美国房地产观察：美国炒房团的新目标

　　在美国住房泡沫破灭四年后，炒房正再度风行。

　　米尔梅里(Jon Mirmelli)是美国凤凰城一位房地产投资者。今年9月28日，他在接近中午时才知道凤凰城北部城郊一幢未曾入住的房子当天中午就将拍卖。这幢房子建造在一片三英亩大的土地上，有6个卧室，厨房内配备了两部洗碗机、四个烤箱、抗菌铜水槽、一个能够进行水疗的主卫生间，还预留了安装平板电视的空间，可以在泡澡时看。

　　花旗集团(Citigroup)一家子公司为这幢房子设定了最低竞标价37.99万美元，他们持有这幢房子130万美元的抵押贷款。在投资者及其代表（一些人穿着短裤和拖鞋就来了）进行了数分钟的投标后，米尔梅里以48.63万美元的出价赢得了竞标。一周之后，他与一名这月搬进来的妇女达成协议，以69万美元的价格转卖了这幢房子。

　　在住房热潮期，数百万美国人试图通过迅速倒手新房和独立产权公寓来挣钱。几年前随着止赎率飙升以及贷款吃紧，美国房屋销量陷入停滞，这种炒房手段也没有了用武之地。

　　目前，一种不同的炒房手段正迅速兴起：在止赎拍卖中低价接手。不同于房价热潮时期的炒房，最近的这种炒房手段需要现金，对本地市场拥有诸多了解以及坚强的神经。

　　投资者的竞争对手大多是专职人士，他们监控着全美国的县法院止赎拍卖情况。竞拍者通常没有机会检查房产，也不能确定房子是否被租户所占据，这帮人可能会很难驱逐。

　　为止赎房屋投资者提供信息的凤凰城房地产网站PostedProperties.com的管理人士莱恩斯(Damon Lines)说，有时候你只有半个小时的时间决定一桩价值50万美元的交易。这是大多数人不能或不愿意做的。

　　在房价下跌最惨的州，很多当地房地产市场都被止赎房产所主宰，从而拖累了周边房屋的价格。巴克莱(Barclays Capital)预计，目前银行和抵押贷款投资者在全美国挂牌出售63.9万套止赎房屋，主要集中在佛罗里达州、加利福尼亚州、亚利桑那州和内华达州。这相当于美国今年预期房屋销量的10%以上。

　　炒房者纷纷涌向止赎房屋的公开拍卖会，即所谓的受托拍卖或法庭拍卖。在很多州，放贷人会设定最低竞标价，除非没人出更高的价格才会接管房屋。在过去，最低竞标价一般相当于抵押贷款结欠余额。但在目前的市场形势下，很多房屋价值下跌得都远远低于贷款余额，放贷人如果将售价定在贷款余额的话，就很难吸引投资者。

　　因此，放贷人或代表银行和投资者的贷款服务公司越来越可能将最低竞标价定得更低。他们的目标是吸引其他人购买房屋，免得银行麻烦，也为银行省下持有房屋的成本。

　　研究公司ForeclosureRadar.com首席执行长奥图尔(Sean O'Toole)预计，11月份加州有大约21%的受托拍卖房屋流向了投资者，而不是止赎贷款人，这一比例高于上年同期的6%。凤凰城和迈阿密等其他止赎率很高的地区也拥有类似的趋势。

　　在凤凰城中心的马里科帕县法庭大楼外，受托人和受聘处理止赎拍卖的公司每个工作日都会提供至多600或700套房屋供拍卖。一笔拍卖持续时间通常只有几分钟。在最近的一个下午，几十名竞标者和旁观者都围绕着一名坐在躺椅上进行拍卖的受托人雇员。他将出价情况记录在放在膝头的一部笔记本电脑上。

　　很多竞标者都是拍卖的常客了，为自己竞标或是代表投资者客户交易。PostedProperties的代表穆斯萨斯(Steve Mutsaers)戴着一副墨镜，穿着白色翻领短袖衣和灰色格子短裤。他说，我们都像是来自一个有点奇怪的家庭了。穆斯萨斯说，夏天的时候，他会戴着墨西哥帽以抵御远远超过摄氏40度的高温。

　　那些在这里和美国其他止赎热点地区参加受托拍卖的竞标者说，最近拍卖吸引了更多的竞标者。凤凰城房产投资者费恩博格(Hal Feinberg)说，房屋竞标价上涨了。你仍然可以做成好买卖，但需要比一年前拥有更多的耐心。他和其他凤凰城地区的投资者说，他们已经将拍来的很多房屋转手卖给了借助美元走软机会前来投资的加拿大人。

　　在这些拍卖会上买房子还存在风险。这里不能看房子，因此竞标者通常都不知道那些遭遇止赎的居住者对房子内部造成了怎样的损坏。PostedProperties首席执行长霍普金斯(Doug Hopkins)说，我们什么都见过。我们见过有人往厕所里倒水泥的。除非竞标者提前做了功课，否则他们通常也不知道他们购买的是不是另外一个放贷人留置的房产，也就是说借款人借了不只一笔抵押贷款。

　　Four years after the collapse of the U.S. housing bubble, flipping homes is back in fashion.

