Strategies for Purchasing Foreclosed Homes

By: Jacquelyn Marks

Buying a foreclosed home, or even a new home is a significant investment that requires careful, strategic planning. This is not only because of the large amount of money involved in one single purchase, your choice and decision will affect your whole family’s life and lifestyle. After all, you will be staying in that newly purchased home for several years or even decades.

The great news is, with the decline of housing market, you can take advantage of some serious money-saving opportunities by choosing a foreclosed home. In fact, if you take time and conduct a thorough search, you can find foreclosed properties that are 30% to 50% below its market value.

The main concern that you probably share with other potential buyers is not everyone are adept in facilitating foreclosure deals and general real estate purchases for that matter. That is understandable since it’s not every day we purchase a house, right? Therefore, here are some practical tips to get started on the right path.

1. Prepare your resource. If you want to get the best deal, then take time to prepare all possible resources that you may need to achieve this goal. Start with securing foreclosure listings on your target area or location. You will also need to compile all possible documents you will need to transact and finalize a purchase for a foreclosed home for sale.
2. Find Reliable Source for Foreclosure Listings. Take advantage of the Internet to check out foreclosure listings and their respective providers instead on poring on those printed listings. To help you narrow down your options, take time to read online reviews to determine where to best derive your foreclosure data.
3. Contemplate on whether you require a real estate agent. If this is your first time to purchase a residential property, it is probably a good idea to seek the services of your local real estate agent to guide you through the ropes. While this might mean an additional expense, getting an agent will open up foreclosure opportunities that otherwise, you will not be able to get your hands on by yourself.
4. Create a checklist. List down the attributes and important considerations you and your family require when purchasing a home. This will guide you all throughout your selection process. And with the help of your real estate agent, it will be easier to narrow down the search and save time by providing specific criteria of what you are looking for.
5. Narrow your focus. When sifting through your foreclosure listings, you may be overwhelmed with the number of possible choices. What you can do to narrow down your search is to highlight the properties that caught your eyes and call the trustee to check if the foreclosure properties on your listings are still available.

You will see these are simple, yet very practical tips that you can use for your foreclosure property search. If you have been planning for months but still have not gotten around accomplishing the first step, take a peek on the great saving opportunities available today. You will soon realize that there are a few foreclosure properties that are just too good to pass up.

Author Resource:-> Foreclosure.com is the leading resource website for all distressed property listings.

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Are you thinking about renting?

Are you thinking about renting? Now it is cheaper to buy a two-bedroom home than to rent one in most major U.S. cities. According to real estate web site Trulia, buying was cheaper than renting in 74% of the country’s 50 largest cities in July.



In just 12% of the cities, including New York, Seattle and San Francisco, renting was cheaper. In the remaining 14% of cities, renting was less expensive but close to the cost of buying. In addition to a continuing decline in home prices, rock-bottom interest rates have added a lot of weight to the buy side of the scale. The overnight average rate for a 30-year fixed was just 4.19% on Monday, according to Bankrate.com. A 15-year fixed averaged just 3.43%.

The median price of a two-bedroom, two-bath condo or townhouse is about $60,000, according to Trulia, a ratio of only six times the median annual rent if you plan on renting of a similar rental apartment, which is $9,700.

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Declines in West Coast Foreclosure Starts

The November 2010 Foreclosure Report by ForeclosureRadar shows that though there has been no major drop in delinquencies in the West Coast states of Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, foreclosure starts have fallen to 2008 levels, continuing their two month decline. The company’s report deduces that the drop in foreclosures is due to robo-signing issues and the moratoriums that followed the controversy. Notice of default filings were down 9.3% month-over-month in California and notice of sale filings dropped a stunning 31.7% in Washington. The San Francisco, California-based ForeclosureRadar reports that starts in its five-state coverage area have dropped 25.5% since the robo-signing storm began.

