The Foreclosure Sale Experience

2014-08-02 Auction 2

A small crowd gathered near the trash and recycle bins of a pale yellow home on the corner of Whitney and Fern. Saturday at high noon is traditionally the time of reckoning for properties subject to foreclosure auctions, and the appointed hour grew near. The group that was forming was an eclectic bunch. Investors walked with purpose as they evaluated the outside of the property, measuring the opportunity. They paced back and forth on the

Haas Institute: Hartford Most Underwater in USA?

Hartford Skyline From Morgan Street Garage

Yesterday a study originating from the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at the University of California, Berkeley began making the rounds through the media. Here is the full document. The report identified Hartford, CT as the city with the “Highest Incidence of Negative Equity” in the entire country. They found that 56% of Hartford homes are underwater, meaning that the owner owes more on their mortgage than the home is worth in

Distress in the 2011 Hartford County Market

Our local MLS added two fields to denote distressed sales back in 2008. As with most new things, the fields were not immediately and uniformly adopted by the thousands of individual agents in the area. Now that they are widely used, we can begin to look at the level of distress in our local markets using the CTMLS database. At the big picture level, it appears that distressed single-family homes and condominiums sales represented about

Buying Single-Family Homes in Bulk

Warning: What follows is a long, dry, stat-heavy summary without much original commentary or insight. It’s here because putting this together helped me think through the subject better. Proceed at your own risk. Hopefully at least one other person will find it interesting… I came across an article a while back that I’m still trying to wrap my head around. It’s a wide-ranging piece on the Bloomberg site called Private Equity Has Too Much Money

Multi-Family Properties in Hartford County

We spend a lot of time talking about single-family homes and condominiums, but multi-family properties are another important part of the local housing scene. Where are the the multi-families in Hartford County? As you can see by the number of contracts written on this type of property over the past two years, they are concentrated in just a few towns. Lots in Hartford and New Britain, and a solid number in Bristol, Manchester, and East