1. First of all, it's the best time to take advantage of the market and buy an investment property in Orlando.  Interest rates are still at historically levels, Orlando home prices have dropped dramatically, and there are over 15,000 homes to choose from in the Metro Orlando area.
2. Investment properties will be easy to rent.  Since over 5 million past home owners have either lost their homes to foreclosure or had to do a short sale to gracefully exit from home ownership, these people need homes in to live in.  And since they currently don't have the credit to purchase a home, their only option is to rent an Orlando home.  With this being said, the demand for Orlando rental properties will continue to increase which will allow the rental prices to increase as more renters enter the market.
3. If you have a five or even better ten year business plan on holding these properties, by the time you sell these Orlando investment properties the market value will be at a much higher level than they are now.
4. Here's an extra fourth reason for free.  If you are able to pay cash for these Orlando investment properties, you will be able to achieve a positive ROI immediately.

So if you have the cash to buy a distressed Orlando home, you will be able to find a renter for it and achieve a positive ROI immediately.  And when you decide to sell that Orlando investment property in five to ten years, the market value on that investment property will be much higher than what you bought it for today.  Sounds like a pretty good business decision to me!  How about you?

For help in finding these distressed Orlando investment properties before, give us a call at 1-888-568-6637.  We are your Orlando distressed sales specialist and we are able to find these properties before anyone else.

• Foreclosures will not peak until 2012.
• This year we will saw about 3.2 million home owners receive a foreclosure notice. This is a record and up from 2.8 million a year ago.
• Will also saw about 1.2 million bank reposessions this year.  This is also a record and up from 900,000 a year ago.
• There are currently 5 million seriously deliquent loans which are currently not in foreclosure (shadow inventory) and these homes will enter the pipeline over the next 18 months.
• In 2012 we will see continued levels of foreclosure activity although the numbers SHOULD get better as the year progresses.
• In 2013 we SHOULD get back to normal foreclosure activity on a monthly basis.  However there will still be an inventory of one million foreclosured homes which would still need to be absorbed into the market.

Based on these numbers depening we may not see a stabilization of prices until the middle or end of 2013.  They also both fel that the best way to improve these numbers is for more jobs to be created.

Something else I found interesting is that they thought the low end of the market (lower priced properties) may have already bottomed out, however the higher end of the market may still have some room to drop.  This makes sense because when you think about it, how low can a condo actually sell for?  You can't pay someone to start taking these properties.

They also mentioned that there will be a problem in the move up market.  Over the past couple of years 6 million potential buyers have been wiped out by either doing a short sale or a foreclosure on their homes.  Their credit has been shot and they won't be able to buy another home for the next 5 to 7 years. They mentioned that they think that the government may step in and give a mulligan for these past homeowners because if they don't where are the move up buyers going to come from?.  Time will tell!

In Orlando, we continue to see 65% to 70% of all homes being sold as distressed sales (Orlando bank owned homes or short sales).  Since a large majority of homes which are currently on the Orlando real estate market are distressed sales this trend will continue.

What we are starting to find is that some markets are started to "over-correct"!  This occurs when the pricing of homes actually falls below the "equilibrium home price" for a market.  The equilibrium home price takes into account local demographic information such as income, job growth, and housing affordability, to determine where prices should be sitting based on what the local market conditions can sustain.

But according to Local Market Monitor, a real estate forecasting and risk assessment firm, the 10 most undervalued housing markets in the United States and the percentage by which they are undervalued are:

1. Merced, California: 32%
2. Las Vegas-Paradise, Nevada: 27%
3. Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood, Texas: 25%
4. Akron, Ohio: 22%
5. Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, Ohio: 21%
6. Warren-Troy-Farmington Hills, Michigan: 21%
7. Mansfield, Ohio: 20%
8. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas: 20%
9. Reno-Sparks, Nevada: 20%
10. Stockton, California: 19%

With all of the price declines we have had in our market, I'm personally suprised that Orlando was not on the top ten list.  In either case, it's a great time to take advantage of the market and buy a house!

