Foreclosures and the decline of housing prices across the country have continued to dominate news headlines across the nation for well over a year, but one company is bucking the bad news trend. TheHomeBuyingCenter.com continues to connect home sellers eager to sell their properties with investors, and the company has expanded its service offerings over the last year to help consumers find and buy foreclosure homes.
"For the first time homebuyer who waited until now to buy a home the deals are everywhere," said Patrick McGilvray, the site's president. "It's important that prospective buyers understand that buying a foreclosure house can be a great opportunity to buy a house at a cheap price, and they must be aware of some of the possible pitfalls."
The pitfalls McGilvray mentioned can include buying houses in an 'as-is' condition with hidden problems that may not have been visible during a casual inspection such as dry rot or problems with a cracked foundation. Buyers, he cautioned, must do significant homework before signing on the dotted line. Additionally, he said that it is crucial for would-be home buyers to be pre-qualified for a mortgage loan.
"That's why working with a team like ours can be a real advantage," McGilvray added. "We provide the consumer access to the nation's largest network of foreclosure and pre-foreclosure homes via thousands of real estate investors and real estate agents who specialize in bank owned homes. We also have the resources needed to help hopeful house buyers get qualified for a mortgage."
The company was originally founded as a Website devoted to connecting people who wanted to sell a house quickly at a discount to a real estate investor, but, because of requests from customers, they started offering a foreclosure location service for buyers in 2007. McGilvray said that the company has been growing rapidly since its inception and had recently taken some venture capital money in exchange for equity from an investor.
Despite the downturn in America's housing market, which McGilvray thinks could still take years to fully recover from, he is optimistic about real estate services and the Internet's ability to connect consumers with what they are looking for quickly and easily.