Foreclosures: Is This the Right Time to Buy?
September 24, 2008 | 10:04 am | by t-blender |Rate It:
newsWeek.com: A few weeks ago I was cruising the real-estate Web sites, looking at homes for sale in my suburban town, when I came across one that surprised me: a nearby, nearly new, 5,000-square-foot Cape Cod with a four-car garage on a nice piece of land. The price? Just $699,000. Even in the current downturn, that’s lower than I’d expect for a house this big. So even though I’m not in the market to move, I read the listing more closely. I quickly noticed it was “bank-owned,” which explained the lower-than-expected price. Then in the fine print was another detail: while the bank was offering a traditional agent’s commission, there was an additional incentive: an extra 2 percent for any agent who brought them a signed contract by Sept. 30.
It’s a sign of the times. As Congress listens to administration officials explain why taxpayers should offer hundreds of billions to help bailout banks that are teetering due to investments in bad loans, homeowners far from Wall Street or the Capitol continue to feel the direct effects of these mortgages gone bad. According to RealtyTrac, banks now own a record 820,000 homes, up from 224,000 at the end of 2006 and 440,000 at year-end 2007…
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