Foreclosure Listings Increasing

As the market settled after the mortgage meltdown, foreclosure listings also settled, and fewer homes were on the market with a placard reading "Bank Foreclosure" in big red lettering. This was a good thing for the entire real estate market. Having an abundance of foreclosures brings the entire market down, and it makes it difficult for home owners who would like to move to get the right price for their home. If a similar home down the same street is sold for substantially less and the appraiser uses the foreclosure as a comparable sale, this will negatively impact the appraised value of your home.

This is just one of the problems when there are too many foreclosure listings in any area. Another issue is the television set that sits in everyone's living room harping about the price of homes based on the number of foreclosures along with an abundance of negative information which makes most people sit on the sidelines waiting for the market to implode completely or to correct itself. Meanwhile, others are buying up the foreclosure listings and making great investments.

Whatever the reason, a market can only handle so many foreclosure listings at any given time. The market goes lower with each foreclosure listing, and this is a lesson that the banks realized too late. The market and their investments would have been better off if there had not been a rush to divest themselves of the toxic assets made more toxic by their own actions. Take advantage of the foreclosure market and search for your new home with our easy to use foreclosure search, or sign up for automatic notification emails. We will be happy to notify you when new foreclosure listings become available.

HUD Foreclosures

HUD foreclosures and VA foreclosures are some of the best homes to buy when price is part of the equation. As with most Americans, price is always a concern. If not buying the same house for less, why not buy more house for the same dollar invested? When looking for a good deal, it is hard to do better than the VA or HUD foreclosures market. The simple truth is that there are just more VA and HUD homes on the market as they represent such a large number of mortgages that are generated each year. This translates into more foreclosures just by the magnitude of difference between all others comparing to the two largest.

Since VA and HUD are both government-owned and operated, they have less time to wait to make money back on the sale of the home. FHA is especially known for selling HUD homes for less than the average sales price in a given area. FHA foreclosures represent only a fraction of HUD, but they are still a significant number of homes and both should be considered. 

VA and HUD have different and unique opportunities for the buyer. Both are often forgiven local taxes normally associated with the purchase of a home (this is on a county-by-count basis). Be sure to ask your title or escrow company to look into it for you before closing as this is often missed.