Invest in Foreclosures in Following Cities

Foreclosure Investing in appreciating areas

I was reading a very well researched article in MSN Money by Liz Pulliam Weston where she delved into the cities where investing in foreclosures might make more sense.

She details how certain factors including immigration rates effect foreclosure rates as well as housing market (i.e. housing inventory)

According to Ms. Weston, the following areas have the highest density of immigrant and offer great investment opportunity:

"...These so-called "established gateway cities" also have the largest populations of settled immigrants, and include:

* New York (where, in 2000, 24.4% of the population was foreign-born)
* Chicago (16%)
* Miami (40.2%)
* Los Angeles (30.9%)
* San Francisco (27%)
* San Diego (21.5%)

Of that group, only Chicago has failed to exceed the national rate of home-price appreciation in the past five years. Home prices have doubled in Los Angeles, San Diego and Miami, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, and are up 77% in New York and 65% in San Francisco. Prices in the Windy City are up 45%, compared to 50% growth nationwide."

Keep in mind that due to the high density, demand for housing and lack of inventory of reasonably priced homes in these area, foreclosure homes will also be more difficult to locate.

So it's a double edged sword.

Ms. Weston goes on to quote another source and conclude:

"Still, Painter found differences between the 1990 and 2000 Census records that indicate 14 cities are what he calls "emerging gateway cities" that are becoming the first or final destination of growing numbers of immigrants. These are:

* Atlanta
* Boston
* Dallas
* Denver
* Houston
* Las Vegas
* Orlando
* Philadelphia
* Phoenix
* Sacramento
* Seattle
* Tampa
* Washington, D.C./Baltimore
* West Palm Beach, Fla.

Residents in those cities could see home values start to gain more rapidly as their immigrant populations rise, Painter said. (The new gateways also could be particularly vulnerable if the United States should, for whatever reason, clamp down on the number of people entering the country.)"

filed under: foreclosure investing