap houses in Real Estate. The best thing about foreclosures is that every month a new list of properties comes out. Alamo Foreclosure Service reports over 5000 properties each month in the 4 County DFW area. That is 5000 opportunities for cheap property, which can turned into profit. Buying before the auction requires the least amount of experience. Just imagine 5000 properties every month that are already financed. That means you can get in with a low down using other people’s financing. The biggest expense is the back payments due. If you can arrange a short sale, you may not have to make those payments. How many houses can you afford to buy at 0 down?

There are many available now. Owners in foreclosure can be contacted by mail, by phone or if your not shy, just dropping by.

Mail is the easiest way to contact them. You will have to send out several letters to owners to get their attention. This becomes complicated with Texas’s short foreclosure period. Most of the foreclosures are not even posted until 21 days before the auction. That means you will probably have to send at least 1 per week to get their attention.

Phone is probably the cheapest and quickest way to contact the owner’s in foreclosure. Finding the phone numbers is the difficult part. Then it is just a matter of planning what you want to say. Focus on closing the deal. The owners know that they need to sell. If you have a lot of problems finding the phone numbers, Alamo Foreclosure Service can do an Owner Number Search for you. This is a detailed search of possible phone numbers for the person as well as relatives’ and neighbors’ addresses and phone numbers. The cost is less than $10 and it is a good way to find an owner when you are sure there is a lot of equity there but other means are just not working.

Dropping by the property is the most time consuming way to contact owners. But you have to look at them at some point and you contact will be more effective. Have a plan of what you intend to say. For best results, be friendly and helpful. Have a contract ready as well. It never hurts to be prepared.

How to buy Foreclosures at a Texas Auction

admin — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:08:41 +0000

There are 3 ways to find deals on foreclosures. You can buy before the auction, at the auction or after the auction. This article will focus on buying at the auction. If you decide to buy at the auction, you will be competing with professional investors who buy every month there. This can be quite intimidating for many people. There are still deals to be had there. After all professional investors will rarely pay too much for a property. But the chances are good that they know more about the property and how to deal with specific problems inexpensively. That means if you outbid them and it costs you more to repair the property’s problems you could lose money.

Before we get into the specifics of buying at the auction, we need to talk about the Trustee. The Trustee at a Texas foreclosure auction is the person who sells the property. He is given rights to sell the property under certain conditions in the Deed of Trust. There are some Trustee’s that handle large amounts of properties. Lisle Patton is the largest in the Dallas area. He sells many properties every month. Professional investors who have to buy many properties every month will focus on guys like Lisle Patton, because he is easy to find and he has many properties.

There are also Trustees at the auction who may only handle 1 or 2 properties. They represent small independent banks or individual sellers who have to foreclosure on properties that they financed. They are difficult to find at the auction. Imagine trying for find a Trustee who has only one property. He can show up at any time during a 3 hour window. He will begin reading without warning and will finish within 5 minutes. The key to finding really good deals at the auction is to find these smaller Trustees.

The way to find the smaller Trustees is to contact them before hand. Alamo Foreclosure Service allows you to sort by Trustee. They will also give you the address and phone number for many of the Trustees. The notice of sale may also have this information. The smaller trustees will usually be glad to talk to you. After all you may help their client by offering a reasonable price at the auction. A fair auction is the legal obligation of every Trustee. The only way to accomplish a fair auction is to allow everyone a chance to bid. Ask the Trustee what time he will be at the auction and how you might recognize him. Ask him where at the courthouse he will hold the auction. Then just make sure you are there. The chances are good that your competition has not taken the time to do this.

Foreclosures at a all time high!

admin — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 10:10:09 +0000

A new survey by RealtyTrac shows foreclosures at a national high of 937,840. This is the highest they have ever been since the surveys were started in 2005. This new national high shows a increase of 23 percent since last year and an increase in REOs of 21 percent from last quarter. But why are so many foreclosure suddenly appearing on the market? It could be due to the build up of foreclosures that have gone unprocessed because of a lack of court resources and are just now getting completed . The number of foreclosures reported for Texas was 29838 up 11 percent from last quarter and 11,492 of those are REOs, just waiting for someone to buy them. Investors in Texas should take advantage of these great opportunities and Alamo Foreclosure service is a great way to do just that. In September alone Alamo Foreclosure posted 5,594 foreclosures in the 4 counties that Alamo covers.

