Archive of Steve Cook's Articles
Steve Cook is managing editor of Real Estate Economy Watch and UPI Real Estate, and provides communications consulting services to leading real estate organizations. Previously he was vice president of public affairs for the National Association of Realtors.
Steve has written 11 article(s) for the BiggerPockets Blog.
Rehabbing by Steve Cook | February 18, 2012 
Ready to fix up that fixer upper you bought for a song and plan to sell as soon as the market turns? Getting a property ready to rent or sell can run into serious time and money. According to a survey of investors last spring by Move, Inc., about a third expected the cost of [...]
Read the full article → Economy by Steve Cook | February 15, 2012Prices are changing quickly in markets you wouldn’t expect as the dynamics of supply and demand, sparked by investors, play out. Here are some of the top turnaround towns based on remarkable data made available to the public for the first time last year. Realtor.com, the huge homes-for-sale site, contains anywhere from 2 to 5 [...]
Economy by Steve Cook | February 8, 2012 
As the result of a massive settlement negotiated between states and lenders that is almost complete, major changes are in the offing that will significantly change the way lenders, especially the largest banks, service defaults and foreclosures. For investors, especially those who invest in major foreclosure markets in states in participating, the settlement will have [...]
Read the full article → Foreclosures by Steve Cook | February 1, 2012 
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today invited investors interested in purchasing pools of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA foreclosures in the nations hardest-hit metropolitan areas with the requirement they rent them for a period of year to pre-qualify. The new bulk sales program, under discussion since August, will begin with a pilot program [...]
Read the full article → Foreclosures by Steve Cook | February 1, 2012America has become a nation of two foreclosure realities: judicial states, where judicial review is required for every foreclosure, and non-judicial states. Both have their processing problems, but delays in judicial states are setting new records and impacting local real estate economies. December data from Lender Processing Services (LPS) paints a picture of increasingly clogged [...]
Economy by Steve Cook | January 25, 2012When it comes to residential real estate investors, there are clearly two points of view today within the real estate industry and in Washington. Some applaud investors for plunking down their own dollars to save decaying homes in moribund neighborhoods and reviving local real estate markets. But investors come under fire by others for out-competing [...]
Economy by Steve Cook | January 18, 2012In the dorky world of real estate economics, the creation of a new housing category should be a major event, on par with, say, the discovery of a new solar system or the cloning of a pig. Strangely, single family rentals (SFR), even though they are now a multi-million property segment of the nation’s housing [...]
Economy by Steve Cook | January 11, 2012Have foreclosures gotten a bad rap? For years, economists and policy makers have believed that foreclosures are inherently toxic for neighboring home values. Many therefore assume that a housing recovery will be impossible as long as foreclosures remain abundant. The mere existence of 4 to 6 million properties in the foreclosure pipeline has contributed to [...]
Economy by Steve Cook | January 4, 2012 
A nation’s homes shape the quality of its citizens’ lives. Homes are where the workaday world ends and family life begins. Life’s passages take place in our homes; they are where children grow up and memories are made. Homes form the building blocks of every community. Not since the Depression has a man-made disaster so [...]
Read the full article → Economy by Steve Cook | December 28, 2011 
The stars are aligned to make 2012 an extraordinary year for rental income. The decline in homeownership is translating into rising rents and the multifamily apartment sector, though booming today, was late catching the wave. If it weren’t for the new investor-driven single family rentals in many markets, rents would be zooming even higher than [...]
Read the full article → Foreclosures by Steve Cook | December 21, 2011Most folks who buy and sell distressed property for a profit secretly expect that eventually the day will come when foreclosures will no longer account for one out of every three homes sold in America. Someday the Foreclosure Time will indeed end, though most likely not within the next two years. It’s end, however, is inevitable and [...]
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Rental Outlook 2012: The Good Times Roll on
by Steve Cook | December 28, 2011The stars are aligned to make 2012 an extraordinary year for rental income. The decline in homeownership is translating into rising rents and the multifamily apartment sector, though booming today, was late catching the wave. If it weren’t for the new investor-driven single family rentals in many markets, rents would be zooming even higher than [...]