As many agents today are reconsidering their career choice due to the fact that closings are becoming scarcer, there are agents whose businesses are booming! If you are a real estate agent who wants to survive the current downturn of the real estate market and you don’t already work with bank foreclosed properties, it might be time for you to consider doing so. Foreclosures are on the rise nationally and this growing sector in the marketplace has opened up new opportunities for agents who might not otherwise be able to continue to work in real estate if they didn’t adapt to the changes.

Working with bank foreclosed properties is not for everyone though and learning what it takes to be competent, can be very trying at times. The difference between working with a buyer who is excited about buying their first home and being required to inform a homeowner that will need to vacate their domicile because they defaulted on their mortgage, involve very different mindsets. It can be extremely difficult to be the bearer of bad news, especially when another person’s misery is going to benefit you financially. Another aspect of working with the banks, they tend to be quite a bit more impersonal, most correspondence takes place through email and it’s almost guaranteed that you will never meet with your liaison at the bank in person and you will very rarely speak on the phone with them either. If you want to work with a bank, you will most likely work on their terms entirely; the bank has its own forms, commission rates, and deadlines, so be prepared to follow directions or you will lose your potentially lucrative client.

Though there are many downsides with transactions involving foreclosed properties, they are one of the fastest growing segments of today’s real estate market. With estimates of foreclosures climbing to over a million and more in the coming year(s), there will be a larger demand for agents who are proficient with regards to working on one side of a foreclosure sale or the other. Ones ability to acclimate to the shifting market trends will decide their ultimate capacity to continue to function professionally in real estate.

To find out more about working with bank owned properties, commonly referred to as REOs (Real Estate Owned), you can return to this blog or leave comments if you have specific questions and I will answer them to the best of my ability. Thank you for your interest as always.

Since the markets have shifted from seller strength to buyer strength over the past couple of years and the foreclosure market has grown, I have found myself working almost exclusively with bank repossessed properties. Every real estate deal I have worked on this year has been a bank repo, even when I have worked with a buyer, that is what they bought. It has been my experience that the only real movement in my local market is the real low end properties that people can still earn sweat equity from or that they can repair and flip for a profit. The moderately priced homes in the area are at a standstill and they are depreciating due to the higher rate of foreclosure and the "need to sell" owners who got tied up in the sub-prime leading debacle or there ARMs (Adjustable Rate Mortgage) have expired and they can no longer afford the payments as they climb to new heights. There is a need to adapt for everyone and we will have to work together to come up with new viable solutions. If you have an area of interest in real estate that you would like me to discuss or if you have comments or questions about this particular blog, please feel free to leave comments.