Help Where’s the bottom (part 2)

admin — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:01:48 +0000

There are as many ways to speculate when the real estate market will hit rock bottom as there are reasons why the downturn started in the first place. In reality, the bottom of the real estate market can only be defined in retrospect and there will probably be regional differences as well. The market wont rise up again until investors have more faith and are willing to put more money into houses. But investors cant hold the market up alone they need to have someone to sell to. They need people to have more confidence in their jobs so that they are willing to move into a better or more convenient home. In order to predict the bottom you would need to correctly judge the psychological state of the nation and when it will change. But at least one thing is for sure, the bottom will come and the real estate market will spring back up. There will be great opportunities for those who remain vigilent for buying opportunities.

Help! Where’s the bottom.

admin — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:27:26 +0000

Once you’ve hit rock bottom there’s nowhere to go but up. So naturally everyone is wondering when the housing market will hit the bottom. Thousands of people are on the edge of their seats, money in hand, just waiting to buy some property, but afraid of investing only to watch the marker further decline. But the bottom of the market is a largely misunderstood concept in several ways. Perhaps the most important misconception is that “the bottom” is a nationwide phenomenon and real estate has always been local. It doesn’t really matter when the national average starts back up if the prices of real estate in your buying area don’t coincide. In fact, some places haven’t really felt a decline at all. Although this phenomena is limited to relatively small and out of the way places like Glenwood Springs, Colorado or Amarillo TX, it demonstrates just how much difference there is in regional markets. When deciding when to buy always remember to check the local market only. Another key point is that EVERYONE knows the bottom is near. It not a big secret that when something hits the floor it will bounce back up. So when the bottom does come there will be a lot of competition from investors, who are trying to buy before prices get back up. You could very easily lose all the potential savings trying to outbid your competition! So don’t worry too much about the identifying the bottom and instead focus on houses that can partially hold off the force of recession. Invest wisely in properties with good potential to increase in value after the bottom hits. Then you won’t have to worry about a bidding war on it when the bottom does hit… Continued in part 2…

Discover untapped deals

admin — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:07:57 +0000

In many cases the very best deals on properties are those that go unnoticed either because there is a lack of competition on the unknown or perhaps because the owner himself is unaware of the value of the property or that it even belongs to him. In some cases, a person may receive a property as part of a inheritance and be completely unaware that he owns a property. In such cases, the owner may be more interested in the cash value of the property than anything else and sell cheap. If you can find the owner, there may be a good deal there. Even if you can find some details on the owner and know that there is a deal there, without the owners number and other valuable details the opportunity is likely to end in a dead end. Most experienced real estate investors are aware of this problem and hire someone to search for information on the owner. This can be a very useful but costly endeavor. if done improperly.

Some sites exist which provide a cheap alternative and even let you purchase search’s in bulk for a discount. These sites often have policies that wont charge you for searches that turn up empty. When selecting such a site there are several things to think about. First the searches should be done by a human and not processed automatically. Second the company should guarantee the anonymity of involved parties and should refund your money, if no information is found. Currently the best deal for real estate centered human powered search service is Alamo Foreclosure’s owner number search’s. They are priced at 10 dollars for a single search and bulk orders are discounted. These tools can save you lots of time and help resurrect deals from dead ends.

Foreclosure Survey Shows Surprising Results

admin — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 11:04:31 +0000

It would appear that interest in foreclosures is going down and that could mean more opportunities for savvy investors. According to a survey done in December 2008 from Trulia and RealtyTrac and hosted on Harris Interactive interest in foreclosures has gone done from 54 percent of adults willing to consider purchasing a foreclosure to 47 percent in the 7 months between surveys. While 7 percent in 7 months is certainly a dramatic drop already, it’s compounded by the flood of foreclosures appearing in the market place. The survey takers cited risky processes, hidden costs, loss of home value, and having a past connection with foreclosure as reasons why they would distrust foreclosures, which seems to indicate a unfamiliarity with foreclosures by the public as a whole. In spite of this, Viv Zhang of Alamo Foreclosure Service says “This means opportunity for experienced investors. They will be able to find great deals on these properties. The window won’t be open for long though. As consumer confidence increases you will see new investors come into the market to find the deals.” If she’s right about that, then things are looking up for experienced foreclosure investors looking for a deal.