House Prices Continue to Drop
Well, I have not posted in a while as I have been waiting to see what is happening with house prices. In South Florida the prices just continue to drop, so I have not done anything further with my house search.
With the price of things here, I see this trend continuing. Gas is one thing, but everything else now is effected. I never thought I would see the economy in such bad shape. I have woken up to reality. I guess this is what it was like when Ronald Reagan came to his presidency. Unfortunately I do not see anything in these two candidates that will be helpful. I see ‘old’ and ‘untested’.
I am thinking of getting a Vino scooter. My only concern is that I will be risking my life here in Miami driving around the scooter. One person not paying attention or driving too fast in his Cadillac Escalade and I am history. Is it worth me risking my life to save a few bucks on gas?
Gwen
July 10th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
Spam on Website Blog
I have been busy working on the website look and feel and getting more properties listed therefore I have not had a chance to update the blog. I just logged in and was excited that I have over 420 comments! Only then did I realize not one of them was real. They were all spam. Why would people do this?
March 17th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
Realty Trac Properties on Trulia.com for Free
While on Trulia.com today I found a foreclosure home. After I clicked in to the property I found that it linked over to the foreclosure company Realty Trac. Then, I picked a bunch of properties on Realty Trac and found that they were all listed on Trulia for free.
Good tip, why sign up for another pay service, and these guys are the leaders, when you can get it all for free by going on to Trulia.
Thanks Trulia!
Gwen
February 28th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
New Look For My Website
Does anyone know of any nice, easy to use templates for my website, www.freeforeclosureblog.com?
I am really dissatisfied with the look and would appreciate some help from people that are better at design than me.
Thanks,
Gwen
February 19th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
Short Sales May Be Where To Find The Best Deals
I have been doing some good research over the past few days. I think this is something that will really help out those who are trying to get a deal on a foreclosure home.
After first investigating Short Sales it seems like it may have been over my head. There is a lot to them. I also realize in dealing with Short Sale negotiating with banks, they can take a lot of time. Short Sales are not a way to purchase and move in to a home quickly.
Let me try to explain this as simple as possible as most of the websites I have visited completely over complicate this. Negotiating Short Sales entails making a deal with someone prior to his house going under foreclosure. You get the house at this point which is considered preforeclosure. The owner knows his house is going to go to foreclosure because he can’t continue to pay for his mortgage for one reason or another. The bank also knows this homeowner is late on his payments and is waiting for the appropriate amount of days to file full foreclosure.
At this point, you can make a deal with the owner to buy his property from him at a rate under the value of his mortgage. After this is complete, you contact the bank and ask for a Short Sale Packet.
You complete this packet and in turn negotiate the house price which is often so many cents under the dollar of the mortgage. In these rough times, banks will oftentimes negotiate with you to get the house at about this rate. I have seen it mentioned that you can negotiate to around 70 cents per dollar. So if the mortgage is valued at $200,000, calculate $200,000 * .70 = $140,000. (Wouldn’t it be great getting a $200,000 house for $140,000!)
I hope I provided accurate information. If I did not, please comment at the bottom of this blog post and I will correct my errors.
I will also continue to blog about Short Sales in the upcoming days as I learn more about them.
Thanks for reading!
Gwen
February 19th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
No Pictures?
As I am learning about foreclosed homes, I am learning some good tricks on finding better properties. I showed a realtor my website yesterday. We were talking and I let her know how I was not too happy with my progress so far due to the poor looking quality of my website along with the lack of pictures for the homes.
She told me that this was actually great news. The banks and mortgage companies are desperate to sell their properties but they don’t even know how to. They just list them on their websites and wait for offers. Well, no offers are going to come. Their are no pictures, the houses are left in complete disarray. These properties are ripe to be sold for pennies on the dollar.
Your average person that visits real estate websites, wants to be spoon fed with pictures, full descriptions, video. When they see a complete lack of this, they just continue on in there search for something pretty.
Investors can come in and make a killing on these properties. She further explained that the banks will take ‘any reasonable’ offer at this point. Especially if you are the only one offering.
The downside is that this will take some time driving out to all of these properties and seeing how bad they are for the most part. But, if you only pick an area where you really want to live, it is completely doable to take a little time and effort to check them all. For someone like me, all I need is one deal.
February 17th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 2 Comments
A Lot Going On!
I have now added all reosource and fanniemae.com foreclosures on my website. The website is getting filled up with good lists of foreclosures. Be sure to check www.freeforeclosureblog.com as I am doing a lot of work to get all of the foreclosures I can get my hands on.
I do need some work on the design part of the site as it looks really plain and boring. I am starting to learn css to make the website look more web 2.0.
As for now, good luck home searching!
Gwen
February 16th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
Foreclosure Courses - Are They For Real?
I have been looking online and finding a bunch of foreclosure courses. There are so many it is hard to know what to do. Being inherently frugal, I would like to try a book first. But there are also many programs.
I am looking in to these programs and books, because at this point I am kind of lost. I am hearing all over the news of great deals, but only am finding really bad houses. Whenever I find a nice house, I check on Zillow and see the price is comparable to what Zillow is saying. How can that be considered a great deal?
Been a long day for me. Good night.
Gwen
February 11th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
NBC News - Foreclosures Lead to Abandoned Animals
I just saw a heart wrenching news broadcast on NBC. They reported on how foreclosures are leading to animals being abandoned. This is so sad to me. I love animals so much. I wish there was some way I can help them.
This story was about an animal sanctuary in Catskills NY, that takes in these pets. Some of the pot bellied pigs and goats running around were so cute.
It just hurts me so much when animals suffer.
Gwen
February 9th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
Foreclosures Are Boring
I need to spice up this subject. Speaking with some coworkers today, they all went ho-hum when I told them about my “new website”.
Katy from my office coined it, “Foreclosures are boring”.
Boring? How are they boring when you can get an awesome house for two thirds the price of a normal MLS house?
Yes it is boring to read about foreclosures foreclosures blah blah blah all day.
Yes it is boring to turn on the news and hear about foreclosure foreclosures blah blah blah all day.
NO it is NOT boring to get a deal on a dream house when I was desperate and panicked two years ago thinking I was stuck in my crummy rental community with loud and annoying neighbors for the REST OF MY LIFE!!!
February 7th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
