The influx of real estate investors over the past 9 years has sadly created a huge volume of foreclosures, mainly due to banks allowing novice investors to overextend themselves (both fueled by greed in many cases.) It has also created lots of opportunities in the niche real estate markets dealing with short sales and foreclosures, leading people to believe that these are new problems in the real estate marketing. Foreclosures have been around ever since real estate lending has been around because the rules have always stated “if you pay, you stay, if you say no, you go.”
Of course, much has changed over the past several years in the real estate markets as a result of all of the turmoil. Banks tightened up their requirements for quite some time, but now I see them loosening again. That’s not to say you can easily find 100% investor financing (as you could just a few years back) but it’s always a great time to buy and now in many parts of the county is even a better time to buy because prices are coming back up. Here is sunny Arizona (where I first came to invest in real estate), prices are definitely on the rise and the old school tactics of multiple offers on properties are now becoming more and more common.
If you are looking to buy a foreclosure, my closing advice it treat slowly, do your due diligence, and next trust a deal that seems too good to be true; it’s not!
