With the fall of real estate prices, the subprime crisis, and even local discount retailers such as Target who have experienced slow growth due to cautionary spending, 2008 is projected to be another tough year. The subprime mess alone has cost more than $45 billion in write-offs at the world’s largest banks. Economists are expecting the volatility to continue into 2009. Even Freddie Mac (the government) has huge losses. What does this mean to the little investor? With foreclosures rising, there will be more buying opportunities. If you are going to continue to buy real estate as an investment, make sure you having your financing in place before you start looking. Don’t forget to utilize the seller if there is any equity in the property by asking if they would be willing to assist in some or all (depending on how much equity there really is) and look at long term options from the investor standpoint if you are betting the market will continue to go down. Now is the time to educate yourself and, if you can afford it, be in the game!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Investing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.