Minnesota Real Estate Investors Association, Inc.

We live in uncertain times.  After the mortgage meltdown and the almost collapse of the financial industry, the real estate market has been going through several ups and downs.  The median sales price in my area went from its peak of $238,000 in June 2006 to a low of $138,500 in February 2012, back up to $210,000 in June of 2013 and we are on our way back down, currently sitting at $179,850 for January 2014.

There have been some wild swings in the past few years and the people that understand that and have kept a close eye on the trends, and have not been afraid of the market have made a lot of money the past few years.  However, I have seen most people sitting on the fence and haven’t done anything.  I can understand the feeling of uncertainty and being afraid to make a mistake, but let’s face it, if you’re afraid to make a mistake, you will never make it big.

You’re probably thinking right now “That’s easy for you to say Mike; you’ve been at this for a long time and have more experience than I do”.  While for many of you, that may be true, however, for your info, I have probably made more mistakes than most of you ever will, and I am still making mistakes.  But that is not holding me back.

That is one of the most common traits I see from those who are successful, even in this wild and uncertain market.  They are not afraid to make a mistake, and often do, but they don’t let that hold them back.

Everyone wants to minimize their risk of making a mistake and losing money or damaging their credit, myself included.  However, I see way to many people with paralysis of analysis and never do anything.  So what’s holding you back? 
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Ok, so it’s been a while since I have been able to post any updates to the blog.  This spring we were busy buying, selling and rehabbing houses.  Plus I spent a lot of time building and improving our website and member management and event registrations system call PROS – Professional REIA Operating System for REIA’s (Real Estate Investors Association).  And now we are spending our time creating new marketing campaigns and chasing down anything that might smell like a lead.

So what’s going on in the markets right now?  There are several issues we are dealing with lately.  Most recently, Interest rates have started to climb and there is a huge lack of inventory.  The lack of inventory can be explained by the rise of hedge funds buying billions of dollars worth of inventory directly off the market and from the banks, pulling most of the Shadow Inventory, out of the shadows. 

That is one of the primary reasons for the lack of inventory, but not the only one.  The banks stopped filing foreclosures, or at least slowed way down last year to deal with other issues, including packaging up shadow inventory for the hedge funds.  The banks are back on track now, but all that inventory that would have been hitting the market right now, is just now going through the foreclosure process and is expected to hit the markets later this year.

I have been hearing from fairly reliable sources, that the amount of expected foreclosures over the next few years is equal to the amount of foreclosures that have already happened over the past few years.  It should be an interesting next few years.

We knew this was coming, just a couple of weeks ago, BoA (Bank of America) sent out a letter to 1,000 customers who are currently in default offering them the option to rent the property back from BoA at fair market rent if they simply deed the property back to BoA in lieu of a foreclosure. This will only add to the currently unknown number of properties in the Shadow Inventory.

On Thursday April 5, 2012 the Federal Reserve issued a policy statement on the rental of REO’s.

The general policy of the Federal Reserve is that banking organizations should make good-faith efforts to dispose of OREO properties at the earliest practicable date. Consistent with this policy, in light of the extraordinary market conditions that currently prevail, banking organizations may rent residential OREO properties (within statutory and regulatory holding period limits) without having to demonstrate continuous active marketing of the property, provided that suitable policies and procedures are followe Read More...

On Friday September 2, 2011, the federal government sued 17 big banks for selling mortgage-backed securities to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after those securities turned toxic.  This is just another example of the underling disease infecting this country.

In the 90’s, the federal government was pushing banks to make it more affordable to first-time home buyers and lower income families to qualify for a mortgage to promote their American Dream agenda of everyone in America owning a home.  At first the banks pushed back and said this was a bad idea, because a good percentage of the borrowers would never be able to pay the loans back.

The federal government, in their infinite wisdom cr
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Have you been making offers on REO’s only to get frustrated that none of your offers are getting accepted? I feel your pain and frustration. This is something that I have also been struggling with.

So why are our all of our offers getting rejected at such a high rate? There are a few reasons that I can think of. First of all, the banks have received so much federal bailout money that they are not hurting as much as one would think; therefore they are not pressured to liquidate their inventory fast. In fact a lot of their inventory never even makes it to the market, but rather quietly slides into the “Shadow Inventory” category.

Secondly, we have been competing with first time home buyers who are looking for a deal and beginning investors who are looking for rentals and plan on doing a light rehab rather than a full blown rehab, which enables them to offer less than most of us do. But don’t feel bad, the dirty truth about a lot of these investors is that their inexperience causes them to get hurt financially in the long run. I get calls from these types of investors all the time asking me how to get out of trouble with these properties. Unfortunately the only thing I can tell them is that they have no choice now but to hold on to the property for the long run and hope that the market value increases to recover their losses. I have even had two recently that came to me for help after they out bid me on the same property. Opps... 
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The new headlines catch phase is “Robo Signer”. These robo signers have been signing foreclosure documents at a rate of up to 1 document per minute. That’s 5,000 – 10,000 per month. Everyone knows that it is not physically possible for these robo signers to have read every document. That is the reason everyone is calling for a moratorium on foreclosures. Or is it?

