Property investors attempting to grab a US property bargain could snap up a luxury pad in California as the foreclosure crisis hits wealthier households.
The Los Angeles Times reports a hilltop Spanish-style villa in the attractive Napa Valley recently went for $1 million (£510,000) two years after it sold for $1.4 million (£717,000) in a sale experts say may become more common.
Vast suburban neighbourhoods are no longer the only rung of the property ladder where discounts are up for grabs, the paper reports. Quoted by the Times, real estate agent Michael Snider, who handled the Napa villa sale, said:
“It’s just the beginning”.
“People are just pushing aside their mortgage payments, holding default off.”
The publication adds statistics from DataQuick Information Systems show 112 homes were repossessed in Napa County in the first three months of the year, up from 23 for the same period in 2007.
Earlier this month Boston Real Estate Now reported mortgage firm Countrywide Home Loans had 297 properties for sale in Massachusetts, with an average asking price of $174,628 (£88,887), below the state average.
In May US senators approved a plan that would see the availability of government-insured mortgages expanded in a bid to bail out the hundreds of thousands of people threatened by foreclosure, although a thumbs-up from the Bush administration is by no means certain.
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