When is the Real Estate Market going to turn around?

Some experts say that the housing market will not turn around until late in 2011.

One thing for sure is that there is a lot of profit to be made in foreclosures. Either buying foreclosures to hold (which I have done many times) , selling foreclosures as a professional (the commission is often double, I did this thousands of times) or buying foreclosures to live in with your family (I haven’t done that…yet).

The positive side of foreclosures is that the word has never

been in the collective conscience of the American home buyer to this degree ever before. I mean if CNN and the other news channels did as much to promote Coca-Cola as they do promoting foreclosures it would cost Billions!

So the bad news is actually good news if you use it to your advantage. With quadruple the homes going into foreclosure; there are a lot of opportunities to be had, especially when the home buying market is weak. If you have cash, can get some cash or can borrow some cash….buy.

A friend of mine is buying houses every week or so at 30 to 45 cents on the dollar. Even if he just resells them at 65 cents on the dollar he makes a tidy sum.

I personally hate to sell assets, especially during a weak market, but if you have access to only a little money and don’t have the ability to borrow, a little can become a lot just by buying and selling and repeating the process.
I have had a lot of success selling HUD foreclosures.

There is nothing better than selling a home and being paid double commission. I mean why would I do anything else?

HUD pays up to 5% commission and so does the VA so selling a house pays more and as far as I am concerned they are easier, which means I can sell more of them.

In short, no one knows when the market is going to turn around. But not knowing should not stop you from acting. It hasn’t stopped me or my friends.

Search free foreclosure listings to find foreclosures for sale near you.

HUD Foreclosures

HUD foreclosures and VA Foreclosures are some of the best homes to buy when price is part of the equation. As with most Americans, price is always a concern. If not buying the same house for less, why not buy more house for the same dollar invested? When looking for a good deal it is hard to do better than the VA or HUD foreclosures market. The simple truth is that there are just more VA and HUD homes on the market, as they represent such a large number of mortgages that are generated each year. This translates into more foreclosures just by the magnitude of difference between all others comparing to the two largest.

The two largest also being government owned and operated means that they have less time to wait to make money back on the home. The FHA is especially known for selling HUD homes for less than the average sales price in a given area. FHA foreclosures represent a fraction of HUD but they are still a significant number of homes and both should be considered.

VA (Veterans Administration) and HUD (Housing and Urban Development) have different and unique opportunities for the buyer. Both are often forgiven for the local taxes normally associated with the purchase of a home (this is on a county by county basis). Be sure to ask the local title company or escrow company to look into it for you before closing as this is often missed due to their are not used to dealing with the 2 to 3 percent of the market that VA and HUD foreclosures represent.

Foreclosure Listings Increasing

As the market settled after the mortgage meltdown foreclosure listings also settled and fewer homes were on the market with a placard reading “Bank Foreclosure” in big red lettering. This was a good thing for the entire real estate market. Having an abundance of foreclosures brings the entire market down and it makes it harder for home owners, who would like to move, to get the appropriate price for their home as a similar home down the same street was sold for substantially less and the appraiser is using the foreclosure as a comparable sale.

This is just one of the problems when there are too many foreclosure listings in any area. Another issue is the television set that sits in everyone’s living room harping about the price of homes based on the number of foreclosures and this constant barrage of negative information makes most people sit on the sidelines waiting for the market to either implode completely or to correct itself. Meanwhile while they wait, others are buying foreclosure listings and making great investments.

Whatever the reason, a market can only handle so many foreclosure listings at any given time. The more foreclosures, the lower the market gets and this is a lesson the banks that were foreclosing and selling off realized too late. The market and their investments would have been better off if there had not been a rush to divest themselves of the toxic assets made more toxic by their own actions.