March 18th, 2009 by Scott
Long has been the winter of our discontent. Well maybe things are changing. An article by Michael Kanell and Kevin Duffy in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports a 22% rise in new home starts. The activity was centered around multifamily construction but also saw a rise in single family homes. Discussions with several Realtors I have had in the Atlanta area shows some promise.
Chip Ivie is a realtor with Keller Williams Metro Atlanta and he is guardedly optimistic, “Spring is always the top selling season and this year is showing a spring thaw in activity, but we will have to see activity carry through summer to start thinking things are turning around.” Chip says, “The old advice is still the best, be priced right for the market, and make sure the home shows excellent, there are too many homes for sell and you have to make sure your’s stands out.”
Investors are beginning to asorb some of the foreclosures and distressed properties. On one hand this helps reduce inventory but on the other short or distressed sales prices drive down appraisals in the area. Investors are also facing problems with finding funding for purchase and rehabs of these properties which is leaving cash as king.
You can find the AJC article at http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/stories/2009/03/17/housing_starts_atlanta.html
Scott
atlanta, bank owned real estate, Chip Ivie, home buyers, home prices, home sales, home sellers, real estate investing, real estate market, scott farmer, shortsales, toxic assets
March 3rd, 2009 by Scott
Banks need to remove special assets (bank speak for collection or nonperforming loans) off the books to be able to get back to the business of banking. While removing these assets are easily talked about the transactions and how to go about it is a royal headache. In the 80’s and 90’s RTC (Resolution Trust Corporation) was formed by the government to buy toxic assets from the failed or failing Savings and Loans. This process served the needs fairly well, and there are signs that we may reinstate this type of program. Market Watch.com is reporting that last week FDIC sold a block of loans to a private investment group that ended up with a shared interest in the portfolio. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/FDIC-sells-15-billion-toxic/story.aspx?guid=%7BB08BA9AC-3B4F-490E-9B0F-789D14EE365C%7D
In true free market style two investors in NJ are taking there own approach to buying up some bank problems and converting them to opportunities. Raj Bahati and Albert Behin are rolling up their sleeves and finding profits from buying the mortgages in groups from the lenders. The catch is they must buy several loans at one time, but they are getting them for 40 cents on the dollar. These are Alt A loans that were not the worse of the worse but still were mostly no income verification loans. This approach buys the loan before it goes to foreclosure so this allows the investors a chance to be creative in how they deal with the homeowner allowing a lot of them to stay or at least humanizing the experience by having one on one dealings instead of the cold corporate special asset department. This post is based on a story ran on NPR. To hear the whole report
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101227971
bank owned real estate, Mortgage, real estate, real estate investing, RTC, shortsales, toxic assets