If everyone was upset with the fact that these robo signers were not reading all the documents, then why wasn’t everyone upset that congress has passed health care and over a trillion dollars in stimulus programs while all along admitting that no one could possible read all of it before voting on it. So ask yourself, are they really upset that the robo signers didn’t read the documents. If you are honest with yourself, then the answer would have to be no.

So what is the real reason everyone wants a moratorium on foreclosures. Politics… In 3 weeks there is a major midterm election and this could be one of the most historic elections in our country. The politicians on both sides of the isle are looking for something to blame and point fingers at to make themselves look like they care and that all our problems are the banks. 
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Over the last few years we’ve been predicting records were going to be broken for years to come and that it would be a uniquely incredible environment for real estate investors. Today RealtyTrac issued a press release for the month of August that illustrates the fulfillment of this prediction in no uncertain terms.

Here are the key numbers to note:

• In August, 1 in 381 housing units received a foreclosure filing.
• RealtyTrac has seen 1.2 million repossessions so far in 2010.
• Before the housing bubble burst, in 2005 only 100,000 houses became REO’s.
• 95,364 property foreclosures in August, a historic record.
• An increase of 25% since the start of the 2010.
• In August, 96,469 homeowners receive a notice of default.
• 1% decline in the number of NOD’s filed in July.
• A 30% decline since August 2009 after a peak of 142,064 NOD’s issued in April 2009.

For a complete list of notable numbers you’ll find them all just above the comment section. Our initial prediction was that with the drastic turn in the economy. This would create a flood of opportunity for real estate investors based on the sheer volume of properties vulnerable to a declining economy. 
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Let me start out by saying that I generally try and stay away from political comments. I prefer to stay on topic and discuss the facts, but this time I have no choice but to comment on politics. This latest round of political games has my blood boiling and I can’t hold back any longer.

Congress just passed another $1 billion dollar emergency homeowners relief fund. You can read all about it on MarketWatch, here is the link: www.marketwatch.com.

Were shall I start?

I guess I will start out with the phrase “emergency homeowners relief”. Emergency, really??? The emergency was almost two years ago when they pasted the TARP funds to help, if you remember, homeowners and bail out the banks and financial institutions, but once the TARP funds were approved by congress, they decided it would be better to just buy stocks in the companies they chose to keep solvent. It didn’t seem to be that much of an emergency to congress in 2008, otherwise they would have spent that money on what they told us was the reason in the first place to pass the TARP funds. I think the only reason it is an emergency right now, is because the midterm elections are in 4 months.

So now that we understand the congressional definition of an “Emergency” we can then start to talk about the facts. They are as follows:  
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You may have heard this term thrown around lately, but what the heck is it? Shadow Inventory is basically inventory that hasn’t made it to the market yet. There are several components to Shadow Inventory.

First of all, the banks are short staffed, so they can’t file NOD (Notice of Defaults) and complete the foreclosure process as fast as new borrowers are falling into default. The average borrower in foreclosure has been delinquent for 438 days before actually being evicted, up from 251 days in January 2008, according to LPS Applied Analytics. That is the first part to “Shadow Inventory”.

Secondly, a lot of lenders that are taking properties back through the foreclosure process are supposedly holding on to them through holding companies and not releasing them to the market. Their reasoning is actually a valid one. They are afraid that if they release too much inventory to soon, housing values could plummet. And I agree with that a
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Obviously it is, but how is it changing and what direction are we headed is the question most people are asking themselves these days. Some of the old school investors/realtors will relate to this article, but for most of you, this will seem like a radical new approach to real estate. You see, the changes I am going to be talking about or nothing more that real estate cycles coming back around full swing.

Over the last ten years or so, all you needed was a pulse and a few months to build appreciation in order to make money in real estate. That has changed drastically, today not only do you need a pulse, you also need a creative thinking brain. However, just having a pulse will not get you a mortgage anymore. In fact, I think the only way to get a mortgage today is to prove that you absolutely don’t need it, and then you have at least a fighting chance to get past underwriting.

Over the past two years, the real estate market has been going through a market correction, because of the over inflation of housing prices. Most of these properties have been either short sales or foreclosed upon by the banks and put back on the market at reduced prices. In many areas, prices have begun to stabilize and the new market values have been established. The first time home buyers tax credit helped boast these sales and stabilize prices. However, access to financing is getting harder and interest rates are expected to increase over the next few years. This will help to bring down prices of the surrounding properties over the next few years. 
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