Dip in National Foreclosures May Signal Rise in Real Estate Fortunes
An MBA survey shows that foreclosures at a national level may be beginning to get better, says Jeff Adams.
When the Mortgage Bankers’ Association (MBA) conducts a survey that covers over 44 million mortgage holders you can bet your bottom dollar that the results are more than worth pouring over.
The MBA did just that in 2007 seeking to analyze trends in the foreclosures market and predict what would happen next within real estate in the U.S., which also, looks at the state of the national economy.
Their findings were that nationally foreclosures had began to dip but locally in the states of California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona and unprecedented rise in foreclosures was pushing the national figures upwards and, also, threatening the economic viability of local communities in those states.
This perfectly illustrates my point that foreclosures, when handled properly and as long as they remain within the expected percentage of home buyers we experience normally, are a means that helps revitalize the economy both locally and nationally by making sure that neighborhoods are not blighted by empty properties which attract vandals.
Foreclosures in that context (and by association the work of real estate investors who deal in foreclosures) is exactly the kind of property-development vehicle you need to have in place to forestall potential gridlocks in properties where the owners have either left or are unable to meet their mortgage obligations.
Before we got into the subprime mortgage lending crisis which was caused precisely because there was little regulation and absolutely no accountability foreclosures worked in exactly that way and often provided solutions which worked for all concerned, home owners, mortgage lenders and the real estate investor.
You might think, of course, that if foreclosures worked so well then having more of them is better, right? No, that’s dead wrong thinking. It’s like having two cups of coffee in the morning to help you get out of the front door in full alert mode and having ten. At ten cups of coffee you are so wired you can hardly function.
This is exactly what’s been happening with the flood of foreclosures we saw coming into the system during most of 2007. The MBA survey suggests that, barring a few states where a lot of work may have to be done, the trend of excessive foreclosures may be coming to an end, which means that as we get into 2008 the real estate market will start its upswing again.
Supply and demand, which has dwindled, will pick up. Realtors will see more houses coming into the market and will move stock off their books a lot faster. Real Estate Investors will again be able to find work to find solutions that benefit not just themselves but the local communities they trade in.
Jeff Adams
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