We all know there are a lot of foreclosures happening across our country and who knows when it will end. It seems to keep going up. Taking a closer look at where the foreclosures are happening you can check out CNN Money.com foreclosures at http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/12/real_estate/realtytrac/index.htm?postversion=2008021306 which shows rust and sun belt cities with the highest foreclosure rate. So where does Cape Cod stand? Well, there is no data since they look at metro areas, but the closest is Boston/Quincy ranking 69th out of 100 with 100 being the lowest foreclosure rate. Not so bad, is it?

So, I did another unscientific analysis and looked at Cape Cod & Islands MLS sold and active listings. Going back to August 2007 there have been 1317 single family home sales of which 45 were bank owned or short sales. There are 3160 active listings for single family homes of which 120 are bank owned or short sales. Percentage wise that is not much. The bigger question is, as a buyer looking for a great deal what are the odds of you landing a bank owned property? How many other buyer's are there like you competing for very few bank owned properties?

I recently posted a listing on our website at www.sandbarhomes.com which was reduced from $329,000 to $199,000 to inform my buyers looking for a great deal. 72 hours later I discovered there were over 20 offers submitted and the highest offer was not even close to the reduced price. That tells me there are a lot of you looking for a good deal, but very few opportunities come up and when the do the competition is very fierce.