The name of the game in a declining market is to sell your house before your neighbors do because if you don't, you will help them sell their house.  I'm not talking about giving your house away however I'm talking about pricing your house  well enough so that it shows value to the market place.  The worst thing you can do is to price your house too high and continue to follow the market down as it drops. 

I can go into MLS and pull down any neighborhood and clearly show you from the acctive listings which homes are following the market.  They all started at a price above market value and since then have continued to have multiple price drops with no success.  In order to get your house sold in today's real estate market in Orlando is to price it ahead of the market!  You will sell it faster and get more money from it than following the market and selling your house in six months for a lot less!

The key to getting your house priced appropriately is to speak with a full time professional REALTOR who is very knowledgable of the local market and has the expertise to get your home sold. 

San Jose, Calif., recorded the highest median price -- $628,700 -- during the quarter, just nosing out Honolulu at $628,100.  Youngstown, Ohio, the old steel town, had the lowest median sale price, at $60,400.  Condo prices fared worse than those of single-family houses. The national median fell 3.9% from 12 months earlier to $171,400.  Palm Bay, Fla., had the biggest year-over-year loss: down 32% to $73,000; Jacksonville. Fla., was off 31% to $63,200. Phoenix condo prices also plunged, down 26.6% to $73,300.  Condo prices in the New York metro area soared, up 34.5% to $400,000, the most, by far, of any city.

More broadly, the revelations about the sloppy paperwork are emboldening homeowners and law enforcement officials in many states to question whether lenders rightfully hold the notes underlying foreclosed properties — further chilling the housing market.  Distressed properties, many of which are in foreclosure, make up about a third of all home sales. “Foreclosures are going to slow to a crawl,” said Guy D. Cecala, publisher of the trade magazine Inside Mortgage Finance.  Of the 23 states where foreclosures need court approval, Florida has by far the most trouble — about a half-million cases clog its courts — and the moratoriums are having a noticeable effect.  Because most lenders sold their mortgages to Fannie Mae, it is largely that company that has been sending e-mails to real estate agents about putting off deals and removing houses from the market.

Foreclosures grew by 4% month-over-month.  Shadow inventory is inevitably growing and affecting the market already hit hard by high levels of distressed mortgages, such as Stockton, Calif. and Orlando, Fla., which have an excess supply of inventory already. According to John Burns' data, the two cities have a 27 shadow months supply of homes, 22,344 and 81,309 homes, respectively.  CoreLogic reported that national home prices in July remained steady, but existing home sales decreased 2.6% in August compared to July, according to the National Association of Realtors. New home sales dropped 12% over the same period.

Pending home sales fell another 2.6% in June from May after deteriorating 29.9% in May from April. According to Capital Economics, this will be reflected in existing home sales in the months to come. Existing home sales in June fell by 5.1%.  The housing market is currently experiencing an excess of inventory as Capital Economics reported an 11% homeowner and rental vacancy rate in the second quarter of 2010, a new record high. Capital Economics states, "relative to the rising trend of the last 30 years, that suggests around 0.6m [or 600,000] properties than normal are currently sitting empty."  Capital Economics also suggested that builders are adding to the excess supply, noting a 28% annualized jump in residential investment in Q210 alongside a 19% decline in housing starts from April to June (down 14.9% in May and 5% in June). All of these statistics in addition to macroeconomic conditions is what economists at Moody's believe are hindering economic recovery.  "We expect  real GDP to advance nearly 3% this year, monthly payroll employment gains to average close to 125,000, and the unemployment rate to end the year back over 10%," Moody's reported. "With the economy slowly recovering, we expect home sales and residential construction to end up slightly stronger this year than last year while house prices will depreciate a bit more."

