What a great way to kick off 2008 … attend a real estate investor meeting! OK, maybe it’s not for everybody, but it is for me. I found out about the group through the website MeetUp.com - it’s a great resource for finding like-minded individuals in your own area. This was the first meeting I’ve attended and was pleasantly surprised by the turn-out and course of discussion throughout the evening. Seven people attended; which, considering this was held on January 1st, is pretty good. We focused our conversation on the foreclosure market, and, in particular, lower priced foreclosures in the outlying towns of Contra Costa county.

The two main take-aways from the meeting that I’ll be looking further into are:

1. Tracking NOD and REO properties: the idea here is that by tracking the number of NOD (Notice of Default) and REO (Real Estate Owned) listings over time, we should be able to use decreasing numbers as an indicator to the eventual turn-around. When the numbers begin to decrease and, eventually, level out, we should be able to say with some certainty that the mortgage crisis is over. As an investor, this could indicate that inventories will begin decreasing and prices will begin rising.
2. Taking advantage of today’s market: the idea here is that by purchasing short sale and foreclosure properties and then immediately reselling them at bottom market prices, there is an opportunity to achieve small gains of between 2% to 10% depending on the region. This, in my opinion, is a risky proposition. Short sales, in particular, can be difficult properties to purchase since they require banks to agree to taking a loss on their loan. In turn, you need to get the property off of your hands quickly in order to ensure maximum profit. There are probably investors out there who are successfully using this approach, but my guess is that they have a solid process and team in place to pull it off. It’s not an ideal undertaking for the novice.

If you have any thoughts about these, or other, ideas, please drop me a line and let me know.

Happy New Year and good luck in 2008!