CRR Blog

A 3Bedroom/3Bath Home on Ensenada Drive in Woodland Hills just sold at auction this Monday, 11/14/2016.  There are factors converging for 2017.  We are seeing the beginnings of a wave of great opportunities heading at you over the coming months.  We are advising you now and you want to be prepared.  This property had a Reverse Mortgage on it from 6 years ago.  The loan amount was recorded as $787,500.00 in First Position and $1.00 in Second Position.

The Second loan is the thing that tells you it is a Reverse Mortgage.  The Amount owed on the First Position Loan was only $460,311.00 at the time that the lender issued the Notice of Trustee's Sale in August 2016.  The final amount owed at time of auction was $470,238.96.  But the property is worth $747,172.00 today.  The buyer at auction was alone.  They paid just $470,238.97. One Penny Over.

This amounts to over $276,000 in Potential Equity.  If I were a pessimist I would say call it $225,000 and assume you have work to do for a sale in the $700,000.00 range.  Either way you slice it they got a darn good deal.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.

The lesson to take from this is that we are at the edge of a seismic turnover in real estate.  It has been coming for years.  It has been slowed by policies intended to paper over a huge hole in the housing market.  There have been too many equity loans taken out to use as income because people cannot afford their homes. They have bought time, not property.  And time is running out.  These houses will be marked to market and below by the foreclosure process.  There really aren't many losers in this process, because the lenders are getting subsidized by the taxpayer, and the borrowers got to take equity out of the properties and live on it.  True, some folks bought at the wrong time, circa 2007.  They may get hurt.  For the rest of us...  The time to buy is beginning to show itself.  Be wise in your choices. Don't over extend yourself. make smart choices and the next year will be very kind to you.

Just a few weeks ago a buyer landed a great bargain on a 3 unit property.  This one is on Flight Avenue in West Los Angeles.  The sale date was 10/17/2016.  The buyer followed this property, as we must, through many postponements.  Auction dates get pushed back for a number of reasons.  This is a plus for the intrepid investor.  When others lose interest we get the deal because we stick it out with our eye on the prize. This building is worth over one million dollars.  We always point out that comparable values can vary.  This is a prime example.

Our value estimate is $1,016,196.00, while a major real estate website values it to be much higher at $1,633,485.00.  Which one is right?  Or is the actual value somewhere in the middle?  That is for the buyer to determine. Either way the value exceeds one million dollars.

At auction, the foreclosing loan opened at $672,788.30 and the bidding proceeded. There were obviously multiple bidders, because in the end the bidding stopped at $793,000.00.  So more than one smart investor had their eye on this great property with loads of equity. But in the end there can only be one buyer.  It appears that this was the only loan on the property, making this a bargain. The buyer would have done their research well before-hand. They would have driven by the property and made sure that the comparable values lined up with the actual condition of the building.  They would have made a call to a title company to confirm the loan information.  Finally, they would have made the plans in advance of the auction to have their cashier's checks and be at the right place at the right time.

Congratulations to the buyer.  It is a challenge to get it right, but always worth it.