Winning ; ) by Mik Cohen

2012 is a pretty damn amazing year – for real estate movers and shakers.

With properties priced at pennies on the dollar, this 2012 real estate market is even a little overwhelming.

It’s a divided market – with bountiful opportunities for buyers and teeth grinding frustration for lots of sellers.

Relating to the sellers, many have removed their real estate from the markets – hoping to hang on and wait until values start to climb again – but nobody really knows when that will happen, though we all speculate, don’t we ?

For the sellers who can’t hang on AND owe more on their real estate than they can hope to sell for, it’s a tough go.

They have to do a short sale or be foreclosed – because they can’t hang on.

Bottom line is that no real estate market is perfect – and some people get hurt. You’ve heard that saying a million times – “you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.

Getting back to WINNING (Sorry Charlie), buyers are kicking ass now – CASH BUYERS.

Conventional buyers with less than perfect credit scores are having a tough go, because lenders have tightened up on lending – which sucks and makes no sense – to me.

Back in 2000, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06 and 07 – even in 08, banks were lending to everyone – housing values were at all time highs and banks were betting the farm by writing loans to countless borrowers that THEY KNEW would not be able to repay.

Yeah, those ARMS (Adjustable Rate Mortgages) were made to fail, and “pioneers” like Countrywide were at the forefront of developing all kinds of products for bad debts – uh huh !

Ok, so you know the rest – numerous banks went belly-up when record amounts of loans began to fail and here we are, in 2012 – still trying to come out of those dark times.

WINNING ? Yes, cash buyers are the big winners, in this market. Sellers who can hang on are also – probable- winners, though only time will tell.

Loan Mods, Write Downs (Do they even exist ??), Short Sales, Foreclosures – they’re all going to continue in 2012 and well into 2013 – in my humble opinion.

However, I do believe that values are starting to climb, now, even as REOs(Bank-owned properties) are flooding the market.

I also believe that lenders will start to loosen up – because they really swung from one extreme (lending to everyone AND their grandmother (Sorry granny – I couldn’t resist)) to another (lending to, hardly, anyone).

It’s time to move back to the middle and rebuild -

WINNING ? If you can, take advantage of this market, because nobody knows how long these scratch and dent prices will last, but I think it’s safe to say that, if we’re NOT already at the bottom of housing values, we’re close enough and the ride, back up, is going to be a sweet one – for those who get in now.



Peace………….out.
Mik

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