Foreclosures in Virginia! The FEVER is back! But is it real?

The FEVER was lost for two years, but it's BACK!

My Virginia Real Estate blog showcases the trends before you ever knew they existed. This is a new trend, and it is on fuego. Problem is, is it real?

The message is slightly different, but the bottom line is still there: Buy Foreclosures, Flip and Get Rich!

In the past it was Buy New Construction, Wait a Month, Flip and Get Rich. (see my post on Taxi Drivers pooling their money during the top of the housing bubble)

This technique is also known as the greater fool theory. If you can buy it low, and sell it to a greater fool thinking he can do the same, you will profit. Rinse and repeat until the world comes crashing down like a pyramids of cards (oh and it did for some).

So now I see people wanting to rebuild the pyramid, and they want in on the ground floor.

When five people say to me within 2 weeks "If you hear of a place that is a steal, let me know, I might buy it."

Sorry, but if it is that much of a steal, and I hear about it first... You won't buy it because it will be sold. To me.

The problem is, 50% off steals don't exist. See the post on Parkside Alexandria Auctions starting at $225,000!!!, but ultimately they got bid up to an unflippable (<word not recognized by MS Word) market price (see Virginia Auctions Results Show post).

This new breed of wannabe opportunists think that the market is dead and nobody is buying... but THEM of course!

They are the brilliant ones alone buying at the bottom. Did you know that Parkside got 1500+ registered buyers to walk their community? All looking for what was quoted to be a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." 1500 people trying to buy from people down on their luck. You are not alone.

So back to these 1,500 people.

What are they doing? They are wasting their time and the time of their Realtors (not me, I just send people to this blog post).

Many Realtors are using foreclosures, short sales, bank owned properties, REOs as bait to bring in clients, hoping that a few will settle for 2-5% off instead of 50% off.

Even this post was written to be picked up by Google for people looking for "Fairfax Foreclosed homes" stuff. The difference is, I'm telling them it does NOT exist (well maybe in Herndon). So if bargain buyers contact me, most likely we will all be on the same page, that I can help you get the best "deal" possible (see:"Buyer's Market?" No Such Thing As a "Good Deal") but don't have unrealistic expectations. 

When my termite guy's (not a profit sharing ABA) wife stumbles upon my Parkside $225,000 Auction blog (along with a poker buddy), you know it's a trend. So this post was written just for her. (NOTE FOR REALTORS: this is why blogging is efficient. Write it once, and post it, with no need to repeat yourself. Oh how I plan to link to this post in the future, and you can too.)

Foreclosures sound great, but aren't nearly the deal of the century, 50% Kmart blue light special that many think they are.

Buying and fixing up properties is a real but tough business. There is no get rich quick system that I know of that works. And if I did, I probably wouldn't tell you. I would just do it and get out of residential real estate. If you become a flipper and are going to buy a run down property and fix it up, you better know what you are doing, and in a slow market, you better leave room to sell it well under market, otherwise you'll follow the market downward.

And as for people looking to buy their own home to live in, and solely looking for Arlington or Virginia foreclosures, you will most likely be sadly disappointed. Yes you should add them to your search,  but they are infrequent and many are fake. Yes many "short sales" or "3rd party approval" listings are fake, but not all.

An upcoming post will get into how Short Sales only close 50% of the time, and an upcoming post showing how one of my agents bought HER own home from a bank. So make sure you sign up for this blog via email at blog.FranklyRealty.com in the upper right corner.

- Written by Frank Borges LL0SA= FranklyRealty.com

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