About Short Sales

As I drive around town I see lots of commercial buildings that are either empty or with multiple vacancies. There are so many “For Lease” signs in the windows that it is easy to see that the economic melt down has hit the commercial section heard. Homeowners are not the only ones worried about losing their properties these days, landlords and commercial property owners are having many of the same headaches, but on a bigger scale.

The bad economy is making many companies close branch operations or otherwise consolidate operations and personnel. Many other companies have had to stop doing business altogether as business dried up. Bankruptcy has caused others to close their doors. In every town I have been in lately, I’ve seen the same thing. When these businesses fail we frequently don’t think about their landlords, but in this market, they are in trouble also.

They are in trouble for a couple of reasons but the immediate problem is that they are losing the cash flow from their vacating tenants. Banks expect commercial foreclosures to increase as the property owners start to experience cash flow problems. Although landlords are fighting to increase cash flow and decrease expenses to make their payments, it might be a losing battle unless they can refinance their loans or get loan modifications.

It’s a fact that commercial property owners are losing tenants. This creates tremendous hardships for these landlords. With the glut of vacant space on the market, it’s hard for landlords to replace lost income from their previous tenants. The banks are worried about this because they know that landlords without tenants can’t pay their mortgages. When the loans were made years ago, it was usually with interest only loans for 7 to 8 years. Everyone expected that by the end of that time frame they could refinance the loans at cheaper rates and for a longer-term. But that is proving impossible now because property values have plummeted from previous levels. Many of the property owners are upside down just like the residential homeowners who are losing their homes.

The combination of lower property values and decreasing tenant income could be a fatal blow for many commercial property owners. On top of that, lending practices are much tighter than they were 10 years ago when these loans were made and they can get even tighter. These tight lending practices are making it very difficult for most commercial property owners to refinance.

This new crisis is going to result in a lot more vacant and foreclosed commercial property if it is not solved. About the only thing that will save it is effective commercial loan modification. This will take a lot of negotiating between property owners and the bank, but it’s important that it gets done. There are negotiators whose only business is negotiating these commercial loans. The landlord needs to find a competent commercial mortgage negotiator to help them get the best deal. He needs to have his principle reduced so that is no longer underwater with the loan. That’s the only way he’ll be able to get the refinancing he needs.

Getting started is not hard but requires a lot of paperwork. There’s a detailed application that needs to be filled out along with all the financial data that the property generates. A commercial appraisal needs done and that’s pretty expensive. The commercial negotiators that I just mentioned know exactly what to do to help smooth the process tremendously. Once you make the decision to go forward, it should go pretty smoothly because both the negotiator and the bankers are professionals who deal with this everyday. So if this applies to you, get started now before it’s too late.

Are you going to be able to Refinance Your Commercial Loan? We will tell you more at www.PalmDesertForeclosures.org.

We all know we need to invest, but how do we do it safely. Most people invest in stock market in one way or another, but how do we know we are buying at the right time. Investment advisers and the financial news tell us we need to invest steadily to take advantage of the market’s ups and downs. But what happens after we are retired, and we can’t handle the down part. For the last 10 years interest rates have been so low that it’s been almost impossible to get a decent return. The stock and bond markets are full of problems right now.

Real estate is a different story. When you buy property you’ve got something tangible. You’ve got something you can see, feel and use. You can live in it, or you can lease it out, or you can sell it. Right now if you’re investing in Santa Ana California property, you can get a great deal. There are thousands of properties, in Santa Ana, that are either in foreclosure are headed for foreclosure.

You can buy some of these properties for 50% of what the previous owner paid. You can buy residential property or commercial property that is being sold to the highest bidder. For example, on West Lucky Way there is a house that had $613,000 in loans on it and it is now valued at $320,000 as of April 14, 2010. I’m looking at another on W. Chestnut Ave. that ForeclosureRadar values at $164,000 and it has loans on it of 436,000. Foreclosure Radar estimates that the Cap Rate on that property is 19.5% and the estimated rent is $2672 a month. That sounds like something worth looking at.

Real Estate has always been a primary investment. Everyone needs a roof over their heads of some type. Over the last few years, new home owners were forced into ridiculous mortgages that created un-affordable balloon payments within 6 to 10 years. This has all come crashing down now, and these unhappy homeowners are bailing out of their now un-affordable homes. This is causing a glut of homes on the market and reducing prices so that investors can now buy a California properties that they can now rent out for a positive cash flow.

So if you can buy property for half what it sold for five or six years ago you can probably afford to lease it to the same people who tried to buy it back then. They can easily afford to pay the rent on a property that was purchased at half the price it was a few years ago.

Another great advantage that investors have today is that we currently have the lowest interest rates in decades. It can’t last long, but interest rates today are lower than 5%. My sister just bought a house in Palm Desert, California and got a 30 year fixed interest rate of 4.62%. This combination of low prices and low interest rates is very favorable to investors who want to rent out their properties for profit.

There are a lot of free financial calculators on the Internet that will let you calculate exactly how great a deal you can get. Try one and you will see that now is a great time to buy foreclosed property in Santa Ana, California.

Visit www.SantaAnaForeclosures.org and use our free ForeclosureRadar search engine to learn more about Santa Ana Foreclosures.

You don’t have to be a genius to see that Santa Ana foreclosures often represent some of the best deals in real estate. The banking business is all about making loans to property owners and collecting mortgage payments, not owning property. So whenever banks repossess a house from someone unable to keep up with the monthly bills, they look to sell it again as soon as possible — usually at a cut-rate price. So if you want to save money on a big property purchase, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on Santa Ana foreclosure activity.

In the past, only big time real estate investors were interested in Santa Ana foreclosures. That stands to reason because most of the foreclosed property was pretty beat up in inner city areas with all the problems that come with gang violence and high crime rates. But thanks to the persistent downward spiral of property prices in Santa Ana, we are seeing many more foreclosures in prime areas like, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Santa Ana and Laguna. These foreclosed homes give investors the opportunity to buy homes in great neighborhoods that they never would have considered before. It’s no wonder, then, that more and more people are shopping for foreclosed homes these days.

How do you go about finding foreclosure properties for sale? Most folks opt not to work with a real estate agent — at least initially — when trying to find a good deal. Since there are so many free websites that provide foreclosure listings, that is where they start. They list just about everything everything about a property from the size, and number of bedrooms, to the owner of the mortgage. You can even see a picture of the property on Google Maps.

Auctions are becoming very popular, both locally and on-line. At these auctions, you can bid on foreclosed properties for sale and hope to score a bargain that way. You can decide how much you want to spend for a property before hand and if you can stick to your decision you will probably get a great bargain. If you get the bid, then you might get the best possible deal. However, an obvious drawback is that you’re not guaranteed to be the highest bidder, so you always risk leaving empty-handed.

And finally, the government always maintains a list of foreclosure properties for sale on the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) website. While most of the listings are for modest single-family homes, you’ll occasionally come across exotic mansions that are being offered for pennies on the dollar. These places have likely been seized in drug raids or from white-collar criminals and are now being sold in order to pay off fines, which means bargain prices for buyers.

The mortgage crisis hasn’t been very much fun for anyone, but it does mean that there are more affordable homes out there today. If you are in the market for a new home, you should check out foreclosed properties in Santa Ana, CA, instead of just hunting for a house through regular old channels.

Looking for more information on Foreclosures in Santa Ana? Get the ultimate low down instantly in our Santa Ana Foreclosures overview.