You may have heard the new F word that is seeping through the real estate industry and trickling down to Lake Martin – Foreclosures!  A lot of folks ask me if Lake Martin has as high a foreclosure rate as the rest of the nation.

First of all, I must give a huge hat tip to Kevin Warmath on his blog LiveInAlpharetta.  I read this post on Alpharetta Foreclosures of his a few weeks ago and I loved his “new F word” phrase I had to use it:

“While a lot of sellers want to use the real ‘F’ word for this real estate market, my ‘F’ word in this market is Foreclosure.  Everyone is fixated on Foreclosures. Last week alone, I had three people contact me out of the blue looking for Foreclosures…looking for a deal.”

Back to the local question:

Are there many Lake Martin waterfront homes in foreclosure sale right now?

Short answer: no.

Long answer:

Lake Martin has been affected, just like the rest of the country, by the downward spiral of the real estate market.  There are a lot of waterfront lots and homes for sale right now, and many of them are spec homes.  But there are not many being sold on the courthouse steps in foreclosure sales.

That is because (at least traditionally) builders or people don’t owe more on a Lake Martin property than it’s worth.  So the banks choose not to let it go all the way to the courthouse sales.  Most of the time the banks choose to sell it themselves (just like a FSBO) or they use a realtor, just like any other seller (aka a REO sale).  Click here for more info on the foreclosure process.

Will we see more in the future? Probably so.  But if I had to guess, I don’t think you will see as many courthouse steps sales for waterfront properties as in proportion to other markets.  In the past the sellers have cut their prices enough or the banks simply REO’d them.  I could be wrong, though.

I sincerely hope that a seller would cut the price to sell it and break even before a foreclosure.  Some don’t, though, no matter how savvy or sophisticated they seem.

To wit: laughing Ed McMahon, Tonight Show sidekick, and (most ironically) America’s hope for retirement, Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes check toter, is being foreclosed.  Isn’t that weird?  The man that all of America would love to see knocking on their door will be losing his doors very soon.  According to reports, he owes $4.8 million on a home that he has for sale for $6.25 million.  AND HE WON’T DROP THE PRICE??

I can’t believe it.  Hey Ed, why not shave it down to an even $5M, pocket a cool 2 hundy, and be done with it?  Maybe there are other issues here, but to me it’s crazy.  Sure, it hurts your pride to drop the price, but I guarantee you that would not have made the national headlines like a foreclosure has.  What do you think, Ed?

“You are correct, sir!”