Foreclosures on a Rising Spree in Hawaii

Posted in Real Estate Foreclosures, May 27th, 2007 |

The foreclosure waves are coming in from the mainland and lashing the shores of Hawaii, as per reports from Honolulu. There has been a spate of foreclosure listings in the recent months sending alarm bells pealing.

Till now Hawaii had a very low foreclosure rate as compared to other national figures. But local investors are suddenly waking up to a change in the air. A noticeable number of happenings in the foreclosure market are making them sit up. However one should take this bit of news with a pinch of salt as last Friday’s market showed that real bargains are as yet not a common story. These are still hard to grab.

Investor Stephanie Apodaca, trying to explain their attitude says that they are not really too keen to see others drowning but ‘an opportunity is an opportunity’ and it is all fair and square in the game of real estate market. She went into downtown Honolulu from Kapolei with high expectations for a more than usual number of foreclosure auctions that had been scheduled to be held for Friday. Nearly forty people had crowded around the representative of the lender. The upset bid of $80,000 for a leasehold walk-up in Waikiki was rather too steep for everybody. But one bidder won with a bid for $81,000. This seemed to have been the single auction of the day. The others were either cancelled or did not attract other bidders except for the bank. But Apodaca is not willing to admit that the day had been wasted. She knows which way the wind is blowing for she has been steadily doing the rounds for the last four months.

Experts opine that most of the auctions do not materialize because the affected homeowners somehow manage to find out an escape route for their sheer survival. After all it is a question of their hearth and home! But things cannot continue in this way. Ultimately risky mortgages will start taking its toll. Six months ago there were about thirty foreclosure listings in a month but today the figure has gone up to one hundred during the same time period says expert, Courtney Brown.

For the investor too there are many risks ahead. There are hidden costs, troubles with tenants and ruthless competition. All said and done it is a gamble with very high stakes.

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