As part of a new strategic alliance, New York City-based ClearMarkets, LLC, —a technology-based real estate and

loan disposition company—announced Tuesday that it is partnering with the Keller Williams Global Property Solutions Group —the auction and short sales division of Austin, Texas-based Keller Williams Realty.

Through this partnership, ClearMarkets will gain access to Keller Williams’ network of certified residential and commercial agents and brokers. In return, these agents will be trained by Keller Williams on ClearMarkets’ technology and expertise for transparent bid management, asset sales and marketing, as well as reporting.

“We believe the low conversion rate is a combination of two issues: borrowers failed to provide the documents they promised, and the rate reduction and principal forbearance used under HAMP were not enough to motivate severely underwater borrowers to start paying again,” Moody’s analysts wrote in their report. Moody’s notes that the 56 percent of HAMP modifications, has been on GSE-held loans, as expected. However, more than a third, 35 percent, occurred in the non-GSE or “private-label” sector. “So far we assume that modifications will lower losses on pools backing private-label securities by approximately 5 percent,” they wrote in the report.

Keep up the great work!

http://www.orlandomagazine.com/Orlando-Magazine/June-2010/Real-Estates-Hot-100/

Paperwork has caused all sorts of problems for the president's signature foreclosure rescue program. In order to get the effort off the ground quickly, administration officials allowed servicers to place people in trial modifications before verifying that they were indeed eligible for the program.  Many homeowners have been stuck in trial modifications for months and months while they wrestle with servicers over the documentation requirements. The financial institutions say that borrowers aren't sending in the needed forms; homeowners contend the servicers are losing them.  Many loans didn't require much documentation when they were originated, which makes gathering the paperwork during the modification process that much more difficult, said Paul Koches, executive vice president at Ocwen.  The pace of people entering trial modifications has already slowed as servicers have started requiring the paperwork in advance. Only 47,160 trials were started in April, down from more tha n 72,000 in February.  Among the documents Chase and other servicers require are hardship affidavits, two recent pay stubs, a bank statement, a tax return, proof of occupancy and a 4506T-EZ form.

Article provided by DSNEWS.com

The foreclosure tide is still rising. RealtyTrac reported Thursday that foreclosure filings were brought against nearly one million properties during the first threemonths of 2010. That’s a seven percent increase from the previous quarter, 16 percent higher than a year ago, and equates to one in every 138 homes in the United States.

Altogether, foreclosure filings – including default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions – were reported on 932,234 properties from January to March of 2010. According to RealtyTrac, the number of scheduled auctions and bank repossessions hit new quarterly records.

All foreclosure types spiked in March. Filings were reported on 367,056 properties last month, an increase of nearly 19 percent from the previous month and the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005.

“Foreclosure activity in the first quarter of 2010 followed a very similar pattern to what we saw in the first quarter of 2009: a shallow trough in January and February followed by a substantial spike in March,” explained James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac’s CEO. “One difference, however, is that the increases were more tilted toward the final stage of foreclosure,” with REOs increasing in the first quarter of this year, compared to a decrease during the same period last year, he said.

“This subtle shift in the numbers pushed REOs to the highest quarterly total we’ve ever seen in our report and may be further evidence that lenders are starting to make a dent in the backlog of distressed inventory that has built up over the last year as foreclosure prevention programs

“Keller Williams Realty has shown that their model can adapt to any market, which was one of the driving forces in my decision,” said Rothchild, who has left Re/Max after 20 years as a franchisee. “I have been researching and contemplating for more than two years, and I discovered that I needed to reinvent my business to revitalize it. We were implementing some of the same philosophies and mirroring the Keller Williams system, so finally, one day we said…why reinvent the wheel? And, the answer was clear.”

Rothchild added, “KW’s philosophy of putting agents and ownership on the same side of the table and training on the most critical issues facing us in today’s market were also incredibly important to us.”

