Sunday, November 11, 2007

Short Sales, Foreclosures, and More

The sheer number of foreclosures in our market place is staggering. Every day you see new listings come on the market with the "Corporate Owned" words in their description. When the real estate market cools down, the trickle down effect is amazing. So many other business's are affected. Construction comes to almost a complete stop. Why build new homes when there are hundreds of vacant homes to choose from for sale? And priced well below what it would cost to build in many cases. Other business's besides real estate sales that we see are being greatly affected are furniture sales, vacation planners, boat and car sales. People are just not spending the money on luxury items right now. Even appliance sales are down, because people are not replacing perfectly good appliances unless absolutely necessary. So of course, what you see happen is many people who are relying on their income from these fields are facing foreclosure when they can't meet their financial obligations. When a home is in a pre-foreclosure state, some lenders will accept less than what is owed on the mortgage as payment in full. This is what is referred to as a short sale. Although there is a lot of hype about the great deals in short sales, it is really not as easy as it may sound, especially if there is more than one lender involved. We have seen a recent slow down in the price reductions, so although we may not have hit rock bottom with the prices, I feel we are getting close. In the meantime, there are some great deals out there folks. If you are one of the fortunate people who have some disposable income, now is the time to buy!

1 comment:

Isn't Real Estate Confusing!? said...

I am amazed at this information on how to sell the home for lower than the mortgage. I did not know that was an option at one time and now I am learning so much about the short sale!