The Broker's Record

Watsonville Foreclosures Meet the Press

March 03, 2008

Hey, I’m famous! Kind of. On the eve of our tour down to Watsonville to look at some REO foreclosure opportunities, I got a call from one of the staff writers for the Register Pajaronian. He asked if he could come along on the foreclosure tour. I said sure, no problem…

[From the Register Pajaronian - Foreclosed homes lure investors to local tour ]

Members of the Santa Cruz Real Estate Investment Club took a whirlwind tour Saturday through Watsonville, looking at six properties placed on the market as a result of foreclosure.

OK, so it’s not Sixty Minutes. But everyone has to start somewhere. The reporter from the RP (David Carkhuff) was very nice guy, visited a couple of houses with us, took some photos, and went on his way.

The Foreclosure Tour itself was pretty fun, and the folks who came along seemed kind of surprised at how cheap everything was in Watsonville. Afterwards, there was a debriefing back at Thunderbird Real Estate’s office, and a comment was made that prices aren’t quite there for investors yet.

Well, that’s as may be. However, from everything I have heard and read, most professional investors never pay list price. They may write up 10 or 20 offers for each one that actually gets accepted. I don’t know that you’d need to write up 20 offers to get a decent price on a place in Watsonville, but It’s true that the asking prices are not quite to the point where they are obviously a screaming deal for a true, pure investor. But they are very close, and in many cases, it’s possible to negotiate a price down to the point where it does make sense.

There were recently a couple of listings in Watsonville where the asking price did make sense to investors – and those properties sold in under a week. That’s the thing – when something is blatantly cheap like that, don’t expect it to sit on the market long. There is money around, but it’s smarter money than it used to be. It’s also faster moving money, so if you want to take advantage of this market, you’ve got to be fast moving, too.

Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 6:06pm
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