A GREAT TIME TO INVEST IN REAL ESTATE LEX LEVINRAD
substantially more cash buyers today than there were in 2010. I personally purchased quite a few houses in the
first and second quarter of 2009. At that time, I would submit an offer to the bank via an REO listing agent and
my offer would be instantly approved even if it was quite a bit lower than the listing price. There were no other
cash buyers competing with me to buy these houses which in hindsight turned out to be really great buys, at the
bottom of the market.
By the end of 2010, and
throughout 2011 and 2012,
more and more cash buyers
had
entered
the
market
looking for bargains. Over
the past year, many of our
buyers have been foreign
buyers and we have been
fielding phone calls in our
office
from
Canadian,
European, South American,
Russian and even Chinese
investors.
It
seems
that
these foreign investors have
figured out something that
many local investors have
not. These foreigners know
just like I do that real estate
is a screaming buy right
now. Real estate is such an
amazing bargain right now that I coined a phrase to characterize the current state of the real estate market.
This is the quote that I use: “This will be the best time in your lifetime to buy real estate”. Or expressed
another way, between now and the day that you die, you will never get another opportunity to buy real estate
at such cheap prices. Adjusted for inflation housing prices are cheaper than they have ever been since the
Great Depression.
The prices that some of these bank owned properties are selling for is an incredible opportunity for cash
investors (you cannot buy bank owned properties with a mortgage). Many cash buyers are scooping these
properties up as fast as the banks can list them. The banks know this and very wisely are listing them slowly
to maintain demand. Most of the action that I see is in the affordable lower priced homes. These are the types