In Arizona, notice of trustee sale filings dropped 24.4%, to the lowest level seen since March 2008. Foreclosure sales were down 14.8 from October to November and experienced a 26.9% drop in September to October. Sales have not been so low in Arizona since September 2009. California a 8.5% decline in cancellations of foreclosure sales, down a total of 54% from the June peak. The state also saw a 1% drop in notice of trustee filings, and a 9% drop in foreclosure sales. Foreclosure activity in Nevada experienced steep deterioration, with foreclosure sales down 22.1% from October to November and 50.5% from September to October. Notice of default filings dropped to 12.7%. Notice of default filings for Oregon decreased 25% from October to November. Notice of trustee sale filings decreased 26.7%. In one of the only increases reported, Oregon experienced a 34.8% increase in cancellations of foreclosure sales. Washington’s of trustee sale filings lowered 31.7% from October, but remain higher than November of 2009. Foreclosure sales also dropped to 38.1% but are up 29.3% from November 2009.

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Mortgage Rates Hit Another Record Low

The national, 30-year fixed-mortgage rate (FRM) slightly decreased from a week earlier, setting a new record low average of 4.26%, according to the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace weekly update. This is down 0.03% from last week and 0.02% below the previous record low. Regionally, 30-year rates vary, but the majority of states witnessed a deflation. Most large states saw a decline in rates: California’s current rate of 4.28% is down from 4.3% last week; Texas’ at 4.23% is down from 4.28%, and Massachusetts’ at 4.26% is down from 4.27%.

Rates substantially decreased in New York to 4.24% from 4.31% and New Jersey to 4.19% from 4.27%. Rates increased in Washington to 4.33% from 4.29% as well as Colorado, up to 4.3% from 4.17%. Rates remained flat in Florida and Pennsylvania at 4.2% and 4.37%, respectively. Zillow reported the national average rate for 15-year fixed home loans remained flat at 3.82%, while the rate for a 5-1 adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) is 3.29%. Zillow’s rates are based on real-time mortgage quotes from lenders registered with, but not exclusively bound to the company. The national average comes from thousands of daily quotes given to anonymous borrowers through their website. State averages are also available.

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Foreclosures fall — for now

According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings fell by 8% in November, making it the fourth consecutive month of improvement in the housing market. There were 306,627 filings last month, a decline that follows a 3% drop in October, 4% in September and 1% in August. “Loan modifications and other foreclosure prevention efforts, along with the recently extended and expanded homebuyer tax credit, are keeping a lid on the most visible symptoms of the nation’s ailing housing market-foreclosures and home value depreciation,” RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio said in a prepared statement. However, while there are signs of improvement, the industry has yet to turn around: Foreclosure filings were still 18% above November 2008′s levels.

RealtyTrac spokesman Rick Sharga isn’t convinced the decline is a natural outgrowth of improved market conditions. “I really don’t believe we’re looking at a trend that suggests the problem is going away,” he said. “Much of the drop was artificially induced.” RealtyTrac reported 76,701 homes were repossessed during the month, only a tad down from the 77,077 lost in October. For the year, there have been a total of 777,630 properties taken back by banks. The “sand states” – Nevada, Florida, California and Arizona-continued to amass the largest numbers of foreclosure filings with Nevada the hardest hit state of all. One of every 119 households had a filing in November, nearly four times the national average of one for every 417. Florida had one for every 165 households, California one for every 180, and Arizona one for every 186

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U.S. homeowners have lost about $5.9 trillion in value since the housing market’s peak in March 2006 as mounting foreclosures and the recession weighed on prices, according to Zillow.com.

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Almost half a trillion dollars was wiped out this year through November as housing headed for a third straight annual decline. New foreclosures and higher mortgage rates in 2010 may hinder a rebound, the property data service said today in a statement.

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The December 2009 National Real Estate Market Report, published by real-time real estate market data firm Altos Research, finds asking home prices declining in 25 of 26 metro markets. While lagging housing market indicators are just starting to report home price increases in the first half of the year, real-time data shows that prices have resumed their decline.

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With local residential real estate values on the rise again, Delaware is seeing a decline in the number of homeowners who owe more than their property is worth, which in turn could help stem foreclosures, market observers say.

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With local residential real estate values on the rise again, Delaware is seeing a decline in the number of homeowners who owe more than their property is worth, which in turn could help stem foreclosures, market observers say.

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