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

Foreclosure Rates Increase by 72% in First Quarter

Foreclosure Rates Increase by 72% in First Quarter

According to Realty Trac, lenders started foreclosing on 1 out of 356 homes in the US!
This translates to about a 72% increase in foreclosures in the first quarter alone.

Foreclosures are tracked when they hit 90 days delinquent. This means a large number of the homeowners are starting to feel the crunch of increasing gasoline costs, bills and the increase in the adjustables rates resulting from Federal Reserve's continued rasing of the Fed Rates.

This is going to result in an abundance of foreclosed homes flooding the marketplace in the form of increased home listings by real estate agents as well as increased REO inventory by the banks.

Get a hold of a good lender, get yourself pre-approved for a loan and start researching the markets using many free foreclosure lists discussed in my blog.

But most importantly, don't get too excited and be careful when investing. The last thing you want to do is end up on the foreclosure lists yourself!

Good luck and happy investing.

filed under: foreclosure investing

Quickest Way To Make Money With Foreclosure Investing

Quickest Way To Make Money With Foreclosure Investing

I get asked this all the time and my answer is there is not quick way with foreclosure investing unless you want to lose your shirt!

Having said that, I'll give you guys and gals some of my methods of making money with foreclosures.

1- Recently I've had great success with finding deals and turning them into financing loans instead of a foreclores deal. This generates some referral fees to me ranging from $2,000 to $5,000 - More and more people know that they have equity in their homes and they won't sell it for the kind of prices I want to pay them. So instead, I'll see if they need a loan and chances are the do. So I Joint Venture a transaction and put the homeowner in touch with a loan agent and make a quick finder's fee.

2- I flip the deal in escrow/title before even closing it. This is good for short term profits but not so good for long term money. I average about $10K on a small house here in Los Angeles. That's not even owning the house! Please Note: depending on your state, you must place the right kinds of disclosures on the contract so to make the deal legal and correct. Otherwise, the seller/homeowner can back out of the deal.

3- I act as a bird-dog or finder of foreclosed proprties. I often come across deals that make sense on paper, but I have no interest in pursuing. For example commercial real estate too far from where I live. Or land that's not developed. For these, I have a long list of people who'll pay me a finder's fee ranging from $2,000 to $30,000 depending on the size and profit potential of the deal.

So you see, as long as you are looking and searching and talking to people, you'll come across deals that you can profit from.

Next week, I'll cover how to make money by stopping someone's house from foreclsoure.
Therefore, you stop the foreclosure and make money doing it.

files under: foreclosure investing