Money and Markets in the News
Money and Markets experts and analysts cover a broad range of financial topics and are frequently quoted and interviewed in the press.
07-18-08
Turning the Tables
In a down market, cutting your real estate losses doesn’t have to mean losing entirely.
It may seem strange to remember the dot-com meltdown of the late 1990s as a better time. But with the real estate market around the country in dire straits (thanks to the subprime mortgage fiasco and a soft economy), some people are feeling nostalgia for the era of investors being saddled with nearly worthless Internet stocks. “In the dot-com era, you could make a phone call and that was it,” says Errold Moody Jr., author of No Nonsense Finance. “As everyone has seen, if you’ve got a piece of real estate, you can’t dump the thing with a phone call. You’re going to have to wait a long time, or you’re going to have to reduce the price by a substantial margin.”
Sadly, too many potential home sellers around the country are in that very bind, faced with the prospect of taking a big loss — if they can even find a buyer for their house. But there are other options for those who simply can’t stand the idea of selling their home, which is usually their largest asset, for a fraction of the price they paid. Perhaps the best option is to wait out the real estate cycle and rent your property while you wait for home values to rise again.
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