106
COMMENTS
South Florida Speculators Outbid Average Homebuyers
By Lisa Selin Davis
Jul 30th 2010 @ 5:01PM
Jul 30th 2010 @ 5:01PM
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You'd think that now would be the time to pick up a bargain home in South Florida. After all, there are more than 96,000 foreclosures to choose from, and that's just from the first six months of 2010, according to the Miami Herald: "Distressed properties are still dominating the market, with more than half of all homes and condos sold last month at some stage in the foreclosure process."Floridians with modest nest eggs who were priced out of home ownership during the boom should be able to get their hands on a sweet little slice of subdivision now that prices have plummeted. Right?
Not exactly. It turns out that investors are opening their purse strings, too, beating regular buyers to the punch.
"Cash-happy investors have been scooping up these bargain basement deals at a fast clip, often before middle-income buyers can get financing," according to the Herald. The nest egg can't compare to the deep pockets of developers, speculators and investors who can self-finance, especially in the wary world of mortgage lending. And foreclosed homes tend to sell for 25 less than their non-foreclosed counterparts, hard for the cash-in-hand to resist.
I just hope we don't see the same situation again that helped to create the meltdown. Investors looking for a huge quick profit artificially inflate home market prices. Real estate appreciation needs to happen over time other wise we have the meltdown that we are still dealing with. It's a shame that greedy investors once again are buying up affordable houses that families could be buying to live in long term and stabilize the real estate market values.
