On Wednesday the Obama administration said that it was looking for ways to turn the federal government’s inventory of foreclosed houses into rental properties that could be managed by private businesses or sold in bulk. In a desperate attempt to clear the nation’s balance sheet of foreclosed homes, the government may now become the nation’s largest landlord.
With so many foreclosed homes on the market, the sale price of occupied homes continues to be plummet. In some condo buildings in Florida as many as 1 in 3 units are in foreclosure. When an owner goes to sell their condo for $100,000, buyers can find dozens of foreclosures for $75,000 or less. As a result, the owner must either lower their price, stay put for another decade until prices rebound or stop paying their mortgage (which they are likely upside down in) and allow the bank to foreclose on them. It’s this vicious cycle in the hardest hit parts of the country which are causing apocalyptic real estate markets.
By taking federally owned foreclosures off the market and renting them out, the administration hopes to stabilize neighborhoods where large supplies of empty, foreclosed properties have crushed property values. In effect, the government is saying that they own a quarter million homes they can’t sell. If they did, it would contribute to a more severe and prolonged housing price collapse. This is unprecedented in US history.
The party's over - time to clean up the mess
To give perspective to the impact that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac foreclosures could have on home prices, consider the fact that only 70,000 of their 250,000 homes are currently on the market for sale. We’ve all seen what’s happened to home prices in the past three years. Now picture three times more foreclosures in the market, and continued erosion of America’s employment base. The result, not pretty.
One thing is for sure – someone is going to make a killing when the government decides what action to take. Unfortunatly, I can garantee you that it will be massive investors that can afford to buy thousands of homes at a time. It will likely even be the same corporations responsible for millions of Americans losing their homes. Small business owners, property management companies and individual landlords will be left with the scraps of this deal… if that.
It’s going to be a very interesting 2012. Perhaps the Mayans weren’t predicting the end of the world, but rather, the end of an era.
From the calendar of the Freedom First Real Estate Investor Association, be sure to check out this laid back summer session. August’s meeting is geared towards a less formal game night and a picnic format. Come and get a chance to meet other Rochester real estate investors and property managers. FFREIA is doing a great job of connecting property owners and providing education about professional management and investment strategies.
Date: Thursday August 11th, 2011
Where: Monroe Voiture, 933 University Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607 (get directions from Google Maps)
Time: Food starts at 6:30pm, Games begin at 7:30pm.
Topic: GAME NIGHT & PICNIC
We want to do something different for our August meeting…
Knowing that it can be too tempting not to take advantage of our summertime, we thought we’d lighten up things this month for our general meeting.
If you are one of the people who has been wanting to play the financial literacy board games Cash Flow and Millionaire Maker, this will be your chance. Each of these is a fun way to learn, or reinforce, business financial basics and get your mind engaged in an entrepreneurial investor mindset.
FFREIA’s Secretary/Treasurer Susan Holman has enough games to accomodate up to 30 players and needs to know how many to plan for.
And if playing games isn’t enough to get you there on a summer’s evening, FFREIA’s President Leon Griggs is cooking up a batch of his special ribs and needs to know how many to cook for.
You need to RSVP to Susan (susanh@ffreia.com or 585-690-5056) by Sunday, August 7, 5pm.
Since the housing bubble burst in 2008, millions of homes have gone through foreclosure. But what happens to all the families caught up in the financial chaos? Apparently, millions of them have become renters. The trend towards renting has been so strong in the past few years that analysts from Morgan Stanley recently reported that the United states is quickly becoming a nation of renters.
Graph of US Home Ownership Rates 1965 to 2010
In the August 5th CNN Money article, “Home ownership hits lowest level since 1965” Les Christie describes how the US home ownership rate has dropped from 69.2% in 2004 to only 59.2%. While the official numbers show the home ownership rate at 65.9%, the number drops to 59.2% when you factor in delinquent mortgage borrowers (the ones who are likely to lose their homes at some point).
Since Rochester has been fortunate to evade the worst of the housing crisis, and in the process rack up a number of top 10 placements for real estate investing and home ownership, our home ownership rates are quite a bit more steady. The rest of the nation’s real estate has not been so lucky. In fact, the average home price has declined 32% nationally. Despite the ridiculously low interest rates on mortgages, the market just can’t seem to generate buyers fast enough. The two biggest factors being the much more stringent lending practices and the overall decrease in employed people, ready to make a home purchase.
This bubble, and the consequent burst, were surprises to no one with a fundamental knowledge of economics (regardless of what the talking heads on the news have been saying for the past few years). Having been in a position where I could see this disaster coming, I have to confess that I don’t see anyone making the decisions at a national level that are necessary for us to turn this crisis around.
Perhaps the analysts at Morgan Stanley are right, America will be a much more mobile, renter-centric, society for the foreseeable future.
On Wednesday the Obama administration said that it was looking for ways to turn the federal government’s inventory of foreclosed houses into rental properties that could be managed by private businesses or sold in bulk. In a desperate attempt to clear the nation’s balance sheet of foreclosed homes, the government may now become the nation’s largest landlord.
Coming Soon!
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