See how the banks are manipulating the foreclosure market. You can use this information to buy foreclosures by timing your purchase.
May 23, 2008. The existing home sales came out today with an average loss of $1500 per month for the median US Home price over the last year. Most people have no conception how this is impacting their lives. If you had $200,000 in equity last year, you just lost 7% of your equity. In California, it was probably more. If you had sold your house last year and moved into a rental, you would have zero cost for living in the rental. If you had moved into 2 specific real estate purchases, you could have increased your capital and retained your mortgage deduction. You would actually be further ahead.
Losses in home equity will accelerate for the next year. If you become underwater in your present equity, you could be stuck in your present property for many years or have to come up with substantial separation money to preserve your credit rating.
The foreclosure bailout proposed by the congress is just window dressing in order to forestall a panic. What is going to happen is that this will only delay the panic, not forestall it. If you read the fine print, the lender has to agree to provisions of the bill. How likely is that?
What you see happening in the market today is that 25% of the sales are due to sale of foreclosed homes. Because of the banks holding back inventory, there are at least 4 bids for every sale.This will change shortly.
The subprime loans that are supposed to reset this summer,means that the house are really going to be back on the market by June 2009. The logic goes like this. The notice of reset for August 2008 have already gone out. In August , the owner of the subprime loan is going to do his/her best to make the payments. He will get a 2 or 3 job in some cases. Maybe his wife will too. In any case, the owner uses up his savings and cannot make the payments. This takes 2 months, on average.
The owner realizes it is impossible to continue and finally stops making the payment. His savings are exhausted, and now he has to acquire money to be able to move.He needs the mortgage payment to restore his savings, so he can move. Minimum average move is going to cost $5000 or more.
The lender now starts the foreclosure process. Sometimes the lender takes more than 6 months to prosecute the foreclosure.
Then there is another month or 2 in which to prepare the property for sale.

So, let’s see how this all adds up. 2 + 6 + 2 = 10. 10 months from August 2008 is June 2009.
So the majority of the resets will not even hit the market until June 2009. And the average length of time to sell this property will be 11 months, if not longer. So the minimum time for the market to hit the bottom will be after May 2010.
The average price decline, here in California, will be more than $2000 per month. If you invest in property today, you will lose almost all of your equity.

What no says today, is that the property that has an equity line of credit will also reset to a higher interest rate once the property falls below 110% of the initial loan amount. This is a huge overhang to the market, and could make these loans now subject to default.Who knows where this will end?
Based on this scenario, what is the best way to make money in real estate today?
Sell any real estate that you have, even into today’s declining market. Then wait for the turn in the market to buy back, better than ever. That time is more than 2 years away.
July 27, 2008 update:
As I write this, the senate just passed the foreclosure help bill. The immediate effect is to raise the interest rates on homes. Why? Because the lenders will now have to calculate how they are going to get a reasonable return on their money that they lend. They now have to include the cost of taking a writedown on their loan if the buyer defaults. The net effect of higher rates means that the price of the house has to go down if the buyer cannot increase his payment. In Stockton Calif., 1 house in 25 is now in foreclosure.

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