Rising foreclosures are seeing the emergence of a new kind of transaction: the short sale. Unheard of even until a few years ago, these sales involve homeowners selling their homes for less than the amount of their mortgage. The sale is carried out in agreement with the bank, to avoid a foreclosure.

In the Hamptons, foreclosures were not a major concern until quite recently. The area watched other parts of the country experience a spate of repossessions but seemed to remain untouched by it.

The story however is now slowly changing. The last year has seen a steady rise in “lis pendens” or the first legal foreclosure notices in the East End area. Foreclosure auctions too have started taking place.

The Hamptons has always been an upscale area where the truly affluent have their homes. Foreclosures of $ 1 million or $3 million homes are hardly a concern for those whose homes are valued at $20 million and $ 30 million. Author Steven Gaines, who is considered an authority on the Hamptons, sums it up thus, “This has always been a place for people who could afford to live here. If one can’t, that’s fine……And if that means that you don’t have to wait three days to get a plumber, that’s good, too.”

But experts anticipate that it is the plumbers and other service providers who are likely to face the foreclosures. And too many defaulters could easily affect the economy of the Hamptons as a whole. Real estate agents too feel that no neighbourhood is safe from foreclosures.

Ashley Clark of Brooklyn’s PropertyShark , publisher of real estate research and data, points out that legal default notices and announcements of foreclosure auctions in the Hamptons would rarely be seen in newspapers even two years ago. Today however such notices appear weekly, even though their numbers are limited to one or two. Clark says, “It’s small in actual numbers and in comparison to the rest of the country, but it’s a big change for that particular area.”

ProertyShark data reveals that 415 lis pendens were filed in the five towns on the East End from October 2007 to March 2008. This reflects a 30 percent increase from the previous six months. The data also shows that 42 foreclosure auctions were scheduled for this period, an increase of 40 percent.

Real estate agents put down the foreclosures to the effect of the national foreclosure crisis and say it is no unusual that a few foreclosures will take place in the Hamptons as well. They do not anticipate a crisis and expect long term residents to remain unaffected by the situation.

Search Foreclosed Homes

• California Foreclosed Homes
• Florida Foreclosed Homes
• Nevada Foreclosed Homes
• Arizona Foreclosed Homes
• Oregon Foreclosed Homes
• Colorado Foreclosed Homes

Popularity: 8% [?]

In all the confusion and chaos foreclosures have brought with them, they are also creating the right time for people to invest in their new home.

Many Realtors and agents opine that buyers would like to look at such homes when they are intending to make a good purchase. Donale Bernarding, a broker with CyBer Realty, a firm with 30 agents says that they are trying to put forth the positive side of the current market situation. They have started a tour of showcasing homes to the buyers in the range of $150,000 to $400,000.

State Department of Labor Licensing and Regulation, compiling data from RealtyTrac stated that the county of Anne Arundel foreclosures add 1,122 homes from January to September 2007. It is a 383 percent increase when compared to 2006.

CyBer Realty is trying to create awareness among buyers to take advantage of this situation and helping them plan on avoiding foreclosures as well. The company has already conducted three seminars in February this year for buyers, both first-timers and others looking for property purchase. People attending this seminar were given a pre-qualification letters which served as their ticket for the bus tours conducted.

Rebecca Cymek, an associate broker and the company’s manager said that they would ideally like people to buy some properties but they are also educating people on foreclosures. She also said that the market is good to make purchases as there are too many sellers and buyers can get many costs waived off on their deals.

Anirban Basu, an economist with Sage Policy Group in Baltimore County, also agrees that this is the best time to invest in real estate purchases. He also says that this time the sellers are very open to negotiation and buyers stand a better chance to bring prices further down. Buyers can then either rent out their properties or resell them at higher prices later on.

Industry sources say that people during the boom period bought homes they could afford in the long run and many others face tight economic situation due to increase in living costs. Both of these have attributed to the looming foreclosure situation.

Mr. Basu advises that people should look at a foreclosed property like any other regular property. The property needs to be of clear title and should be of sound structure. With so many options available, buyers should find exactly what they are looking for, he opines.

Search Foreclosed Homes

• Anne Arundel Foreclosed Homes
• Baltimore County Foreclosed Homes
• Maryland Foreclosed Homes
• Prince Georges Foreclosed Homes
• Montgomery Foreclosed Homes
• Baltimore City Foreclosed Homes

Popularity: 9% [?]

The situation has become such today that it is possible for ordinary people wanting to buy homes, to look up the prices of homes on various sites on the internet. Large and popular real estate sites like PropertyShark.com and RealtyTrac.com have information about the various properties in the U.S in the pre-foreclosure state or facing foreclosure. The phenomenon of foreclosure is becoming more common by the day with the meltdown of subprime mortgage.

These sites contain lengthy lists of public information. They often have pictures of the house and sometimes even the phone numbers of the homeowners are displayed. All this makes it possible to avoid the hassle of handling court documents. Yahoo Real Estate along with RealtyTrac opened a site based on foreclosure which made such data accessible to all global users who amount to more than 500 million.

Those who are exploring this area are told by Yahoo’s site that their goal as a buyer should be to buy a property at a rate which is 20 percent less than the value of the full market, though at times even better deals are available. So, now the ordinary people wanting to buy homes are making more and more uses of all these sites, making most of the financial trouble of other people. Such opportunities are rising as the rate of foreclosure in the U.S has made a jump of almost 80 percent by 2007 end. People who are interested in buying can talk to the homeowners directly and very often all the transactions are being done before the properties get auctioned.

RealtyTrac has declared that, the number of monthly visitors to their site has jumped from 1 million to 3million over a period of 2 years and about 40 percent of the visitors are not investors or share brokers, but people buying homes for the first time. Even the number of overseas visitors to the site have increased due to the weakening of the U.S dollar. On the flip side, advice is being given out by the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development on, how to avoid foreclosures when one is unable to pay the mortgage payments.

The buyers cannot ignore lender information and they should be apprehensive about whether a property has hidden liens and how the owner should be approached for the first time. People should know the situation very well before dealing with the house owners. More and more properties are facing foreclosure due to bad financing.

Search Foreclosed Homes

• Arizona Foreclosed Homes
• California Foreclosed Homes
• Colorado Foreclosed Homes
• Florida Foreclosed Homes
• Georgia Foreclosed Homes
• Illinois Foreclosed Homes

Popularity: 5% [?]