Regardless of the area of The Sooner State from Oklahoma City to Tulsa, from Norman to Lawton, from Broken Arrow to Edmond, from Midwest City to Enid, from Moore to Stillwater and Muskogee or any town in between, Oklahoma is similar to all other states in the nation when it comes to foreclosures. Since the sub-prime mortgage crisis that started a global economic meltdown Oklahoma has suffered from homes that where over valued when every resident of the state could qualify for a mortgage and the housing market was edging closer to the brink of disaster.
After the disaster struck and housing prices began to plummet throughout Oklahoma lending restrictions tightened and qualifying for a mortgage in today's market is far more difficult causing homes to value. This depreciation which is beyond what anyone has seen in recent years is made all the worse by banks and lending institutions selling foreclosed homes at reduced prices in order to clear their books of the troubled assets.
Foreclosures are in no short supply in Oklahoma. The state ranks in the 31st in this dubious honor. The lower than average number of foreclosures is in large part due to Oklahoma's incredible success of decades of economic growth and diversification. Oklahoma has been ranked as one of the county's most business friendly states for the past several years partly because of the low tax burden and partly because Oklahoma has a skilled workforce that is spread across several industries and locations. Aviation, electronics, telecommunications, aircraft manufacturing and maintenance and food processing lead the economy to a gross state product over $135 billion annually and has grown faster than 44 other states over the past 5 years.
Oil and gas production are economically important to the state but have been surpassed by other industries since the collapse of the market in the 1980's. Oklahoma has the twenty seventh largest economy in the United States while the population density is in the lower third. This indicates that Oklahoma has concentrations of population. Wise investors in foreclosure homes will focus their attention on the more populated of the areas of the state surrounding the metropolitan areas of Oklahoma City, Tulsa and other densely populated areas.
Oklahoma has the 42nd highest household income in the country which would lead to the further expansion of its industrial base as few states offer both skilled forces and lower than average wages. This combination allows for employers to grow without the financial weight of other states such as California and New York which each have shrinking industrial and manufacturing sectors to their economy. Foreclosures still remain higher than average in Oklahoma as a result of the mortgage meltdown and will continue to register in the top half of the country until the subprime mortgages have been purged from the financial system through refinance, resale or foreclosure. This is good news for foreclosure home and real estate investors that qualify for a mortgage or pay cash for foreclosure homes.
The state has transformed from an agrarian and cattle ranching economy to a far more varied and robust economic engine which is supported by the location of Oklahoma which makes the state a preferred destination for companies that require a logistical advantage. This is the main reason that Tulsa is the home of the largest Aircraft maintenance facility in the world generating 11 billion dollars in revenue in the Aerospace sector and consequently exports from Oklahoma are a staggering 4.3 billion dollars annually. This is more good news for foreclosure home buyers as the population is consistent and has a better than average employment percentages. The unemployment figure is currently 6.9% as reported in Oklahoma statewide. Metropolitan areas have a somewhat higher percentage of unemployment but for real estate and foreclosure home buyers this is more than made up for by the overall population count. Resale is an important variable when investing in a home for resale or rental purposes.
So what do you do if your home is not going to foreclosure in Oklahoma? You should be buying homes that have gone to foreclosure. Buying as many homes below market as your credit can withstand. Why buy in a down market? Buying in a down market instead of trying to time the market at its lowest point will allow smart investors to buy more foreclosed homes and rent them out or reselling before buying additional homes and repeating the process. Remember all of the people that lost their homes and will lose their homes will require a home to live in and provide their family shelter. This new real estate market is where the greatest boom in recent history for the state of Oklahoma will come from. If you are not in the game, get in the game.
Buying foreclosed homes in communities outside of metropolitan areas may require a degree of additional patients in order to locate a foreclosure home with an adequate degree of equity. Once purchased the home will again require patience as resell buyers and tenants are more easily found in the more metropolitan areas and more difficult the more rural the area.
As the real estate market continues to reset itself and prices continue to adjust and mortgages also continue to adjust, more and more residents of Oklahoma will lose their homes by merely walking away from what appears to be an untenable financial position. If the average home in Oklahoma has lost 5 to 15 percent of its value, then the average mortgage will take 3 to 5 additional years before it starts to build its first dollar of equity.
This negative equity position which many home owners find themselves in, sometimes referred to as "Being underwater" or "Upside down" on a mortgage is motivating more and more residents to stop paying their mortgage as the insult is exacerbated by injury when the mortgage rate is adjusted upwards and quickly becomes unaffordable.
Q.Foreclosure buying opportunities will continue as interest rates adjust on thousands of subprime mortgages that were taken on homes while downward pricing pressure eliminates the possibility of refinancing. Experts agree that this perfect storm of foreclosures will increase over the next several years. So what do you do to take advantage of the current real estate market regarding foreclosure?As for now the real estate market continues to improve an investment today will reap higher rewards in the near future. Recent government initiatives have also created an environment which has placed the majority of the blame for bad loans on banks and removed the financial stigma of being foreclosed on. Thus we will see more foreclosures until the employment improves nationally and locally. Buying foreclosure homes now will prove to be an incredibly wise thing to have done in 18 to 24 months.
