Oh boy!  Great statistic if you are an investor (more cheap house coming).  Not good if you are a retail seller or you flip houses.  CNNMoney.com reports that there were 2.1 million homes that are very seriously delinquent or in the REO bank’s inventory, but have not been released to the market.  They are just sitting waiting for the right time.

Add that to the existing inventory and we have 6.3 million homes for sale, or 23 months worth of inventory.  As a comparison, a normal inventory is 6-7 months worth (we saw 3-5 months in 2002-2005).  With all that inventory coming, experts are predicting that home prices are expected to dip another 8% before they start to clime (unfortunately, they didn’t say when the 8% decline would end).

Read more of the article here.

I love working with investors.  Maybe one of my favorite parts of my job is seeing people take properties that were previously run down, neglected, ugly (and sometimes almost destroyed), and bring them back to life and restore them to their beauty.  This Saint Paul home is no exception.

Downstairs this duplex had no kitchen left and someone had tried to combine two of the three bedrooms to make a larger master suite (removing the hardwood floors in the process).  The upstairs tenants had destroyed the bathroom and the property did not have a working heating system.  Once my investor purchased it, they found that the entire plumbing system was incorrect installed.

Needless to say, they spent considerable time and money to restore this 1928 Crocus Hill duplex back to its original glory.  I love it (I was tempted to tell my wife to start packing as we are moving in!).  Here is just a partial list of the work they did:

• New kitchens including cabinets, counter tops, appliances, and tile floors
• New bathrooms with all new plumbing and tile throughout
• Refinished hardwood floors and restored woodwork
• New Bryant furnaces in each unit
• Upgraded plumbing (both waste and supply) including 2 new water heaters

Each unit is 3 bedrooms and 1 bath.  This property will work for either an investor or an owner occupant.  The seller is very comfortable that you could rent either apartment for $1250 per month each.

Check out the website for 728 Dayton Avenue.