Foreclosures

What is a foreclosure and how does it occur? When a homeowner (borrower) is unable to make his/her house payments for a certain period of time the foreclosure process kicks in. Being in this status means the borrower has now lost ownership of the property and the lending company is able to sell the property to the highest bidder at a Public auction.

With the economy the way it is, one of the devastating results has been a massive amount of foreclosures nationwide. Which if you are an investor, this can be a great thing to take advantage of.

If you live near the Seattle area, ForeclosurePlatform.com has available resources detailing every foreclosure in all of Western Washington. On a continuous basis, properties are updated with any changes that may occur from auction sale dates to opening bid amounts and even postponed properties and cancellations. If you are looking for Seattle short sales, it is the best website to keep you up to date.

Read why foreclosures are undervalued and why they create great investments to buyers. There are many reasons to purchase foreclosed properties and the greatest advantage is the price reduction! If you want to learn more about foreclosures click here.

A Ray of Hope for the Economy

With the current state of the economy is there a ray of hope shining through? According to a recent article found at money.cnn many economists are seeing signs of recovery as early as this summer! Even though New York unemployment is at a 25 year all time high there could be a silver lining right around the corner. Economists are saying they are seeing indicators bottoming out left and right. Starting with job losses peaking in January to increased home sales and stocks. Even better news is because the economy took such a steep fall they are hopeful that the recovery will be that much stronger.

Some economists are saying recovery could be as close to four months away! Such as economist Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute. He says his firm’s readings on long-term and short-term economic indicators give him significantly more hope that the economy is closer to a turnaround than he had thought even a month ago! Among the more than dozen different things his firm looks at are home prices, the jobs picture and stock prices.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com, also believes that a recovery could be closer than most people think. However, he said an end to the recession would largely depend on improvement in the labor markets. His first concern is getting job losses under control. He says if we can help improve job losses that will help build consumer confidence back into the economy and stocks.

I say the sooner the better! I love reading good news…

The Top Abandoned Cities

When you think of bright lights and a big city one of the first places that comes to mind is Las Vegas. With the economy the way it is, unfortunately it is at the top of the list for abandoned cities. Las Vegas is an adults play ground if you have the dough, but if you have no dough like the state of many adults your main concern is putting food on the dinner table, not buying a stack of poker chips. Las Vegas is an expensive treat and one that is just not a priority to very many people at this time. On top of that the once lavish construction sites and economic growth areas have all come to a screaming halt!

So what comes in at number two you may ask? Well remember Detroit known as the backbone for the American industry? You guessed it, it is the number two most abandoned city. Detroit is suffering from the great economic decline because of the role the city played in the past.

While Las Vegas and Detroit were neck in neck for the title, Las Vegas pulled ahead with all of the vacant houses. According to Forbes abandoned cities were determined by pulling a combination of rental and homeowner vacancy rates, with Las Vegas suffering the most because of bad loans and decreasing property value.

So what is to come for these two troubled cities? Time will only tell…

Stores to Watch Out For

We all know that the economy is not in a very good spot as we speak. I wanted to do some personal research and find out which stores were going out of business and which stores are in fear of going out of business. According to Forbes.com Circuit City, Linens ‘N Things and Mervyn’s stores are all going out of business! More pain is predicted along the way as a women’s survey suggested that one third of the women claimed they did not plan on purchasing any new clothing in 2009! Lane Bryant, Gap, and Starbucks are some of the companies that we are supposed to keep our eye on, as they are not predicted to do well in the New Year.

Research suggests that the market will not be the same for a long period of time and could take easily up to 10 years to get back on track. Eddie Bauer, Pacific Sunwear, along with Zales, the big jewelry chain are other stores to keep watch over. All of these retailers are currently having a really hard time making it in the market. It is tough to survive right now and only the strongest will survive as retailers struggle more and more. Stay tuned for continued up dates…