Foreclosure Bus Tour, Sign of Housing Bust, Hits New York Area

[marmar]

from Bloomberg:





Foreclosure Bus Tour, Sign of Housing Bust, Hits New York Area

By Peter S. Green

June 2 (Bloomberg) -- The white bus with the magnetic sign saying ``Long Island Foreclosure Tours'' pulled up to a small home in East Meadow, Long Island, and spilled out its cargo: a dozen homebuyers looking to save $100,000 or more.

The driveway was cracked, and the vinyl siding sagged. There was a ``No Trespassing'' sign on the front door.

``You have some mold issues; you can definitely assume some water issues,'' said Dean Miller, a broker on the tour. Then again, he said, the asking price for the 1951 Cape Cod at 68 Lois Court was $312,900, down from $457,101 in February.

The foreclosure tour, mobile proof of the U.S. housing bust, has rolled into the New York City market. For $75, prospective buyers on the Long Island version last month got velour banquettes, a supply of potato chips and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and visits to eight foreclosed homes, with a general contractor and home inspector in tow.

And the broker, Miller, who continued his pitch for the three-bedroom, one-bath Cape Cod. ``You're in a quiet cul-de-sac in a very nice community for $100,000 less than the surrounding homes,'' he told the prospective buyers.

Potential bargains abound in the market. In April, 502 Nassau County homes, or one for every 913 in the county, entered the foreclosure process, more than double the number a year ago, according to RealtyTrac Inc., of Irvine, California.

Prices Fall

The median home price in the county fell 2.3 percent to $449,500 in the first quarter, and inventory rose 6.5 percent to 9,862 homes, New York-based appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. said.

Foreclosures are scattered across otherwise healthy neighborhoods, offering New Yorkers a chance to move up to a house they wouldn't ordinarily be able to afford. The East Meadow home, surrounded by similarly modest houses on small lots, is a 45- minute commute from Manhattan.

Sheri Cambareri, a saleswoman in Miller's office at Re/Max Village Properties in Mineola thought up the tour a few weeks ago, over drinks with Re/Max broker Dave Farrell. In a previous job, she organized luxury tours to the pyramids and the Galapagos Islands for members of New York's American Museum of Natural History.

``The extra benefit of those tours was that they brought along an archeologist or an anthropologist,'' Cambareri said. ``We thought we'd bring the mortgage broker, the inspector, the attorney and the contractor.''

The first stop on a recent Saturday was a four-bedroom, 1,400-square-foot Cape Cod on Clinton Road, a busy through-street in Garden City, New York. The asking price was $509,900.00. The buyer who defaulted on the mortgage had paid $600,000, Cambareri said. A nearby home of the same size sold a year ago for $560,000. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a1qrqxe61SAI&refer=home

[magellan]

1. If you want to see how hard hit this area is

...go out to RealQuest, which shows the preforeclosures, auctions and bank-owned homes in the vicinity of any address or zip code. You have to zoom in once to see all the flags pop up. You can drag the map to see the damage in adjacent areas.

Garden City is zip code 11530. There are only 20 auctions and 1 bank-owned home there. But Hempstead right next door (zip 11550) has 404 auctions and 38 bank-owned homes.

I'd suggest now isn't a good time to buy a home, particularly in areas like this. If the realtors are flogging them with bus tours, you can bet they're trying to get people into them before the values drop more.