Foreclosure is just one of those areas. It was Robert Allen who said “More bargains are available in the area of foreclosures than in any other area of real estate.” (Multiple Streams of Income - p.157)
Some of you may know that one of the keys to making my first million in real estate was research and watching for economic trends of an area. For instance, in the early 2000s…I’ve never visited Las Vegas yet I fully moved there just for the real estate market!Fast forward to today, I do see great trends for a few areas and each area has a specific ‘real estate investing’ tactic required to create wealth for you. Let’s look at one trend some of you may know I’ve been watching for over a year now. That trend is the foreign investment in other countries and fractional real estate. My trip last fall to Ecuador to investigate in-depth with real estate developers the ‘lay of the land’ so to say of Ecuador real estate showed me that indeed, Ecuador is the where Costa Rica or Mexico was 10 years ago and I believe it is time to seriously consider buying real estate in Ecuador.
Now…let’s go to the ‘great sign’, just released today is a press release from Delta Airlines how they are adding more non-stop flights to Ecuador. You can read the press release by clicking here, and the interesting trend is that while airlines are closing or decreasing certain flight routes… here is a major airline investing into the routes to Ecuador!
Hope you enjoyed this post, Maria Gudelis
©PA / R. Naden
Now this post may seem odd on my site about real estate investing and using Web 2.0 to increase your profits but after watching such a thrilling match between two champions, Nadal and Federer, I just had to share a key thought.
You see, the one thing Nadal attributed to ‘Why he won’ was his repeated answer to the interviewers, “my positive attitude”. If anyone was lucky enough to see the epic match between two highly respected athletes, you would understand his answer as indeed, mindset is what can make or break a championship match.
The same applies to your life and how you live through each day in your entrepreneurial business. No matter what the challenge, a positive attitude wll make the difference for you!
Well - one may really ask that since we keep seeing real estate in the U.S. declining in value. I’ve seen just in the last two months, one home go down $20,000 in value. One of the key things hurting the values in a given neighbourhood are the short sales that then bring in the comparables down quite a bit.
For instance, if you see a home worth $300,000 and in the neighbourhood 2 short sales happened where the bank accepted an offer of $250,000 for a $300,000 worth home - they did so as they are motivated to get it off their books as no bank wants to keep a non-performing asset. So the downward spiral into Dantes’ inferno of real estate price declines keeps on going because the foreclosures are steadily increasing in this economic environment and the ‘teaser’ rate loans that are adjusting to ‘fixed’ rate, omg I can’t afford this mortgage payment anymore!
So what is real estate investor to do when the equity you think you may have might keep going down?
The key is to know what the demand is for property in that area and that is not as easy to discover as the supply of homes are. If you have a qualified buyers list wouldn’t that make you feel much safer in your real estate investments and take your risk out if you have a buyer before you even contract that property?
If that is of interest to you, check out how to get your real estate buyers’ list going by visiting virtual real estate investing and marketing system
Hi, Maria Gudelis here and I just had to blog about some shocking news - I’m not sure how to take it as I know in the real estate frenzy heyday, Countrywide would loan money to anyone with frankly, a pulse! However, I’m not a huge fan of blame and lawsuits flying around when everyone’s hand was in the cookie jar of greed!
An excerpt from the breaking news by Reuters:
“Florida sued mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp (CFC.N) on Monday for predatory lending practices, alleging the company at the center of the U.S. mortgage crisis made subprime loans to people who could not repay them.
The Florida attorney general filed the lawsuit, which names Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo as a defendant, in state court in Broward County, Florida.”
To see the entire article, click here.
Enjoy reading, Maria Gudelis
Dubai anyone? That is where the timeshare and fractional ‘players’ are going to but don’t forget the great deals to be made in the fractional real estate segment in great areas of the United States like California, Las Vegas, Florida and any sun or ski destination! [Read more]
Fractional real estate is a market segment along with timeshare segment of real estate is really a hot topic these days. During a recession, the timeshare market always does well as people who can no longer afford second home ownership turn to less expensive solutions. The fractional real estate concept has really evolved in recent years. [Read more]
Wow - do you know those bid full page ads you see of this major real estate auction with teasers of seeing $400,000 homes with a ’starting bid’ of only $120,000. That is a juicy deal so yes, crowds come rushing into the ‘event’ of the full day real estate auction being held in your area.
Well, guess one couple didn’t like the end-result of the deal they thought they won at auction…you can read the entire article about the filed lawsuit in the O.C. Register by clicking here. Below is an excerpt:
At an auction in Pomona in March, Juan and Laura Torres made the highest bid — $146,000 — for a Corona property, according to the suit. Ms. Torres believed she had opened escrow on the property after signing paperwork at the auction and agreed to pay a 5 percent “buyers premium,” bringing the total price to $153,300. However, 30 days later, she was told that “she would not be able to purchase the property unless she came up with $50,000 more money,” the suit says.
It amazed me the other day while I attended a real estate conference by Bill Gatten and Bruce Norris that a lot of folks did know the procedure in how to buy real estate at an auction that are put on my REDC - Real Estate Disposition Corporation and many other similar companies. You know the ones I’m talking about - they advertise huge full page ads in the newspapers with starting bids of home at something like 1/4 of the value of the home.
OK, so the first thing you need to do is simply call them to find out their purchase procedures. Yes - it really is that easy! Just tell them you are a real estate investor and you are interested in buying a property at their upcoming auction.
Here is how it worked at a recent auction I phoned about - they simply wanted a cashiers check for $5,000 initially for you to bid, and say if the winning bid was $200,000, then they wanted 5% within 24 hours - meaning I would have to bring in another 5% for a total of $10,000. Then they wanted you to close in 30 days. So you would need to either get a loan or use cash (private hard money lending for instance) within the 30 days to buy.
Sound pretty simple right? Well here is something else Bruce Norris said at the Bill Gatten / Norris conference - can you believe that the lenders are the ones that don’t have their ducks in a row and the closing sometimes goes way over the 30 days as they don’t have all the paperwork ready for you to close! Fancy that - a lender being swamped with paperwork! I’m just joking - we all know their is a mountain of paperwork lenders are facing in today’s foreclosure environment but just wanted to give you a heads up that you may have more time than 30 days to close and what that means, more time to find your retail buyer to flip that house to!
It seems the tide is turning to finally get great deals at the real estate auctions you see advertised for the last year by big companies like REDC and others. Just look in your local newspaper for that HUGE advertisement of a live real estate auction. As you know, I, Maria Gudelis am a huge fan of selling your real estate via an online real estate auction but I haven’t spent a lot of time at real estate auctions to buy real estate as they were not the best place to find deals over regular mailings, phoning fsbo’s and other marketing methods to get your deal. [Read more]
