Investors Buying Properties at California Trustee Sales After Foreclosure Is a Good Thing

We have solid buyer demand for REO and bank owned properties here in communities around Orange County ... with average time on the market for at REO an amazingly short 19 days.

But when banks take the properties as REO after foreclosure, they are not good at cleaning them up and getting them to market, then sold through a smooth process. Private groups are much better at disposing of previously distressed properties.

More Orange County properties are being purchased at trustee sales (foreclosure auction) these days by private investors ... who then mostly fix them up and get them on the market.

Investor owners (after trustee sales) seem to be satisfied that they can comply with HUD anti-flipping 90-day owner hold requirements.

ForeclosureRadar.com tracks California foreclosures and issued its monthly California Foreclosure Report for April 2009. See ForeclosureRadar.com report for April 2009 ~ Investors Purchase Record Number of Foreclosures at Auction.

In a reversal from March 2009 ~ California foreclosure Notice of Default filings dropped by 18.2 percent in April ... while foreclosure sales rose. Notices of Trustee sale, which sets the auction date and time, also dropped by 8.5 percent from the prior month.

Sales to private parties at auction after foreclosure rose by 35 percent. A record number of those properties were purchased by third parties at an average 28 percent discount from estimated market value.

This reduction of California NOD filings and NOT filings is probably due to signficant number of attempted loan modifications by owners around California.

However, most of the attempted loan mods will either not work, or the owners will default after their mods are completed, and the properties will go through the foreclosure pipeline.

So it's good that such distressed properties will get through that foreclosure pipeline, be purchased by private parties and investors at auction, who are then better than banks at cleaning these up and moving them to the open market.

Private sellers do a better job of working with buyers who are FHA qualified (3.5% down payment), while banks at REO have not wanted to respond to consumer demand from this buyer group.

So it's positive for real estate that more investors and private parties are buying properties at California trustee sales and foreclosure auctions.

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If you want information about Southern California and Orange County foreclosure homes and properties, please contact us. Thank you. Harrison K. Long, Explore Group Properties, Coldwell Banker Previews, Irvine, CA.

www.BuyersExploreHomes.com ~ www.ExploreTheOC.com