Vacant homes can be a gold mine for investors. These properties are costing someone money and in many cases a lot of money. Most of these have mortgages on them and all of them have property taxes being assessed. What this means folks, is the owners, at some point, are going to get sick of shelling out money on an empty property that is providing no benefit to them at all. These are the kinds of sellers we like as investors – they become very motivated to dispose of these properties and all the associated costs of owning them. In short, this is good news.
Tell your agent, your bird dogs or whoever is finding deals for you to be on the lookout for vacant or abandoned homes. A quick search of the tax record will tell you who owns the property and their address. In many cases the mailing address will be different than the property address and that is where you want to send you letter explaining your interest in the property.
The number of vacant homes for sale in the United States set a new record in the first quarter of 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Monday.
The Census Bureau reported that 2.9 percent of U.S. homes or 2.28 million properties, not including rentals, were vacant and for sale. It was the highest quarterly number as far back to 1956 when records of such vacancies were first kept.
The West had the biggest gain in vacancy rates among home owners, rising to 3.2 percent in the January-March period from 2.6 percent in the same quarter a year earlier. Vacancy rates inched up in the Northeast and remained steady in the Midwest and South.
Source: The Associated Press, Alan Zibel (04/28/08)
Posted by Carter Brown
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