I just got back from a trip down to our Clearwater Beach branch. Many of you know my parents Walt and Judy Chase. They moved down to Florida five years ago. My father and I started our Naperville firm and then opened our Florida office. Over the past few years I noticed a significant difference in the investors we worked with in both locations.

Investors who purchased property in Florida were always looking to buy and sell. Most would purchase condo units at the pre-construction stage, then, wait a couple years until the building was complete and flip the property to another buyer. I remember visiting a few years back and discussing with my parents the “condo craze” that was happening around us in Florida. I was perplexed. This did not make sense. Investors were speculating not investing. Yet, everyone called themselves real estate investors. We all know what happened to those speculators, just like the gold rush of the mid-1800′s, the party ended. Now condos sit vacant, renters are few and “investors” are struggling.

All the while, here in the Chicago suburbs we were investing. That’s right, good old buy’em cheap and remodel the home and sell for fair market value. We would analyze the deals and use comparable sales. We were not speculating and as a result we today are not hurting. Yes, in some areas it takes longer to sell, the homes are not appreciating as fast as they had in years past, but, we were and still are - investing.  Homes are very easy to rent and if they are remodeled nicely they still sell.

Remember, we are investors. My system is developed around investing not speculating. The get rich quick investors will have to either adapt to our system or invest in other means, maybe stocks?

www.ChaseFlorida.com

This entry was posted on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 12:07 am and is filed under Foreclosure News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.