Is there any profit in todays realty market? Depends on how you attack the market and how much money you intend to spend AND for how long you want to stay in the market. The answer is both yes and no depending upon your position in the market.
Lets look back a year or so and ask the same question! The answer at the first of 2006 was a definite yes! You could buy a foreclosure in January of 2006 for 40% of value, spiffy it up and sell it for an almost guaranteed profit of 20-40%. Saw it done many times and watched the transactions take place on several occasions.
Come forward in time to January 2007 and the market is improving for purchase but beginning to show some softness for selling. You had to hang onto a foreclosure for 30-60 days before you found a suitable profit, comparable to the same transaction 1 year earlier. Your purchase had to be scrutinized more carefully and the percent of market value you paid had to be lower than in the past. If you were buying 30-40% below market, you now have to get 50-60% below market to be in a protected position. Fixing up the property is less rigorous and now consists of a thoroughly cleaning, fixing the most grievous problems and thats all! Offering the property in sales to wholesalers has to be done as quickly as possible and as widely as possible. Many of the former sources have retired from the market or are getting very picky about where they invest. Be prepared to accept a smaller percentage of increase.
Today, many of the people who were regular buyers of distressed properties (of all kinds) have closed up shop and are awaiting the market to turn around. The market has many opportunities to buy distressed properties but, the buyers who were in the market for a quick turn around are no longer able to perform the process in a reasonable time frame or for a reasonable return on risk.
Occasionally, an investor will turn up who wants to buy everything they can get a hand on in a given area – usually where the market has an opportunity to return some pretty good bucks 1-2 years down the road. They have no problems finding plenty of good opportunities, but its a duck shoot on whether they will make the big bucks that were easily available in January of 2006 and 2007.