Massachusetts Real Estate, Hom Foreclosures
Home foreclosures are opening up big opportunities for Bay State entrepreneurs like Derek Ebrecht.
“The sky’s the limit if you put your mind to it,” said Ebrecht, a one-time maintenance supervisor who began investing in distressed Hub properties two years ago.
Ebrecht is part of a growing number of Massachusetts businesspeople enjoying a real boom from the state’s housing bust.
A record 23,600 Massachusetts homes have fallen into foreclosure over the past year - meaning lots of business for real estate auctioneers, distressed-property Web sites and similar operations.
“The housing slump has certainly negatively impacted many individuals and businesses, but it also creates tremendous opportunities,” Shrewsbury-based auctioneer Paul Zekos said.
Zekos, vice president of the Massachusetts Auctioneers Association, said he and his colleagues conduct more than 100 foreclosure auctions each month.
Industry veteran Marianne Sullivan even opened an auction house this year that primarily serves the foreclosure market.
“Foreclosure auctions aren’t as glamorous as Sotheby’s, (but) our job is to get the most money for the property - for the (homeowner’s) benefit,” said Sullivan, who does some 50 foreclosure auctions a month.
Publications and Web sites that list upcoming foreclosure auctions also report booming business.
Massachusetts newspapers and other periodicals currently run some 1,600 foreclosure-auction ads a month - a 143 percent increase from last year, according to market tracker the Warren Group.
On the Web, ForeclosuresMass.com’s thousands of clients pay as much as $997 a month for property listings, newsletters, classes, networking events - even one-on-one investment coaching.
Founded in 2003 to cover just the Bay State, Framingham-based ForeclosuresMass.com has since expanded into California, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
“A lot of people said in recent years: ‘This real estate market is so overpriced. How can I get in it?’ ” company President Jeremy Shapiro said. “It turns out that, for lots of folks, foreclosures are a great way to do just that.”