　　Jon Mirmelli, a Phoenix real-estate investor, learned late in the morning of Sept. 28 that a never-occupied custom house on the northern fringes of this Phoenix suburb was going up for auction around noon the same day. The six-bedroom home, built on a three-acre desert plot, has a kitchen with two dishwashers, four ovens, 'antibacterial' copper sinks, and a master 'spa' bathroom with space for a flat-screen TV visible from the tub.

　　The minimum bid, as set by a unit of Citigroup Inc., which had a $1.3 million mortgage on the home, was $379,900. After several minutes of bidding among investors and their representatives, some wearing shorts and flip-flops, Mr. Mirmelli won the home for $486,300. A week later, he agreed to sell it for $690,000 to a woman who moved in this month.

　　During the housing boom, millions of Americans tried to make money by buying and then quickly reselling new houses and condominiums. That kind of flipping stopped several years ago as home sales stalled amid a surge in foreclosures and curtailed lending.

　　Now, a different breed of flipper is proliferating: one who seeks bargains at foreclosure auctions. Unlike the boom-time flippers, the latest generation needs cold cash, lots of local-market knowledge and strong nerves.

　　Investors compete mostly with other full-time professionals who monitor foreclosure auctions at county courthouses across the country. The bidders often haven't had a chance to inspect the property or determine whether it's occupied by tenants, who may be hard to evict.

　　Sometimes 'you have half an hour to make a half-million-dollar decision,' says Damon Lines, an executive at PostedProperties.com, a Phoenix firm that provides information to foreclosure investors and bids on their behalf. 'That's something most people can't or aren't willing to do.'

　　In the states where home prices have fallen the most, many local real-estate markets are dominated by foreclosed property, dragging down the value of neighboring homes. Barclays Capital estimates that banks and mortgage investors have 639,000 foreclosed homes for sale across the U.S., largely concentrated in Florida, California, Arizona and Nevada. That's equivalent to more than 10% of expected U.S. home sales this year.

　　Flippers swoop in at public auctions of foreclosed homes, known as trustee or sheriff sales. In many states, the lender sets the minimum bid, and takes possession of the property only if no one bids more. In the past, the minimum generally was about equal to the mortgage balance due. But in today's market, in which many home values have dropped far below the loan balance, lenders wouldn't attract investors if they set the minimum at that level.

　　So lenders, or the loan-servicing firms that represent banks and investors, are increasingly likely to set the minimum much lower. Their goal is to tempt others to buy the house and spare banks the headaches and costs that come with taking possession.

　　Sean O'Toole, chief executive officer of ForeclosureRadar.com, a research firm, estimates that in November about 21% of homes sold in trustee sales in California went to investors rather than to a foreclosing lender, up from 6% a year earlier. The trend is similar in some other areas with high foreclosure rates, including Phoenix and Miami.

　　Outside the Maricopa County court building in downtown Phoenix, trustees, companies that are hired to handle foreclosure auctions, offer as many as 600 or 700 houses every weekday. A typical auction lasts only a few minutes. On a recent afternoon, a few dozen bidders and onlookers were clustered around a trustee employee seated on a lawn chair conducting auctions. He kept track of the bids on a laptop computer perched on one knee.

　　Many of the bidders are regulars at the sale, bidding for themselves or on behalf of investor clients. 'We're all kind of like a little dysfunctional family,' says Steve Mutsaers, a representative of PostedProperties, who was wearing black sunglasses, a white polo shirt and gray plaid shorts. During the summer, Mr. Mutsaers says, he wears a sombrero to cope with temperatures well above 100 degrees.

　　People who attend trustee sales here and in other foreclosure hot spots around the nation say the auctions have recently been attracting more bidders. 'Properties are getting bid up,' says Hal Feinberg, a Phoenix property investor. 'You can still get good deals, but you've got to be more patient than you were a year ago.' He and other investors in the Phoenix area say they have been flipping a lot of the homes they buy to Canadians taking advantage of a weak U.S. dollar.

　　Buying at these auctions is perilous. There are no public viewings, so bidders often can't know how much damage may have been done inside a house by occupants facing foreclosure. 'We've seen everything,' says Doug Hopkins, chief executive of PostedProperties. 'We've seen people pour concrete down the toilets.' Unless they've done their homework, bidders also don't always know whether they're buying a home subject to a lien from another lender, which can happen in cases where the borrower took out more than one home loan.

James R. Hagerty