Thousands of houses sell for less than $10000

Posted on by Listify Me

By
Daily Mail Reporter


PUBLISHED:

00:04 GMT, 3 April 2012

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UPDATED:

00:04 GMT, 3 April 2012

Willow Tufano, age 14, captured the country’s attention when she purchased a house for $12,000 and offered it for rent — becoming perhaps the country’s youngest landlord.

But real estate experts say there are thousands of other houses across the country selling for unbelievable bargain-basement prices, thanks to a glut of foreclosures and the mass of houses without buyers on the market.

The housing market meltdown means today there are at least 100 homes in each of the 10 largest housing markets in the country that are listed for $10,000 or less.

Rock bottom? Willow Tufano, 14, and her $12,000 house in Florida exemplify the glut of super-cheap properties that are clogging the real estate market

Atlanta has 234 houses on sale for less than $10,000. The Baltimore market lists 207 and Chicago has 165, according to the National Association of Realtors.

In Detroit, Michigan, which has been hit hardest by both the recession and the housing crash, 2,300 homes can be bought for less than $10,000.

Abandoned, foreclosed houses have become such a scourge that city leaders are hoping to bulldoze whole blocks. 

An the number of such homes are rising. In 22 of the top metro areas that Realtor.com analyses, there has been an increase in the past two years of super-cheap properties listed below $10,000. 

Most of these properties are a result of lengthy bank foreclosures and sit on land that makes them literally worthless, Steve Berkowitz, CEO of Move Inc., which operates Realtor.com, told MSNBC.com.

Fire sale: Most of the thousands of super-cheap houses on the market are the result of foreclosures and in areas that are unattractive to buyers

THE CHEAPEST HOUSES IN THE COUNTRY ARE IN DETROIT, MICHIGAN

In Detroit, Michigan, the housing crash and the recession have made thousands of homes practically worthless.
It has the lowest values for existing home sales in the country, by a long shot.

Here are the other cheap real estate markets, listed by average existing hoem sale price in 2011: 

Detroit, Michigan — $53,800

Toledo, Ohio — $75,700

Lansing, Michigan — $77,500

Ocala, Florida — $80,900

South Bend, Indiana — $83,600

US average  — $166,200, down from $173,100 in 2010

The bargain-basement properties can be a boon for the right investors.

Ben Yonge, the head of a real estate investment firm, bought a four-unit apartment building in Orlando for $25,000 recently. During the height of the housing bubble, he would have paid $120,000, MSNBC.com reported.

‘These are the types of deals you can come across. There are $19,000 condos in the heart of Orlando,’ Mr Yonge told the website.

‘We could probably count 10 to 15 listings under $10,000 in the Orlando area right now.’

But some of these homes will never regain their value in time to turn around a profit if they require too much renovation or aren’t attractive to buyers or renters.

Stick to high-density areas close to places where people work and shop, Berkowitz told MSNBC.com

In Detroit, these super-cheap houses are helping to depress the prices that existing homes can fetch on the open market.

The average existing home, one that’s not newly built, in the Motor City sells for $53,800 — by far the lowest price in the country. The national average is $166,200.

But theses house might also be a sign that the broken housing market is finally beginning to recover.

When reporters at NPR’s Planet Money discovered Willow Tufano and her $12,000 house, once worth $100,000, in a nice neighborhood in Florida, they speculated that her purchase could symbolize rock-bottom for real estate prices.

Sales of existing homes are up nine percent this year.

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