Joshua Jarvis - Georgia Realtor's Blog

I was prompted to write about the best deal in town after a trulia question where the buyer stated that Auctions where the best deal. In some cases they be, but here's my brief break down on them.

• You've got REAL foreclosure auctions held at the county courthouse steps, which require cash (cashier's check) to make the bid.
  WHY? - Can sometimes find a gem of a deal. The bank likely knows less than you and the other liens will "drop" off. 
  WHY NOT? - CASH! You often can't inspect the inside.  It's more common to see Foreclosed properties that go back to the bank appear on the market for less then the foreclosure auction start bid
• AUCTIONS by Third Party Companies - These are held at various tent events or sometimes at the property.  Often these auctions are bulk buyers who bought as part of a hedge fund.  They usually get these for around .20 on the dollar.  They then mark them up to .50 on the dollar and sell them. 
  WHY? - Could be a great find.  No cash required.  Bypass somewhat cumbersome foreclosure and short sale process.  Flexible terms sometimes.
  WHY NOT? - Not always market ready.  Sometimes overpriced.  Often over-hyped.  Sometimes hard to find - not enough inventory.
  

Other options for the "BEST DEAL"

• Post Foreclosure- Foreclosures - What people generally mean when they say they will buy a foreclosure.  They can be HUD homes, bank owned, REO, Freddie mac and Fannie Mae.  They all have little wrinkles.
  WHY? - Flexible financing for the most part, very traditional (now) - plenty to choose from and more every day. 
• Short Sale - Pre-foreclosures - These are often the BEST DEALS hands down that I have ever heard of.
  WHY? - Growing and plenty of inventory.  Often the bank will give you a better deal than lose a ton of money on the foreclosure process. 
  WHY NOT? - Long tedious negotiation process with the bank.

I haven't posted on Trulia in a while and they've done a lot of great things. Since my last post I must say two things:

1. Trulia visitors in Atlanta have increased! I'm seeing many more targeted inquiries.  I'm "throwing in" with Trulia and getting listings and letting Trulia do some heavy lifting, I'll blog about the success when it happens!
2. Short Sales In Atlanta have increased ten fold.

I read a study that said that 40% of sales in Florida are short sales.  I'm not sure how accurate that is, but up to 10% of the inventory is short sales in many communities. This number is sure to increase over the next few months.

I thought it would be worthwhile to list some great articles I've read or written in the past few months:

• Foreclosure vs Short Sale - Differences
• Why Short Sale?
• Your Agent Might Not Be A Short Sale Agent If..
• Short Sale Blog Posts At My Personal Blog

All of my listings appear on Trulia, but if you just want my Atlanta Short Sale Listings then they are all here.

I got featured today in the Trulia E-mail newsletter and I thought it was pretty cool.  We'll see if anyone is impressed by it but I thought it was certainly pretty cool.  I've not been blogging much on Trulia since the editor is giving me headaches.   Not sure why other than trulia's tech support keeps asking what browser I'm using.  

Thanks for your suppport.

I'm teaching a class about blogging and the number one questions I get are:

1. Why Blog?
2. How Much business do I get from Blogging?

So I created a survey to try and answer those questions.  Click here for the survey.

Thanks in advance!

In a recent conversation with my loan officer we were discussing some clients that had made the statement that they are going to wait for prices to continue to come down.  As I posted on my Georgia Real Estate Blog, you can't time the market, and you can't predict the bottom.