Georgia Investor Group

A report focusing on the Canadian housing market conditions of 2008 and the 1st half of 2009 was recently published by The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. It deals mainly with the housing starts and with the affordability to rent & buy.

According to the report the Canadian housing market is slowly getting better from the shock it suffered in the past year. While new home market actual starts decreased from January to June 2009 by over 43 per-cent compared to the same period in 2008, the MLS sales increased by over 17 per-cent in confrontation to the July 2008 numbers.

The overall trend on the housing market is growth now, and this goes also for the new housing price index. From January to May 2009, the average price change has grown from -0.6% to -0.1%. In accordance with the recovering resale market, the new housing price change in Toronto was slightly over zero for most of the time.

Economic conditions: Unemployment

Concerning the general trends in economy, we can see some optimistic developments. Firstly, the unemployment is still rising, but it has slowed down and appears to be at last under control. In July, only 13,000 more people lost their jobs, which is not that many, as in the first three months of 2009, it was 273,000. Second, the Bank of Canada has found out that there is finally some positive outcomes of the various stimulus packages introduced in many countries.

Affordability to rent

When we want to calculate the affordability to rent, we need to know how many hours in a month people need to work in order to earn the average cost of a 2-bedroom flat rent or the average mortgage payment down to 30% of gross monthly income. (The Canadian hourly income average grew by over 5% and reached $23.69 in 2008 (Ontario: $24.65, Toronto: $24.93)).

From 114 to 113 hours per month - that is how the average number of hours needed to bring the average rent for a 2-bedroom flat down to 30% has declined. While St John’s, Brantford and Guelph faced the biggest decrease, Toronto reported decrease from 149 to 146, securing it’s position of the 2nd most expensive city in this regards right after Vancouver.

Affordability of home owner-ship

While the general decline in the hours required to rent was rather paltry, the general decline in the hours required to bring the average mortgage payments down to 30 per-cent of gross income is more significant – from 255 hours in 2007 to 240 hours in 2008. In Toronto, the decline of hours required to own was quite noticeable - from 299 to 286. However, the costs of owned apartments in Toronto are still fourth highest, after Vancouver, Victoria and Abbotsford.

End notes

As an overall effect of housing market cooling from the second half of the year 2008, also new housing made a step towards better affordability, which I really welcome, being a real estate agent in Toronto. In the first six months of 2009, the prices were slightly decreasing and the affordability of renting and also home ownership was becoming better. With ongoing low interest rate, this period of time remains ideal time to acquire a property, before the market will take second breath.

Technorati Tags: buy, Canada, condo, house, housing, property, Real Estate, rent, report

US property is selling at record low prices right now, which may entice some new buyers to consider investment properties. Individual Americans may not be purchasing homes in mass droves, but there are still many types of real estate investments that are sound. For instance, commercial real estate and mixed-use buildings are still thriving. Farm land is still said to be a good investment as well. Furthermore, there are some overseas buildings for sale that aren’t suffering from the same market fluctuations we are. So, before you write off real estate investing for good, take a look at some of the opportunities out there.

One type of profitable investment property is the vacation home market. Many investors look into overseas property where conditions are favorable to American investors. According to the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate, a non-profit trade group, some of the best foreign places to invest are safe bets like London, England; Paris, France; Shanghai, China; Tokyo, Japan; Singapore; Munich, Germany; Sydney, Australia; and Hong Kong. The idea with buying investment property overseas is that you must look for location, location, location! Choosing a safe, industrialized city, which sees a good deal of tourism each year is a smart bet. Many investors also like coastal beach properties to rent out as well. According to the editors of Live and Invest Overseas Magazine, the top coastlines to check out are: Veraguas (Panama), the Samana Peninsula (Dominican Republic), the Rocha province (Uruguay), Salinas (Ecuador) and Boracay (Philippines).

Creative real estate investment properties include mixed-use buildings, which are becoming more and more popular nationwide. Instead of purchasing office complex investment properties, a buyer would purchase a building that contains office space, condo/apartment/hotel units, restaurants, shopping facilities and entertainment venues. Since there are different types of businesses in mixed-use buildings, the space is more likely to weather any kind of economic storm. Los Angeles engineer Wayne Kalayjian says that mixed-use is an emerging movement and cultural shift, not just a passing trend. “Under this concept, our homes, shops, offices and transportation centers are more integrated and in close proximity,” he says, “which decreases commuting time and expense, conserves energy, heightens quality of life and enhances a feeling of community. And it’s particularly attractive in our suburbs, which are especially susceptible to urban sprawl.” The ideal location for such US property is in a thriving metropolitan city or active suburban community, where a lot of people live, work and play.

