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Homebuyers Finds Big Bargains as Foreclosures Continue to Take its Toll
January 5th, 2009 by 
Joseph Smith
Loans that have gone bad have caused foreclosures to climb up in the Bay Area and the rest of California. This is furthermore aggravated by the rising cases of unemployment. The Mortgage Bankers Association has reported that one out of ten homes in America are foreclosed or at the risk of foreclosures.
This report highlighted that California holds 13 percent of the total home loans in the nation. However, the report also indicates that 19 percent of all foreclosed homes are located in California, which registered one of the states with the highest foreclosure rate.
As some people continue losing their homes to foreclosures, other people are turning this misfortune into opportunities as investors take advantage of the troubled market and buy homes way below their original appraised values. Homes that were previously valued at $600,000 are now selling for only $275,000. Several more homes are in this situation and are being sold for less than half of their original values.
Hundreds of investors and homebuyers are bidding for the more than 300 foreclosed properties being sold by the Real Estate Disposition Corporation (REDC) auction in Oakland. The REDC has reported that more than $3 billion worth of properties were sold by their company for this year alone. First time homebuyers are finding this a wonderful opportunity to own a home that they would not have bought otherwise should prices remained as they were.
However, homeowners living in the neighborhoods were these foreclosed homes are located are not too happy about the situation. The tremendous drop in prices for these properties has caused property values in nearby homes to decline, to the chagrin of their homeowners. Most are troubled by this state of the economy, but they cannot do anything else about it but wait for the recession to recede and the real estate market to stabilize.
