if your gonna be looking for a place to live, the market price shouldn't matter to you.

 

Surprisingly, realtors have all those listings as do banks who did the foreclosing. But basically, just go to any local realtor and they should be able to pull those up. I know that I can through either my mom or my close friend. Now for homes in the process of foreclosing, I'm not sure if that data is available to realtors.

 

I don't think it's a good idea to flip right now. There's other ways to invest such a large amount of money (whether it be cash or a large loan). Interest rates aren't good, houses aren't selling, and prices are dropping. If you were to live in a home for more than 5 years though, it'd be worth it. Basically just what everyone else said.

 

Southern California is not the place to buy a house right now. House prices have hit near-record highs, even though the rest of the country is low. Haven't you noticed that a bunch of apartment complexes are doing very basic rennovations and then listing themselves as "new" condos? It's because renters win in the current market, and buyers are paying way more than they should. The apartments-turned-condos will probably never be worth as much later as they are now, so they're taking advantage of that. That should tell you something about the house market. House values aren't going to get much better than they are now, unless you want to calculate in the value of the dollar increasing over the next thirty years (hopefully, huh?).

Example: my mother's house was purchased in 2001 for 600k. It's current value is 1.3M. Last year 1.2M. If it drops below 1.1M again, she'll be selling. There won't be a better time.

Why do you think there are so many loan officers these days? Most of them work off of strict commission, with little to (usually) no base pay. But nobody's buying houses because they're too damn expensive. The logical choice? Get all the free help you can get: "hire" a bunch of loan officers to run around trying to find the very few people who ARE looking to buy.

 

Houses cheaper than cars in Detroit

"Dave Webb, principal at Hudson & Marshall, said Michigan had become a "heavy volume" market for his auction firm in recent years, although bigger-money deals were waiting in California, a market he said was ready for the first such auctions of repossessed property in years."

 

Okay as a Real Estate Investor I can tell you that there are two markets. Well pretty much anybody can tell you this.

1. Sellers Market
2. Buyers Market

Right now it is a Buyers Market, BUY A HOUSE NOW~! You can get the house or condo that you WANT and at the price you WANT and the sellers will even pay your closing costs which will save you anywhere between 10-20k maybe even more depending on the price of the property. Even builders are making crazy deals and giving incentives. Don't be scared to buy now, the market might drop a little, but in California the market NEVER drops that much.

Statistics prove that in California EVERY house doubles EVERY 10.2 years.

Good luck with your purchase~!

 

When I sold my last house, offers came in at or above the asking
price. Mind you, this was in 2000. If people offer below, they'll get
beat out by other bidders (unless the house has been on the market
for a long time)...

 

I totally think it's worth it to buy... Even if prices drop short-term, real estate
is usually a good bet. Good neighborhood, convenient shopping, etc, all
help, of course. My house more than doubled in 6 years. Of course,
YMMV, but... I'd go for it--I'm thinking of doing the same--getting a
home equity loan and buying another house or something... Hmmm...

 

Timing the market ain't easy, be it stocks or real estate. Wife and I bought our homes and condos in the summer of 96. Did pretty F'en well. We sold a few of the condos last year , call it luck. Bought most of the condos in 96 in South Orange County for 50 to 70K. Rented them out for ten years. Renters paid off the mortgages, sweet deal.

Remember buying a home is a business, no place for emotions. Do your homework, be wary of people in the Real Estate industry (they are not your friends), negotiate everything.

 

That's right! when they give you prices for escrow, inspection, title, origination, doc prep, etc. etc. they're opening negotiations. Most people just go, "oh, OK..." sign the form, and pay the asking price.
Don't!
Everything's negotiable. Even if they say "we have to charge that." BS, negotiate everything. (even RE comission, for example the last place I sold, I found the buyer through a work BB, so I got half of my realtors comission)


dinnyin