Often times, investment properties are run-down buildings sold at dirt-cheap prices by people who are skilled in flipping houses. In the past, this has been a way for property owners to score huge profits. They usually repaint, update the bathroom and kitchen, re-carpet or install wood flooring, slap a new front door on the house and sell it for three or four times’ what they paid for it. Yet the primary factor for housing is still location. You will also have to have a realistic assessment of what you’d pay for the renovation projects and what prospective buyers will pay for the property. Investing in real estate shouldn’t be done on a whim, but rather with thoughtful preparation.

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Technorati Tags: bank foreclosure, buildings for sale, buying help, mortgage professionals, overseas property, ranches for sale

Income properties can be found online, in newspapers and at property auctions. Real estate agents are beginning to get busy again, as a number of first-time home buyers and consumers are coming forward for pre-foreclosure and bank foreclosure opportunities that are selling at 30-40% of their previous prices. If you’re smart, you can get the right property at the right time and stand to benefit quite handsomely from it. This is no time to be impetuous, though: a real estate investment still involves a lot of money, a lot of work and a lot of commitment. Before you get your checkbook ready, consider which type of investment you’d like to make.

Ranches for sale are popular income properties because many American vacationers want to “just get away from it all.” Some individuals want a truly relaxing, “all-American” vacation not too far from home but well beyond work stresses and responsibilities. A rural western experience is similar to cottage country in that there are no neighbors, no slicked up tanned college students partying and no noisy, congested traffic. When you’re looking at ranch buildings for sale, try to find a place that has luxurious fixings inside the building but still offers some of that good old country tradition. You can have cattle, sheep, horses or border collies on the property. You can have a spa, golf course, tennis court or fitness center nearby or on the property as well. Scenic nature and good hiking trails should also be a consideration in selecting the right location. Some of the best places for your western real estate investment property include Buffalo, Wyoming, Clark, Colorado and Bigfork, Montana.

You’ll see a lot of foreclosure income properties available right now too, but how do you know what’s a good deal and what’s a risky deal? According to Todd Beitler, owner of the Real Estate Library in Boca Raton, Florida, it’s about location, first and foremost. “If somebody spends 10 hours a week for five weeks to do research, it’s worth it,” he says. Secondly, it’s about mitigating real estate investment property risk, which Beitler says should involve buying bank foreclosure properties, rather than for-sale-by-owner foreclosures. He explains, “There’s no risk. There are no taxes, no liens, no tenants to evict.” If you plan to use the home as a rental property, then you will probably need to put 10% down.

Whether you’re looking for ranches, office complexes or foreclosure properties, you will find that income properties are still a sound way to bring in extra revenue. Places like Panama City (FL), Vero Beach (FL), Bridgeport (CT), Lakeland (FL), McAllen (TX), San Luis Obispo (CA), Wilmington (NC), Manchester (NH), Fort Collins (CO) and Atlanta (GA) are still great places to invest, according to mortgage professionals cited in CNN Money Magazine. Investing in real estate can be a rewarding pursuit, but you’ve got to be smart about it. Take your time, do your research and maintain a savings cushion for the best results.

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Technorati Tags: bank foreclosure, buildings for sale, buying help, mortgage professionals, overseas property, ranches for sale

Apartments for sale offer unique investments that can provide you with a steady stream of residual investment once your initial investment is paid off. Occasionally, you may need to pay for repairs, upgrades and grounds maintenance, but you won’t have to worry about the stress of flipping houses or gutting the place. Your primary goal will be to find respectable tenants who can pay their bills. Realistically, you should assume that some units will be vacant sometimes, but even so, there is good money to be made when you invest in real estate within apartment complexes.

When looking at apartments for sale, the first thing to consider is the location. The surrounding area is one of the predominant factors when people are looking for a place to live. They want to live near bus stops, grocery stores and laundry facilities if they do not have cars. They want to live near gas stations, grocery stores and major highways if they do have cars. Tenants want easy access to restaurants, post offices, public parks, day care facilities and decent schools. Invest in real estate in an area with relatively low crime, stability and well-lit streets if you plan to charge top dollar. You may also want to consider looking for apartment buildings for sale in college towns, where there is always a steady stream of tenants.

According to Michael Zaransky of Prime Property Investors in Chicago, college town apartments for sale are renting out at stronger prices than apartments in any other market. Many schools, faced with financial struggles, are facing a housing crisis, with no capital for dorm expansion. Secondly, echo boomers are arriving at colleges across America in record numbers. Across five different USA property markets that Zaransky manages, he says their apartment buildings are all “100% occupied,” even during the summer months. However, investing in real estate involving college students can come with its own unique set of problems. You’ll have to pay closer attention to what goes on there and set aside extra money to cover damages, for instance.

