The U.S. real estate implosion begins, in earnest: A house costs less than a car in Detroit [1]. The recent shift in the real estate market (which I predicted two years ago) has led me to believe that the best way to buy land these days is to watch and wait for bargains, particularly bankruptcy sales and foreclosures. The foreclosure rate jumped 13% in the past two months. I expect this trend to continue, especially as millions of sub-prime ARM [2]s reset. to higher interest rates. There will be a lot of foreclosures to choose from–including some good rural retreat properties–as the down-market in real estate unfolds in the next few years. By definition, a declining market is a “buyer’s market”, so you can afford to be both patient and picky. If you buy any land, you should assume that the market will go down in value at least another 20% in rural areas, and perhaps 40% in the coastal metropolitan markets. So it makes sense to only make offers that are well under the current prices. I see bankruptcy sales and foreclosures as some of the best venues to have “low ball” offers taken seriously. One good source for finding foreclosure listings in your intended retreat area(s) is Foreclosures.com. [3] (One of our Affiliate Advertisers [4].)
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By way of blogger Teddy Jacobsen comes a news story on the now chronic ammunition shortage in the U.S. [5] Parenthetically, our family intentionally stocked up on ammunition (“Ballistic Wampum”) [6], starting in the early 1990s. All of that ammo is still in sealed military surplus ammo cans, ensuring that it will be sure fire, many decades in the future. Our small mountain of ammo was a pain to move (our last move to the new Rawles Ranch [7] will hopefully be our last), but the moving expense was negligible, especially since a lot of the ammo that we moved had greatly increased in value (2x to 8x) since we originally purchased it. I still consider common caliber ammunition the ultimate post-WTSHTF barter item.
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Any SurvivalBlog readers in western Washington should jump on this bargain on Craig’s List: just $50 for a big stack of bee keeping equipment [8].
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The high bid is still at $425 in the current SurvivalBlog benefit auction [9] for several items (including an EMP [10]-proof antique radio, four books, and a copy of my “Rawles Gets You Ready” preparedness course [11]) that are being auctioned together as a lot:. The auction ends on April 15th. Just e-mail [12] me your bid. Thanks!