We've all heard that the housing bubble's pop led to thousands of foreclosures, but its interactive maps like this that really show how prevalent the problem was — and still is. Part of a project on 30 election issues, the map below uses data from RealtyTrac to display foreclosure rates by county.
The darker the color is, the higher the rate of foreclosure. You can see what each color represents in the legend on the lower left.
By pressing play, you can see how many more dots show up on the map, indicating a higher prevalence of foreclosures. But perhaps more disturbing, the map displaying the most recent data in July 2012 doesn't look much better than past maps: The crowded dots maintain the visual effect of a foreclosure epidemic.
After nine consecutive months of appreciation, August was the first month where home values decreased by 0.1% to $152,100, according to Zillow.
Following up to our previous article titled, “
Consider Minneapolis, Minn. You could’ve bought, out of foreclosure, a three-bedroom, two-bath house of 1,356 square feet on a quarter acre lot for about $29,000. It needed a lot of work, but houses in the neighborhood recently sold for $75,000.
Investors are buying homes at a more rapid pace than ever before, and this time their investments actually make sense. Most are buying homes below replacement cost, or at prices that allow for a reasonable rental return.
The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times both published articles in the past six weeks stating that the housing market has reached a bottom. But hold on for just a minute… It seems that not everyone believes it.
There are many complicated ways to analyze the market conditions in your local area, enough to confuse and boggle the novice investor’s mind. However, you can keep things simple by using our “MAD” method. This means paying attention to three important factors and noting whether they’re going up or down:
