As Home Prices Decline, Real Estate Investors Hit the Jackpot

As Home Prices Decline, Real Estate Investors Hit the Jackpot

With home prices still descending and foreclosures continuing to rise, homeowners haven't been this vulnerable to the risk of not paying their property taxes in more than 30 years. And real estate investors are banking on the delinquent property taxes.Until states can collect all the late property tax payments, their budgets are slimming. One common solution is a "secret certificate" program, which investors are jumping on to make returns of 24 to 50 percent from the late tax payments.Newly built homes are getting hit the hardest, with a 9.7 percent decrease in September--the largest drop since 1970. Even the hottest markets aren't immune to the falling prices.The prices of exisitng homes fell by 2.2 percent in September compared to the same month last year, the biggest one-year decline since November 1990, reported the National Association of Realtors.According to RealtyTrac, rising mortgage rates, combined with declining prices, caused 115,292 new foreclosures in August alone.