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Patrick Walsh
REALTOR®

    CNE: Certified Negotiation Expert
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Direct: (602) 369-3224



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Posts Tagged ‘foreclosure’

eBay for Serious Real Estate Investors?

Monday, June 14th, 2010

To serve a new wave of computer savvy real estate investors, an Arizona company, called Smart Arizona Foreclosures, has set up a website reminiscent of eBay, which offers online bidding for qualified cash buyers.  Now you can bid on bank owned residential properties without even leaving your home!  Sound too good to be true? We don’t think so.

My associates at Smart Arizona Foreclosures  have designed a streamlined website with a number of fail-safe devices (title search, photographs, minimum/maximum bids, etc.) to minimize the risk. In addition, my clients will have my assistance in double-checking property values, resale estimates, rehab charges, and other details.

Here’s how it works:

•             We have a preliminary conversation to establish your maximum purchase price, city/neighborhood preferences, hold-and-rent or fix-and-flip intentions, etc.

•             You send $10,000 to be held in escrow for each purchase. (You also need to be able to wire the balance within 24 hours of a successful bid.)

•             You sign up at the website for a buyer name and log in. You are now ready to select from a short list of properties coming up for auction in the next couple of days. (I will work with you to establish your parameters and set up your search.) We will request a title search and photos of the selected properties at this stage.

•             When you find a property that fits your specifications, you enter your starting bid and your maximum bid, click ‘submit’ and wait to see if you are successful. Monday’s bids will be auctioned on Tuesday, Tuesday’s bids on Wednesday, etc.

Of course, this opportunity is not for everybody but this is a way for ordinary investors to get access to the ‘county steps’ auctions of bank owned properties which are normally not accessible to the general public. Bidding at these auctions has historically been a closed shop, with participation limited to a few experts who take all the spoils.

If you’re interested, email me at pwalsh@kw.com  or call me at 602-369-3224.

Real Estate Market Begins To Shift To a Seller’s Market

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

After a tumultuous two years, the real estate market is beginning to show signs of improvement. During the last three weeks, the Maricopa County absorption rate has steadily declined. The absorption rate is the ratio between active and solds: the time it would take at the current rate of sale for the inventory to be completely sold.

At present, the rate is down to an astonishing 5.5 – a few years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for a house in Arizona to sit on the market for 25-30 months. Anything under an absorption rate of 6 is considered a sellers market.

What does this mean for those of you looking to buy a home?

The time to buy a home is now – investors are snatching up properties, and the number of properties for sale has dropped significantly:

• During the last year, the number of homes for sale in Maricopa County has hovered at 55,000 – as of April 24, only 44,707 homes are available for purchase.

• In the last 30 days, 8,121 properties closed escrow.

This means more people competing for fewer properties.

While the number of homes for sale has dropped, banks and lenders are listing properties at unbelievable low prices and waiting for buyers to bid up the price within a matter of days. Realtors are getting calls from buyers who are disappointed to learn that the homes they are interested in making offers on are homes with comparable home values sometimes as much at $20-30k above list price and with multiple offers already on the table that are well above list price. For this reason, we will primarily feature properties that are private sales (or what I call retail).

What does this mean for those of you looking to sell your home?

Some tips for those of you looking to sell a home: the prices may bounce along the bottom for some time before we see a price recovery. But I can assure you that the average person (with a loan) trying to buy a foreclosure in the $100k range is up against sometimes as many as 5 or 6 cash buyers. Only one of the those people got the property they were bidding on, which means 5 other properties will be bought by those cash buyers who are getting hungrier each time they get beat out.

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