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Posted June 21, 2006 9:28:00 PM
Recent Posts
Foreclosure Investing Opportunities
Over the past three years there has been a frenzy of "Fix and Flip" investors who were making a lot of money with little or no knowledge. I believe were entering a market where the committed, knowledgeable investors will be able to make money, but because appreciation has slowed (about 3% last quarter in Arizona) or even retarced in some markets, you won't be able to "just buy anything" and turn a profit. There's still a lot of money to be made, but you'll have to do your research and buy right.
Recipe for Disaster: Spending more than we make!
For the past Eight Months, Americans have been spending more money than they have been earning. We've had a few very good years in real estate and a few good years in the market of late; if we become used to spending more than we make and real estate values decline and the market retraces...what happens?
Fair warning then (You and I), the ecomony goes well for a while and goes into recession for a while. If the spending continues, rising interest rates and tightening credit standards will favor folks with Cash (and positive cash-flow) as they will be able to pick up some real estate bargains in the near future.
Here's a little quote from the latetst BEA News release.
The entire release can be found at http://www.bea.gov/bea/newsrel/pinewsrelease.htm.
"Personal saving -- DPI less personal outlays -- was a negative $146.8 billion in April, compared with a negative $128.2 billion in March. Personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income was a negative 1.6 percent in April, compared with a negative 1.4 percent in March.
Negative personal saving reflects personal outlays that exceed disposable personal income. Saving from current income may be near zero or negative when outlays are financed by borrowing (including borrowing financed through credit cards or home equity loans), by selling investments or other assets, or by using savings from previous periods."
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Posted May 27, 2006 5:03:00 PM
Zillow.com for Comps? For Free??
I've been Zillowing and Zestimating the past couple of days (don't tell my wife, she thinks I'm working!) and like it or not, this new site has created quite a buzz, and it's PRETTY COOL!
Until very recently, estimating home values by accessing to county records, title plants and home sales numbers has been a mystery to the general consumer. And for many of us, access to the data has either been costly or difficult to obtain as the info has been closely held by the companies that compile it...but not now, it's on the internet and it's FREE at www.zillow.com.
Not only FREE, but Whew, I didn't even have to give them my email address to get the data. (but I'm sure they're tracking some sort of data on my visits through my IP address and the pages I access). Here's the preliminary results:
The maps are fast and highly useable. The data is fairly fresh (for my searches in Maricopa Cty AZ). The Zestimate tools will take a novice some time to read the text on accuracy and how to use them, but give a fairly accurate value if you know how to interpret the comps.
I compared www.Zillow.com, www.HomeGain.com, www.gotitle.com, and cais.netvaluecentral.com (they compile data for Maricopa) on two properties. The data from GoTitle and Net Value Central had the latest comps, with Net value having one more recent sale than GoTitle (1/17/2005). Zillow was only current through November and the Homegain comps were totally out of date (most more than 6 months old). Net Value had the house value at $478,000, Zillow at $415,000, GoTitle had a range with $447,000 as the average and Homegain was way low because of the comp dates. The house is probably worth (whatever someone will pay), but realistically would move quickly at $450,000 or so. Of course, this info doesn't substitute for a Certified Appraisal, but will give you a pretty good ballpark if you pick the correct comps.
One thing I did like though, they Zestimated my house on the high side!
And, if Past Performance can Predict Future Success, the brains and brawn behind Zillow are from Expedia fame (the travel website) and have raised a boatload of cash to get going.
Check it out..and Post your comments here to let everyone know you thoughts and experiences with www.zillow.com!
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Posted February 13, 2006 8:14:00 PM
U.S. TREASURY SEIZED REAL ESTATE SOLD AT AUCTION
Enhancing the Way We Do Business
A few weeks ago I attended the Inman Real Estate News Conference "Strategies for a Changing Market" in
One internet tool seems to be gaining phenomenal popularity. It gives us the ability to target broad or very small and specific geographic and/or psycho-graphic areas with little or no money-it's called "Blogging".
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Posted February 1, 2006 8:19:00 AM
