Investors buying up houses

These tips can help you buy a home before it hits the market.  (iStock) Buying a home is a lot like running a race: Once a listing goes live, buyers have to sprint off the starting block before throngs of other buyers start bidding. Talk about stressful! What if there were a way to buy a house before it's officially on the market? Well, there is—and it can help you snag your dream house long before your competition even knows it exists. “Making moves to get ahead of the general public when you’re the buyer is wise if you want to get the perfect house,” says real estate investor Steve Davis, founder of Real Wealth Academy, LLC. “All it taskes is a little ingenuity and some sleuthing, to find out which homes are going on the market before the listings go live, so that you’re ready to pounce.” More From Realtor.com 5 Common First-Time Home Buyer Mistakes You Won't Want to Make Yourself How to Buy a … [Read more...] about Buy a house before it hits the market with these tips

And that median price is far higher than what a typical Dallasite can afford. Median annual household income in the Dallas area is $51,411, according to most recent census data. That typical Dallasite can afford a house that costs as much as $151,700 — assuming a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 4.7 percent interest rate and a $30,000 down payment — according to Realtor.com. What houses do appear on the market for so low are usually snapped up by cash-on-hand investors, said Kaki Lybbert, a realtor with Century 21 Judge Fite in Denton and the chair of the Texas Association of Realtors."Once it hits the market, it's gone," she said. "If there were homes being built in that (lower) price range, then that's one thing — but they're not." These often-corporate property owners sometimes rehab and flip the houses at a markup. But more likely, they buy the houses and rent them, contributing to a booming rental market. The owner-occupied housing rate in Dallas … [Read more...] about Looking to buy a house in Dallas for under $200,000? Good luck