How accurate is Realtytrac's Foreclosure and Market trands tabs?

Question

How accurate is Realtytrac's Foreclosure and Market trend tabs? One major city has a good mix of bank owned , auction, and pre-foreclosures while another city of the same population size shows 0 foreclosures.

How reliable are these Trend tabs?

Thanks!

How reliable are these Trend tabs?

Thanks!

Linda M. · Answer

@Ramon Martinez Wow with those type of prices it must be near impossible to cash flow. I imagine investors there hedge on appreciation or fix and flips for a quick profit.

Linda M. · Answer

@Ramon Martinez I use Realty Trac as a small chunk of my in depth research before picking a market. One of the things I use it for like in the picture I posted above is one that has all 3 things: Preforeclosures, Auction and Bank Owned properties. I didn't go into that market because preforeclosures appear to be non existent. That's why I was asking how accurate Realty Trac really was.

Ramon Martinez · Answer

@Linda Malavet Oh yeah cash flow is nearly non-existent in LA, I mean, I'm sure it's out there somewhere/somehow but all the buy and holders I know are in a major holding pattern, they're refi-ing everything they've got to take advantage of the still cheap money and just building war chests, praying that the market takes a hit sometime in the next few years so they can move back-in and start buying again.

Pretty much the entire buy and hold game from what I understand is built on appreciation down here. I've just recently begun transitioning from the retail market to the investor side so I'm still getting the lay of the land. But there seems to be very little opportunity for cash flow, and all the less for immediate cash flow upon purchase.

Back to RealtyTrac, Linda do you find it effective beyond its accuracy? What do you use it for? I'm looking for a resource to help uncover distressed potential fix and flips here in LA to help me lead generate properties to pitch to my investors or tie up for myself. Think it's any good for this purpose?

Let me know, thanks,

Ramon Martinez · Answer

@Linda Malavet see below for your answer, someone obviously has already gotten to this property, yet realty trac is listing it as in pre-foreclosure and with a crazy hot profit (!!!)...I guess you could say they were right in that someone obviously saw the value and got enough of a deal to tear the place down completely, which rarely happens in my part of LA where this is from (silver lake echo park)