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Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Things Turning Around?

I've haven't spent a great deal of time investigating, but from the signs I am seeing and the news I am hearing, I am starting to think it's getting close to time to get back into local real estate investing. Prices in my area seem to be coming back down to "normal" levels and I am seeing good deals again, especially on foreclosed properties. I am also seeing a large number of "bank owned" for sale signs around town. Of course, you can't just look at home prices to determine if the market has bottomed out. You also need to look at demand and the availability of buyers. As I said, I haven't done any detailed analysis yet, but my gut feeling is things could be turning around soon. Of course, I could be wrong...

Hard Money loan #6 was paid off a couple weeks ago and I have used the principle from that to make another hard money loan. Call this one Hard Money Loan #7. It should be a fairly short loan. This property is a 2,700 square foot house built in 2006. List price is $380,000 and it is already in escrow to be sold. The seller (my borrower) bought it for $186,000. Homes in the area typically sell for $257,000 to $320,000. The loan is for $138,000, so we are fairly well protected. ROI is 10% with monthly interest only payments.

On the landline phone elimination front, everything has been switched from the landline and I am ready to cancel it. I am pretty happy with Callwave's internet fax service. The only thing I don't like is that they have an address book on their website, but you can't use it to select a number to fax to! Seems a bit pointless to me. Other than that, I've been happy with both sending and receiving faxes through them.

And my annual trip to Las Vegas was again fruitful. Well, pretty much for everyone I went with but me. Everyone got royal flushes at video poker except your truly. My wife won $1,300 with hers. My sister-in-law won $1,500. And my brother-in-law won $1,000 with his first one. Not 10 minutes later, he got a second royal flush and won another $1,000 at the same machine! Although I didn't get a royal flush, I did get the most four of a kinds than anyone else on the trip. Those paid between $62.50 and $200 each. I was a bit disappointed though. It seems the economic downturn has hit the Wynn a bit. Last year, many of their video poker machines were set at full pay ("9/6"). This year, there wasn't a 9/6 machine to be found at either the Wynn or Encore. They were all 8/5, which has a lower total return to the player. Oh well. It didn't seem to hinder us to much!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

wonderful! Anyone know where i can find a great realitor in TX?

www.86badTips.com

Clinton, UT said...

I don't think we're out of the woods yet. There are still a lot of houses foreclosing in my area and land values are depreciating - this, on the Wasatch Front in Clinton, far removed from the epicenters of the crisis.

Steve said...

The central Texas area seems to be again immune to the craziness the rest of the country has experienced. I say "again" because when most other areas of the country were seeing rapid appreciation rates in the late 1990'2/early 2000's, we were going up at around 1-3%/yr (at best). Yes, we have seen a spike in foreclosures, et al, but the area itself is STILL seeing appreciation rates in the single and even double digits.

A good place to check these things out is here.

MN Realtor said...

Hi Shaun,

I've been visiting other blogs lately and most are very optimistic about the current market. I'm keeping my fingers crossed here but I personally feel we haven't turned the corner yet.

prashant said...

i don't think so ......there are still a lot of house foreclosing in different area...

Boise real estate

Shaun said...

Real estate is local. Your area may not be turning around. I feel mine is.

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