Once you find the apartments for sale that meet your criterion, you will need to think about managing your investment. Many owners will hire a property management company to screen prospective tenants, collect rent, deal with any complaints, ensure that landscaping and repairs are properly sub-contracted and eliminate much of the day-to-day hassles for you. If you buy investment property and play your cards just right, you could wind up with over $100,000/year in passive income from your initial investment, which isn’t too shabby!

Jeremy Larson is a foremost expert in the acid reflux remedies. He has had extensive experience and conducted countless experiments in finding its cure. He is also a highly acclaimed writer in the medical field and you can find out more at remedyforacidreflux.com.

Technorati Tags: bank foreclosure, buildings for sale, buying help, mortgage professionals, overseas property, ranches for sale

Making a Quick Home Sale in the current depressing property market would seem like a hopeless hope but there are things that can be done to try to Sell Home Fast.

I wanted to Sell my Property fast because I got another job at the other end of the country and travelling each day or week was not viable. I had to go into a rental property to start my new job and I was paying rent as well as a mortgage so a Quick Home Sale would be ideal for me. I was even prepared to take a hit on the value of my property just to get that fast house sale that I needed.

I went to some local estate agents for guidance and asked them “What do I have to do to make sure I Sell my House fast”. All were helpful and keen to get my house onto their books but of course none could give any kind of promise as to how quickly they could ensure a sale. The one bit of good advice to come out however was that in the current situation it is imperative to price property competitively if you want to sell really fast. One agent told me that my property needed to be the bargain of the locality, priced a few thousand below anything comparable and that should get viewings streaming in.

Apparently, despite the economic crisis, there are buyers out there, but at the moment they tend to be bargain hunters, looking for a really good price. Another estate agent told me that there are specialist companies who will buy nearly any property, provided the price is reasonable enough. They will buy for cash, don’t need a mortgage and are not part of a chain. I thought this was the answer to my prayers, but after speaking to a few of these I began to realise that the sort of money they were offering was just a bit too low for me to accept, though I do admit I was tempted.

In the end I decided to put mine up for sale at a low price with one of the agents I had formed a good impression of. I decided to give it a couple of months and then if there was no development I would re contact one of the Quick House Sale companies I had spoken to. The best figure I had got was from one called The Fast House Sale Company and they sounded really approachable and organised. At 80% of the value, their price was the best I got.

In the end a private purchaser came along right away and even though he bargained me down even further I got a speedy sale by being prepared to accept that lower price.

The global financial crisis has caused a 360

Technorati Tags: property rockhampton, real estate rockhampton, realestate rockhampton

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) this month reports that recent increases in house values have been propped up by a shortage of properties being put up for sale. At the same time the Centre for Economics and Business Research forsee that house prices will reduce by a further 3% in the next 12 months before recovering by 2% next year.

These calculations follow closely on the Nationwide and Halifax Bank reports of small price increases in recent months, and the forecast by the Nationwide that prices could end 2009 higher than they started 2009.

Evidence and predictions in recent months have all indicated small changes, in either direction, for the property market. It now would appear certain that there will be no other remarkable falls. The recent falls have simply driven vendors out of the market as previous ambitions to Sell Home Fast have been forsaken by many potential sellers. At present price levels many vendors are simply sitting tight in the hope of a price recovery. At the present time I would certainly not try to Sell my House fast.

There is also a very logical reason why there is a floor under house prices, and this is the level of mortgage lending provided on many properties. Vendors are often faced with no sale option if values decline to a point where equity is too low, or even non existent. Such vendors may want or need to Sell Property Fast, but are stopped from doing so by the simple economics of the sale transaction. They will remain out of the market place whether they like it or not. Many forecasts of house prices have focussed on the demand side of the equation, a shortage of buyers and of mortgages will restrict demand and force down values. What is clear is that the supply side is also having a big effect in shoring up values.

Vendor scarcity means that buyers are tracking fewer properties so the simple law of supply and demand is causing prices to remain firm, or rise slightly. And until prices rise further then numerous vendors will continue to remain out of the market. It could be argued that the value adjustment has gone too far and this may be the foundation of the Nationwide prediction of further increases during the rest of this year. Nonetheless, if vendors do start to return in larger numbers then this flimsy recent growth could disappear and further falls might well be on the cards. Luckily we now appear to be in market conditions where adjustments, either way, will be quite small. If there are further falls they are likely to be modest and similarly any recovery likely to be weak and slow.

Taken on the whole a scenario of flat property values over the next 6 to 12 months, and little possibility of achieving a Quick Home Sale at an attractive price for the vendor should surprise no one.

With lots of recent articles that the property market has at least bottomed out, if not started to bounce back, many new sellers may well be tempted to put their home on the market. This is also due to the fact that some home owners will have resisted offering property for sale because of the dire state of the market. Now may be a appropriate time for anyone looking for a Quick House Sale to get their home onto the market.

