Homeowners And Real Estate Brokers Turning To "House Keeping" Home Businesses

See the news today? Standing out in a sea of bad news, experts now estimate over one million American homes will be foreclosed this year. More than half a million have already been lost to foreclosure since 2010 began. In a "normal" year, the U.S. sees only a tenth as many foreclosures. Yikes! House foreclosures up ten times?

It's no secret the economy is making real estate investment (indeed, any investment) a very tough business. And the government is not helping; perhaps one reason real estate professionals might be having trouble buying "for sale" signs is that their tax dollars (and those of all of us) are going to pay for "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" signs to the tune of ten thousand bucks apiece! Yes, over twenty million stimulus dollars have been spent on those roadside signs you see that say stimulus dollars are being spent. Apparently, the real estate business has not been stimulated nearly as much as has been the government stimulus business.

Whether you're a professional in the real estate business, or a modest homeowner, or (like many folks) you've purchased a property or two as an investment, you're probably worried today. So many Americans are keeping their investment bucks in their pockets these days, undoubtedly worried over the future direction of the market. Many others are less fortunate: they'd just be thrilled to see a way to keep the one house they live in.

Savvy investors are turning to the internet these days as a vehicle for creating additional income... launching home-based "house keeping" businesses. I'm not talking about cleaning the house, but cleaning up in one of the few markets that are still wide-open in today's economy. The idea is to make enough money to keep the house by getting out from under the mortgage debt that is crippling too many American families.

Thanks to other "interventions" by the government, dating back to 1977's Community Reinvestment Act, a lot of people bought houses they couldn't afford. This, of course, created the "housing bubble" that brought down government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the government then bailed out with taxpayer money. Meanwhile, all those foreclosed homes served to tank real estate values, and though you might not be one of the people who bought more house than they could afford, you are paying the price in terms of loan-to-value problems.

The only way out is to dump the real estate debt. If you want to keep the house, consider a low-investment entrepreneurial venture. A home-based internet business could be the best house-keeping move you could make.

by Michael D.Hume, M.S.