BluegrassForeclosure.com

The Courier-Journal has an interesting article on investment that are worth taking a second look at, including commercial real estate.

“Commercial real estate — which is now experiencing trouble similar to the housing market — might be a good investment opportunity, [Josh] Gilliam said.

“In that situation, you don’t have distressed properties so much as you have distressed owners,” he said.

People who don’t have millions of dollars to buy property outright can buy into real estate investment trusts — securities that trade on stock markets, he said.

But [John] Roberts said retail bankruptcies and an oversupply of property also means there is “a lot of risk” in commercial real estate.”

In the same article was this little nugget: “the federal government has been buying mortgage-backed securities, pushing interest rates down. In the spring, the rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage dipped below 5 percent for the first time in Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey, which goes back to 1971. The rate was 4.78 percent last week.  . . .

. . . “Now is a great time to purchase,” said Adam Hall, a loan officer with Fifth Third Bank and secretary-treasurer of the Mortgage Bankers Association of Kentucky. “Buyers have lots of options.”The low rates have also caused a surge in mortgage refinancing, which makes sense if the homeowner plans to keep the property at least three to five years — long enough to recoup the closing costs associated with getting a new loan at a better interest rate, he said.”

Finally, it looks like the percentages of loans going into default is up as well.  Signs again, that the unemployment rate continues to drive default rates.