Buying Property in USAThis blog follows a journey of a foreign investor who is Buying Property in USA, includes tips and important info for investors. Find out how to buy house in USA!

Location, location, location – How to research online!

Everybody knows that location is one of the most important things about buying property in USA and anywhere else. However if you are foreigner and not even located in USA, how to find the best location for your investment? I was trying many tools for online research and I will share today with you the best available. What is great as well, this tool is completely free. This market research tool is called Trulia (www.trulia.com).  Go to the trulia website and click on the “Stats and Trends” menu item at the top. We aren’t today interested much in the actual real estate listings, we want to find more about some particular locations. In the “Search trends in” field type the location you would like to research. It can be whole city, or just some quarter, however it’s possible to view statistics of home prices for the whole state as well. So for example if you will type in Miami, you should get to this page: http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Miami-Florida/ . Now the best thing about this website is that it gives you all information you could imagine. You can see the median prices “heat map” – you can zoom in or out in it, you can see information about the schools or crime and market trends in the area. This way you can find out if a REO or foreclosure, which you found on Bank of America REO’s or another website is really as good deal as it looks. Simply by checking out the local market trends and house prices. However this is just the first part of the research. Next time I will show you how to find out what can be the expected rent rates for particular property and more details about renting. That’s how you will make the return on your investment and therefore it’s crucial as well. If you need any info, write me in the comments area.

Motivation day: Bank of America REO’s

It’s already few months ago since I have started to think about buying property in USA. First I was looking for forclosures on craigslist, however it wasn’t such a great source. After some time I found out that actually the best websites to look for cheap houses are the actual banks websites. Almost every bank has many REO’s at the moment. For anybody who doesn’t know what REO means, here is definition from wikipedia: Real estate owned or REO is a class of property owned by a lender, typically a bank, after an unsuccessful sale at a foreclosure auction. A bank will typically set the opening bid at a foreclosure auction for at least the outstanding loan amount. If there are no bidders that are interested, then the bank will legally repossess the property. As soon as the bank repossess the property, it is listed on their books as REO – Real Estate Owned – and is categorized as an asset (non-performing). The best thing about REO’s is that since Banks are not Real Estate agents, they don’t want to make a profit from selling the REO’s. They just want to get the unpaid rest of the mortgage and therefore they often offer the whole houses for the price of few mortgage payments. If the housing market would be normal, you wouldn’t even hear about such a REO’s, since they would be already gone and some Realtors would be selling them with a big profit. However nowadays there are thousands of REO’s and foreclosures and nobody wants them. That’s why you can find incredible deals around.

Today I am posting here one important and motivating link:

Bank of America REO’s search: bankofamerica.reo.com

Don’t hesitate and try to search some of the hundreds of incredible deals. There is 330 properties just in Florida. Try to limit the search for properties up to $100 000. You will be surprised how many you will find even for less than $50 000. My heart is always starting to beat faster when I am looking at those deals. If you like this link, let me know your comments and I will be happy to provide you more information and answers! I will be posting more websites for your market research soon. Now just get motivated!

Buying Property in USA – Foreclosures

Is Now The Time To Buy Foreclosures?

I have read this article on Yahoo Real Estate already few weeks ago, but I think that it is so interesting and motivating that I am posting it here today. If you are looking for Buying Property in USA, you should know about foreclosure opportunities. As everybody knows the financial crisis wiped out assets worth of trillions last year. I have been investing in stocks as well and as everybody else I am way down from the purchase prices of them. I am still optimistic and I won’t sell stocks right now, but also I wouldn’t be buying much more. What should we do in these difficult investing times?“But there is a future. People will eat, classes will be taught, supermarkets will open, buses will run and most people will want to live indoors — meaning that much of the economy will go on, if not precisely as before then at least in some recognizable fashion.” says Peter Miller. I must agree with him in this. What can encourage more people – the best investments are always done when others don’t know about them yet. It is usually better to go “against the grain, by selling when most are buying and vice versa”. Is it now the right time to buy foreclosures? “Yes, but not for everyone”, says Peter Miller. You can get significant discounts and it can be the best starting point for a long term investments. As it was said hundred times, smart investors aren’t making most of the money when selling but already when buying. In the end of the article there are 10 core questions, which everyone who is considering buying foreclosure property in USA should ask himself. (To see the article please follow the link at the heading of this post)

Buying Property in USA

Buying Property in USA blog launched!

This website is all about investing in American Real Estate. This blog is meant to be a source of valuable information and tips for investors from all over the world in real estate. I myself am a small-to-middle investor and I have lived in the USA for quite a long time, however always as a foreigner having my European citizenship. The economical crisis which started last year is all around us and most people are worried and depressed. I am looking at the financial crisis from a different point of view – as a huge opportunity. I am carefully observing falling prices of the American real estate market. It is at its almost ten-year minimums and although it may continue falling slowly before reaching the bottom some time this year or possibly the beginning of 2010, it already represents interesting opportunities.
I am gathering all the information from all over the internet about foreclosure listings, market statistics, price medians in different states and locations, rent ratios etc. I am putting all the numbers together and I see opportunities which don’t let me sleep.
When doing my research I was trying to find a website, where all this information and tips would be put together and especially tips for foreign investors (including various possibilities of getting mortgages). However I couldn’t find any and therefore I have decided to share my knowledge and my research with you guys.
This blog is mainly targeted for:

• Foreign Investors looking to invest in real estate in USA
• Also for American investors who want to know overall information and tips for investing in real estate

My main goal for this year is simple:

To buy a house (or investment real estate property) in the USA in 2009

I will share with you all the steps I am taking to achieve this and if you are interested in this, please bookmark this page and stay tuned. I am already preparing an article about market research which will be posted in the beginning of next week (February 23th).

It’s a great time this year for Buying Property in USA!