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The AP has an article on small time rehabbers in Ohio that are buying foreclosures, fixing them up and then selling them for a profit. In this period of media doom and gloom it is amazing to see the AP allow a glimmer of hope in the article.

Of course allusions to the suffering fill the article, but they do allow that with an intelligent game plan, hard work, and patience money can be made. Funny how this is the recipe that works in almost any profession or avocation.

I guess I should be pleased though, maybe the reporter went out to do an article on how bad the real estate market is going to be in 2008 and actually found a positive story to write about by accident. Miracles do happen.

“I’m not trying to become a millionaire,” said Brad, a firefighter who has found a new part-time career buying and fixing up foreclosed homes. “It’s something I do.”
Most foreclosed homes are bought at auction by the lenders, get fixed by contractors who specialize in the work and return to the real estate market. Few get the attention of one-man operations like Brad’s, according to Leo Baez, construction director in New York with Enterprise Community Partners Inc., which works on housing issues with neighborhood development organizations across the country.
Rehabbers gamble that the renovations they do — new carpeting, fresh paint, refinished floors, for instance — will enable them to quickly resell or rent a property. A rehabber’s stake depends on the market and neighborhood, and that can be as little as $20,000 or $30,000 for a fixer-upper in blue-collar Cleveland, where a rehabbed home might fetch $50,000 or $60,000.
In the current down market, “If you can get away with 15 grand profit, shoot, I would take it,” said Tony Patterson, who buys and fixes up two or three foreclosed homes a year, in addition to his home repair contracting business in Pittsburgh. via The Associated Press

Click here to for a Free Foreclosure search in your area if you are still interested in getting into the foreclosure game to find properties near your home and have the success you have read about in the above story.

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