TAMPA - Paul Nerger of Valrico flipped through a binder detailing the specifications of a dozen foreclosed houses in the Bay area as he rode a bus one recent Saturday morning. He was one of 13 riders people who'd signed on for a "foreclosure bus tour" organized by a Tampa Realtor.

Nerger is among the throng of Americans who have begun to view the home foreclosure wave as an opportunity, rather than a disaster. As a result, a number of cottage industries have sprung up to make a buck off the growing interest in buying foreclosed properties.

Foreclosure bus tours, almost inconceivable during the robust housing market of several years ago, have popped up in other cities too, from New York to Toledo, Ohio.

Meanwhile, publishers who watched books on flipping homes fly off shelves during the housing boom now peddle titles on how to survive foreclosure or profit from others' real estate misfortunes. In the Bay area, real estate experts have noticed a proliferation of seminars offering advice on how to get rich from foreclosure and increased interest in listings of foreclosed properties.

Though the market for real estate books has been cut in half by the housing bust, books about foreclosure now dominate the genre, said Mary Glen, editorial director of real estate books at McGraw-Hill. Glen said that 85 percent of her real estate titles are now about foreclosure.

"Because home sales are down and mortgages are tighter we are seeing less books on that and more books on how to sell your house and foreclosure," she said.

Some of the latest book titles on Amazon.com include: "Foreclosure Investing For Dummies," "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Buying Foreclosures," and "The Foreclosures.com Guide to Making Huge Profits Investing in Pre-Foreclosures Without Selling Your Soul."

Glen said that the market has shifted towards more knowledgeable consumers. "The serious amateur is buying the book, not the dreamer who will never actually do it," she said.
Mike Kane, who runs ForeclosuresDaily.com, a subscription database company based in Tampa, says interest in investing in troubled real estate is high.

"There's definitely a correlation between foreclosures being in the news and the level of interest and it's a great opportunity for investors," said Kane.

His company's customers have changed since it launched five years ago, he said.

"Back then, there were a lot more investors — full time, part time — who saw the value in our service. Now it's more consumers," he said. "If they have the right information, training, or resources, they can absolutely capitalize."

That was a theme that Ellen Cohen, a real estate agent with Exit Realty Advisers in Lithia, hit on during the recent foreclosure bus tour in Tampa. Exit Realty organized the home tour.

The people on her bus, each of whom paid $50 for the tour, were divided roughly between new investors and prospective homeowners, she said. Each was pre-approved for a loan and, with the help of the appraiser and mortgage agent on board the bus, prepared to buy on the spot. Though turnout on the first tour was thin, Cohen said that buses are nearly full for other home tours schedule for Saturday.

"We're bringing buyers to properties that they may not be able to otherwise afford," Cohen said.

But Cohen ran into one of the pitfalls of trying to sell foreclosed homes right off the bat.

"I was called by the listing agent and told there might be some personal belongings," she announced to the group as the bus pulled up to the first home in a Riverview subdivision. Indeed, cardboard boxes of junk littered the floor and the air conditioning wasn't working.

"What you're seeing could be fairly typical of a foreclosed property. There's some debris, some mess, but if you take a good hard look, it's a good property," Cohen said as she surveyed the living room, adding with a smile, "The show must go on."

Nerger said that he was happy to get the chance to see so many houses in one afternoon. He has worked in real estate for more than a year and he thinks that with property prices down, it's the right time to buy.

"With the market down, values will go up," he said. "If you look at the analysis of the market, it's near bottom."

Some experts warn that investing in distressed real estate is not for amateurs.

"In my opinion, everyone is chasing the elusive fast cash deal. Unless you have money, those deals are few and far between," said Larry Harbolt, a real estate investor in the Bay area who sometimes offers seminars on investing.

Harbolt said more people than ever are offering seminars in the Tampa Bay area to introduce people to investing in foreclosure. He believes that many are trying to capitalize on people's piqued interest by offering dubious advice.

"Most seminar people believe that what they teach is a possibility," he said.

Delores Conway, director of the Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast at the University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate, agrees that it's a tough time to try to break into investing.

"Caution is the right word," Conway said. Because the market has not hit bottom yet, inexperienced investors could easily lose money to declining home values while trying to flip a house for profit.

"That's not to say that there aren't opportunities. There are some opportunities and there will be more because some of the prices have been greatly reduced," she added. "There are people who do it, but generally they're fairly experienced. They've done it before and they've learned."

Reporter Jacob Schneider can be reached at (813) 259-7850 or jschneider@tampatrib.com.