As a home buyer or investor, you will find the following information useful as you take advantage in snapping up some great real estate opportunities in the Imperial Valley real estate market.
During the last week, I have reviewed a variety of Imperial Valley real estate slated with some type of foreclosure activity attached, whether at the pre-foreclosure stage (ie. short sales) and such as the notice of default stage, the foreclosure auction stage, where homes are auctioned at the Imperial County court house steps, or at the REO bank owned property stage, properties that have been foreclosed on by the bank and are now owned by the bank.
Some of these properties may be listed for sale locally and on the Imperial Valley MLS, however there is a growing amount of inventory, some of it is shadow inventory while other properties remain in limbo.
I wrote a series of mini-articles regarding individual city forecasts previously and this article focuses on Imperial County as a whole, forecasting foreclosures for Imperial Valley over the next three months.
During the next three months foreclosures in the Imperial Valley are expected to continue at the pace of approximately ten to fifteen properties per day in all foreclosure related categories, including pre-foreclosures, trustee sales, and bank owned properties.
With current inventory down to some of the lowest levels in recent months, some areas in the Imperial Valley have a limited number of bank owned and regular market sale properties have been subject to overbidding as buyers are moving off the fence as they aggressively bid over asking price to beat out their competition in order to secure some of the best real estate deals Imperial Valley has experienced since the beginning of the year 2000.
According to preliminary information researched by Frederic Din, a local REALTOR(r) with Exit Stepping Stone Realty estimates approximately 1,218 properties over the next 90 days are expected to enter the Imperial Valley CA real estate market.
“About 25% of these properties are bank owned homes, which have already been taken back by the bank and are in some stage of being released into the market place through a real estate agent or perhaps they’re available through an online bidding process”, says Frederic. “The oldest of these recorded bank owned properties is early November 2009 and only a fraction of these homes are listed on the market at this time, meaning the percentage of bank owned properties could potentially increase dramatically”, continues Frederic.
The remaining 75% of foreclosures are at various stages of default and auction status, meaning there is a possibility of the homeowner saving their home by obtaining a loan modification or perhaps selling their home through a short sale. A small fraction of these properties may have their foreclosure status cancelled altogether should the homeowner be able to bring their past due payments current.
What does this information mean to home buyers? Excellent opportunities to buy real estate in Imperial Valley, CA at prices up to 50% less than they were at the peak of the real estate boom.
The Federal Government is also offering would be homebuyers a cash incentive in terms of a homeowner tax credit. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 increased the previous tax credit to $8,000.
The First Time Home Buyers Credit was extended last year through April 30, 2010 for first time home buyers up to $8,000. Current “long time resident” homeowners may be eligible for a tax credit up to $6,500.00. Both tax credit have income requirements to meet in order to qualify.
The tax credit ends for home buyers who are under contract by April 30, 2010 and who close the transaction no later than June 30, 2010, however homebuyers should not purchase a home simply because of the tax credit but they should realize that home prices are at some of their lowest levels in nearly 10 years (see article “Are We Back at Year 2000 Sales Prices” http://blog.imperialvalleyreo.com/?p=418.
If you’ve been thinking of about buying a home, now is the time to make sure your loan approval is in place to make sure you take advantage of low fixed interest rate financing for the long term.
Mortgage banking experts are predicting home loan rates to rise at least 1% by this same time next year, making it more important than ever to talk to the real estate professional who wrote this article or call Frederic to learn more. View homes for sale by going to http://imperialvalleyreo.com.
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