“We are thrilled to be in business with a talent like Joe. For the last 15 years, Joe has been one of the top 10 teams in Re/Max, and was number one worldwide for three years in a row! When a top franchisee from one of our competitors chooses to join us, we consider it a true honor and confirmation that we have unbelievable momentum behind our growth,” said Mark Willis, CEO of Keller Williams Realty.

Many of Rothchild’s current associates will be joining him at the Keller Williams Signature office. Among them, Dale Ross, an industry veteran with 29-years of experience under his belt, 25 of which have been with Re/Max. “When I factored in the Keller Williams Realty systems, training and support, and realized it was the place I needed to be,” said Ross.

This announcement comes on the heels of a year of positive growth for Keller Williams Realty throughout the U.S. and Canada. The company outpaced the downward trend in the real estate market and grew in every category – opening 30 new franchises, ending the year with a 16 percent year-over-year increase in the number of contracts closed per agent and more than 76,879 associates across North America (up three percent). In addition, the company gave back more than $32.2 million in profit share to its agents.

In addition to recently becoming the 3rd largest real estate company in the U.S., surpassing Re/Max, according to Steve Murray at REAL Trends, Keller Williams Realty received the highest overall satisfaction ratings from home buyers among the largest full-service real estate firms from J.D. Power and Associates for the second year in a row, and was ranked as the No. 1 real estate franchise on the 31st Annual Franchise 500 list by Entrepreneur magazine.

The Federal Reserve’s role as buttress, crutch, and benefactor of the nation’s mortgage debt market came to an end Wednesday. Since November 2008, the central bank has been the market’s No. 1 patron, buying up $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae.

There’s been chatter that the Fed’s exit could leave a gaping hole in the secondary market for mortgage bonds, causing interest rates for home loans to spike and buyer demand to dwindle. But the central bank has been prepping the market for its absence for some time now in the hopes of diminishing such effects, and has indicated that it will be keeping a close eye on market reactions, hinting that it could step back in if conditions begin to falter.

Most market observers, though, are predicting that won’t be necessary. It appears that private investors’ appetites for agencies’ mortgage bonds are piquing. Analysts are

In its 12-month home price forecast issued Wednesday, Veros Real Estate Solutions said it had “continued bad news for Florida.” Markets in the Sunshine State claimed

the top five spots on the collateral valuation company’s list of areas where prices are expected to drop the most over the next year.

The Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach market has the farthest to fall when it comes to price depreciation. There, Veros projects prices will plunge another 10 percent between now and March 2011.

In Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, the forecast is a decline of 8.9 percent. Naples-Marco Island will likely see prices drop another 8.8 percent, Veros says. The company expects Orlando-Kissimmee to suffer price depreciations of 8.7 percent over the next year. And Port St. Lucie-Fort Pierce is projected to see a decline of 8.6 percent.

Eric Fox, Veros’ VP of statistical and economic modeling, said, “Florida remains ground zero for the weakest home price forecasts in the U.S. although extreme declines of 20 or 25 percent are no longer expected since strong price corrections have already occurred.”

This program is about to expire!  In order to take advantage of the home buyer credit you must have a contract on a property by April 30, 2010 and it has to close within 2 months.  Now some may think that the government will extend this program again like they did just five months ago, however many of the talking heads disagree.  The main reason the goverment expanded the program in November was to help the housing industry make it through the seasonal slow months until the traditional high months started.  Traditionally, the peak season for real estate is from April through August.  Since the tax credit expires at the end of April, don't expect them to extend it again.

So if you are thinking about upgrading your house or are ready to by your first home, GET OFF OF THE FENCE AND DO IT NOW and let us help you do it.  All of our Buyer Specialist are thoroughly trained on all of the goverment programs which are avialable to our buyers.  They also only work with buyers and know the market better than anyone else because they see over 100 homes per month.  Once they get in their mind of what you are looking for, they can bring you to it faster than anyone else and isn't that what you are looking for.

Start off with our FREE list of Bank Owned Homes with pictures.