Foreclosures are definitely climbing rapidly.  A reality of our economy is Foreclosures. Many Real Estate speculators are buying a lot of late-night commercials on describing to you how to become rich quick in foreclosures.  Don’t spend a lot of time listening to those guys, its just not nearly as easy to make money in forclosures as they make it out to be.   Virginia is a consumer protected state and the rules for foreclosure are extremely difficult to fully understand.  IF you think that buying s property at a Sheriff’s sale is not dangerous business, think again.  Rarely does the bidding investor actually get the bid especially on the best properties, as many times live in occupants are bidding and it is difficult for the investor to bid as high as a home owner might bid.  The reason for this is that the investor must be able to fix up the home, resale it and realize a profit. The home owner does not need to make a profit right away, as he simply needs a place to live.  Time is on the side of the home owner, as he will live in the property for a few years to build up the equity. As we know, the investor needs to make a quick profit, and simply cannot afford to bid as high as the home owner.

It has been many years since the real good deals in foreclosure were plentiful.  However if you want to search, you can still  find some profit making ventures.  However our current market just does not bear the fruits of lots of quick money.  The deals are still there, but you must search for them every day and you must be quick to take action when you find a possible candidate for fix up and quick resale.  If a foreclosure investor has lots of quick cash and fully understands the process of buying repo properties, they can do much better than the neophytes that have just begun to get into the business.  New investors, short of cash sometimes lose out on the best deals while they search for a source of cash to close the deal.
In many cases the inexperienced investors have found themselves in serious trouble and sometimes deep in debt.

In not the to far distant future, new laws will be coming out of the legislature in the way of new laws that regard a complete change in the game of quick fix and resell foreclosures.  These new rules will make it more difficult to purchase forclosures and could cause the unknowing investor to incurr serious legal risks.

The civil penalties for anyone not adhering strictly to the new disclosures and laws will carry severe penalties.
It seems that more and more of the foreclosed homes are now being listed at full market value thru full service real estate agents.

The demand for foreclosed properties is very high, and a good real estate agent can help you find the properties before someone else snaps them up.  Those with the most experience have found that the aid of a real estate agent can be extremely beneficial and many will offer to help you for a reduced fee.  And of course the more businesss you do with them you can expect more and more favorable treatment.

Some of the properties such as the VA and Hud actually require the services of a realtor just to submit the offer.   The federal goverment does not want to deal directly with the public, so they require that the contract be submitted via a real estate agent.

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