Story Published: Jul 20, 2008 at 7:21 PM PDT
By Rudabeh Shahbazi
TRI-CITIES-- It's a safari unlike any you've seen before-- it's in your neighborhoods. More than 40 people took a bus tour of foreclosed homes around the Tri-Cities Saturday.
"We've got a lot of eager buyers on that bus!" said mortgage planner Dana Mundy, who helped organize and guide the tour.
Some of the tourists were looking to buy and sell homes, others were looking to rent houses out. All were there to take advantage of the mortgage crisis.
"It kind of opened my mind to the idea of investment property," said Korey Vankampen, who went along for the tour. "Just the way people can do that and make a pretty good income off of buying property for a really good price, and then renting it out or fixing it up and reselling it."
Another "foreclosure tourist," Julie Molvik, agreed that buying foreclosed real estate is a creative way to turn a profit.
"We were looking for something that we could invest in, or maybe something we could fix up and maybe something we could rent out or resell, flip."
Dewey Tegland isn't new to flipping houses.
"That's right up my alley, as far as fixing stuff up. I've actually fixed up homes a lot worse than that," he said, referring to a worn-down house he walked through.
The Columbia Basin may be relatively insulated from the national mortgage meltdown, but that doesn't mean the area is totally unaffected.
There are three percent more foreclosures in the state of Washington than last year, and five percent of the homes on the market in the Tri-Cities are foreclosures.
Mundy says, considering the national average, that's no cause for concern.
"I really see that our market is holding very, very strong over some pretty weak markets across the country," she said.
Like the rest of the nation, it's a buyer's market in the Tri-Cities, but Mundy says it's also a great time to sell, in contrast to national trends. She points it's strong job market, which say says is always an indication of the housing market.
"This is an awesome opportunity right now," said Mundy. "Gosh, the average home in the Tri-Cities is still under $200,000. If you look across the country, where else are you going to be able to buy houses at these prices?"
But realtor Lance Kenmore, who also led the excursion, warns, a deal isn't always a steal. He says buyers should be weary of "title issues," when buying a home.
"Stuff that the common person might not look for," he said. "Tax liens, IRS liens, workman's liens. Just because a home is foreclosed, doesn't mean it's a good deal."
Kenmore says people in the Tri-Cities haven't been as vulnerable as the rest of the nation when it comes to predatory loans and adjustable rate mortgages. He says the main reasons for local foreclosures are illness or death, the bad overall economy and a major job shift or loss.
Kenmore and Mundy will guide another foreclosure bus tour August 23.
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