Buying a foreclosure home can provide great opportunities for people who want to buy a house at a great price. One company helps would-be homebuyers navigate the pitfalls of buying a bank owned home or other house that has been affected by foreclosure.

San Francisco, CA July 3, 2008 — Foreclosures and the American real estate market’s price declines have continued to dominate news headlines across the country for well over a year, but one company is bucking the bad news trend. Sacramento, CA-based The Home Buying Center.com (www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com) has been helping connect home sellers who want to sell a house quickly with investors for years, and they have expanded their service offering last year to help consumers find and buy foreclosure homes.

“For the first time homebuyer who waited until now to buy a home the deals are everywhere,” said company president, Patrick McGilvray, J.D., CFP®. “It’s important that prospective buyers understand that buying a foreclosure house can be a great opportunity to buy a house at a cheap price, and they must be aware of some of the possible pitfalls.”

The pitfalls McGilvray mentioned can include buying houses in an ‘as-is’ condition with hidden problems that may not have been visible during a casual inspection such as dry rot or problems with a cracked foundation. Buyers, he cautioned, must do significant homework before signing on the dotted line. Additionally, he said that it is crucial for would-be home buyers to be pre-qualified for a mortgage loan.

“That’s why working with a team like ours can be a real advantage,” McGilvray said. “We provide the consumer access to the nation’s largest network of foreclosure and pre-foreclosure homes via thousands of real estate investors and real estate agents who specialize in bank owned homes. We also have the resources needed to help hopeful house buyers get qualified for a mortgage.”

The company was originally founded as a website devoted to connecting people who wanted to sell a house quickly at a discount to a real estate investor, but, because of requests from customers, they started offering a foreclosure location service for buyers in 2007. McGilvray said that their company has been growing rapidly since their inception and that they had recently taken some venture capital money in exchange for equity from an angel investor.

Despite the downturn in America’s housing market, which McGilvray thinks could still take years to fully recover from, he is optimistic about real estate services and the internet’s ability to connect consumers with exactly what they are looking for quickly and easily. When asked where he thought should consumers turn to first to help them find answers to their real estate questions, he answered with a smile, “Other than The Home Buying Center.com? Why Google, of course.”

SACRAMENTO, CA – In the first quarter of 2008 home foreclosures in the United States reached a peak and the pain was felt by all types of borrowers, not just those with the now infamous subprime adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs).

While subprime borrowers led the pack in allowing their homes to go to foreclosure many so-called prime and alt-a borrowers were unable to consecutively make payments on their houses as well. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (www.mbaa.org), .99 percent of home loans in America entered the foreclosure process in the January to March time frame. The number the previous year was .58 percent.

The trade association first began measuring loan delinquency rates in 1979, and this year’s results were the highest on record at 6.35 percent.

On a positive note, the Mortgage Banker’s Association senior researcher, Jay Brinkmann, predicted that most states should see a trailing off of foreclosure activity by years end. But, troubled states like California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada, which saw record prices spikes in residential real estate values, may see their foreclosure woes persist well into 2009.

For the homeowner who is trying to sell a house in the current market the challenge can be finding a qualified buyer who is pre-qualified for a mortgage loan. Many buyers have reported that they are simply not able to get funding for a house purchase despite having good credit and down payments available.

Real estate and foreclosure expert Patrick McGilvray, J.D., president of Sacaramento, CA-based The Home Buying Center.com (www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com) said, “For people looking to buy a foreclosure house there are opportunities aplenty. It’s important for these buyers, though, to get pre-qualified for a home loan before they go shopping because sellers, especially lenders with a large inventory of bank owned REO houses don’t want to spend time with people who aren’t ready, willing and able to buy.”

Real estate industry feels heat as home values continue to fall in much of the nationSACRAMENTO, CA – Real estate continues to be a sore spot for the US economy as prices for single family homes were down 7.7% in the first quarter of 2008 compared to a year earlier.

The National Association of Realtors reported the recent numbers and indicated that this was the biggest yearly decline since they began record-keeping in 1982.  Median sales prices were down to $196,300 at the end of March, a 4.8% drop compared to Q4 of 2008.

In Sacramento, California prices fell more than 29% and the median dropped to $258,500.  Prices in Riverside, California dropped more than 27% to $287,100.

An internet real estate company based in Sacramento, www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com, reported an increase in consumers requesting help with selling their houses as well as an increase in buyers who are looking for deals on foreclosure houses.  “Deals on foreclosure houses are one of our specialties, and we’re getting a lot of traffic to our website because of that,” said company president Patrick McGilvray.

The Home Buying Center reported that a lot of their activity is happening in the states hardest hit by the housing crisis that occurred in the wake of the subprime mortgage meltdown.  According to McGilvray the biggest numbers of homeowners seeking help, and buyers seeking deals, are occurring in California, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, and Michigan.

Foreclosure activity resulted in more than 155,000 homes taken back by lenders since last year, and mortgage payment delinquencies more than doubled during the time as well.