In the past twelve months or so there have been very poor numbers of property sales transactions. This has often been attributed to both a lack of customers and a dearth of mortgage finance. Still, the supply factor has also had an effect. Many home owners clearly cannot afford to sell at current lower prices and have stayed away from the market on those grounds.

With customers returning to the market and mortgage availability slowly easing we are currently starting to see a lack of properties up for sale, even those with a need to Sell Property Fast staying out of the market.

The Nationwide Building Society documenting a property price increase of over two percent for last month seems to bear out this shortage. Little can be read into just one month’s figures but these come on the back of consistent earlier rises and suggest the creation of a trend. Such a big rise indicates that buyers are enthusiastic to snap up properties so any new vendor can expect a reasonable amount of interest.

Over priced properties will struggle to sell, but those listed at prudent prices, taking into account recent market value reductions can now be expected to turn over in reasonable time. The usual expectation for a property sale transaction is a period of 3 months, allowing for normal marketing activity. This permits time for Estate Agents to undertake sales activity, a good number of viewings to happen and for dialogue with prospective buyers to occur. So by the end of twelve weeks sellers should have a negotiated arrangement and be in a position to instruct the conveyancing company.

The legal method for completing a property sale is possibly now a little quicker since the introduction of HIPS. From first instruction to exchange of contract should take in the region of 4 to 6 weeks, though this assumes that mortgage offers are actioned in reasonable time. Completion of the transaction is normally by negotiation between the purchaser and seller and generally allows a couple of weeks to organise removals.

So vendors looking to “Sell my Home fast” should be encouraged by recent trends and once property is on the market should be able to secure a sale within a more normal five months.

Detroit is the biggest city in the State of Michigan and a very important city for research and development in manufacture in the US, attracting over half a million high tech workers, the 4th highest figure in the US, including the 70,000 in the motor vehicle industry.

However, despite the continued government investment in the city’s economy and infrastructure, a shift in urban sprawl to the suburbs and the recent housing crash has left the metro Detroit region with a lack of good quality affordable homes.

The Detroit property market is now coming back with the assistance of the Department of Housing and Urban Development scheme (HUD), plus a group of city officials, business people, politicians and property investors. President Barack Obama has himself pledged to support the regeneration of Detroit in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009.

Property investors can now take advantage of an ethical investment that recycles houses, turning foreclosed and uninhabitable properties back into homes for the employed, low-income bracket.

Currently the City of Detroit has a list of over 9000 people waiting to be housed via the HUD programme

Detroit investment property is a very popular topic right now as a growing number of shrewd investors are benefitting from the very low property prices and excellent rental opportunities backed by the US government HUD programme.

The properties available are currently 40% below market value and can generate rental income of 20%+ per year..

For further information and to see some of the properties being refurbished here is a Detroit investment property video on YouTube which shows a story board of a company visiting Detroit and researching potential properties to refurbish and rent out to the HUD programme.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) recently reports that house prices in the UK are now on the rise. This comes after other recent reports from Halifax Bank and from Nationwide Building Society also signifying price rises have been fairly consistent over the last three or four months. Also, Taylor Wimpey, the main house builder in the UK, detail an increase in sales activity for the first half of the year. So recent hopefulness that the housing market has finally bottomed out does appear to be acceptable. For house owners looking for a Quick Home Sale now could be a very good time to consider putting a property on the market and hopes to Sell Property Fast may well be fulfilled.

However RICS do advise that there is unlikely to be a return to the heady times of house price inflation. The current level of house price values should be viewed as a new plateau from which prices will rise slowly, ideally in line with general inflation trends. The dramatic falls in house values suffered in the last two years are best taken as a crucial correction to an inflated market. The property market had been driven to unsustainable levels due partly to the easy access to cheap credit. But another factor was an over enthusiastic and green investor sector encouraged by the availability of 100% finance to buy up property for investment or letting.

The current market level looks much more reasonable taking into account current costs of lending, average wages and the cautious lending criteria now being applied by all mortgage lenders. But as the economy remains frail, with unemployment likely to get worse before starting to fall next year, a house price boom is not on the cards.

So when The Royal Institute says that prices are on the rise again this most certainly does not mean an immediate or imminent return to the value levels of mid 2007. Sellers need to bear this in mind, the present market revival does not mean that they can sell a property at what is was worth 2 years ago and expect a fast house sale. Sellers must adjust asking prices down in line with current value levels, the only properties being sold are those where the price agreed is about 20 – 25% lower than mid 2007 levels.

Those eager for a quick return to earlier levels will be disappointed. Even if prices rise at say 3% per year ( and that currently looks optimistic) then it will be about 7 years before mid 2007 prices are back again. If I needed to Sell my House fast at the moment, I’d be extremely flexible on the price, and prepare it to the very highest levels in order to give myself the best opportunity for a Quick Property Sale.