Greener Pastures

Tax delinquent properties are cheap and the rural tax delinquent properties are the cheapest. Counties often auction rural property at the cheapest minimum bid price because of lack of competition—few real estate agents flock to auctions in the countryside because high premium properties are often in metropolitans through traditional real estate investment.

Rural lands are cheap to attract buyers because most people buy properties in the metropolitan because of accessible and available services and income opportunities. Groceries, schools, work, entertainment and everything that one needs and wants are in the urban area. More people, in fact, are moving to the city center, making the urban population denser in the urban than in rural areas for the last 20 years.

Over years, only the rich and upper middle class households sprawl to the countryside. These households often buy to build ranches and farms.

However, at the current surge of oil price increases, American households are becoming lesser mobile. Households are driving lesser or even preferred walking to save. Commuting from your rural house to the urban center for work is just too expensive now. At this, rural lands become lesser attractive (but cheaper) to buyers who work in the urban.

Oil price increase also affected household spending. One of those paralyzed spending is mortgage payment. Economists found that a $2 increase in transportation expenses translates a $50 cut to household mortgage payment. As mortgage payments are sacrificed for more basic household needs, more households—often the low and middle classes—are losing their houses. More houses are foreclosed and auctioned at the time when people are less able to buy. Supply of houses then exceeds demands, pushing prices of properties cheaper. Rural lands, already being cheap then, become cheaper and the rural tax delinquent properties are the cheapest among price-down properties.

You can still make huge profits in real estate though, if you know where and how to buy the right properties!