Financial investments are resorted to with a view to harvest Return on Investments that is to make money by investing money. Thinking of it, there can be no sound investment that can guarantee ROI other than Real Estate investments. Particularly in the present global economic conditions in the doldrums, where Stock Market investments are nose-diving, investors can only rely upon investment on housing properties at prime locations where the housing needs are growing steadily.

That said US Real Estate business is struggling due to foreclosure crisis, whereby it has become a Buyers Market. Home buyers dictate terms to sellers and they have a variety of choices to choose from, among the best locations for home buying. Alabama foreclosed homes belong to this category and to fully understand how investment in Alabama foreclosed homes, in buying a housing property, will be a profitable proposition, one has to ponder the following facts:

Alabama is home for the largest industrial growth corridor in the country and its industrial outputs include – iron and steel products; paper; lumber; wood products; coal mining; plastic products; cars and trucks; apparel. In Huntsville area it produces aerospace and electronic products. This area is home for US aerospace research center – NASA and US Army Aviation and Air Command and therefore Huntsville is nicknamed as “Rocket City”. Cummings Research Park (CRP) is the second largest Research Park in the United States and 4th largest all over the world.
Alabama’s rapidly expanding automotive manufacturing, ranking 4th in the nation in Automobile output, has generated more than 67,800 new jobs since 1993. Birmingham, the largest Metropolitan of the State, is a leading Banking center, where major banks like Regions Financial Corporation, Compass Bancshares, South Trust etc. have headquarters at Birmingham. About a dozen smaller banks also have headquarters in Magic City, including Superior Bank and New South Federal Savings Bank.

Also in Birmingham, Telecommunications provider AT&T, major Insurance providers such as Protective Life, Infinity Property & Casualty and ProAssurance, construction and Engineering companies like BE & K, B.L. Herbert International etc. are headquartered. Simply put, Forbes Magazine in 2005 named Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area as 6th best place in the entire nation for doing business and ranked it number one in terms of the number of engineers per total employment.

From the Real Estate point of view the housing needs of those Metropolitan Areas where Industries and businesses are flouring will be ever-increasing. Owing to the demand, housing properties owned in such locations will be milking cows, to render a steady rental income month after month. A never before opportunity has just come up by Alabama foreclosed homes for investing in housing properties, where properties have been listed for distress sale at a price well below their market value for investors to make use of.

The best part is in view of Alabama’s foreclosure laws, a quick and fast foreclosure process by Trustee Sale is made possible, within just two months. Result is out of the total of 4,896 properties listed under Alabama foreclosed homes, a majority of them are Bank-owned and repossessed after foreclosure public auction, finishing of the foreclosure process in quick time. So these you can buy with confidence as hassle-free properties with no second mortgages, tax lines or other liabilities and are kept in impeccable condition, ready to occupy. From the day of your buying them, they can be rented out for lucrative sums to give a sizeable Return on your Investments. What else you want?

The great state of Alabama shares the same fate as the entire country when it comes to houses being lost to foreclosure. Homes that have, in some cases, been in families for generations and had to be mortgaged due to the loss of the main income makers job or to cover medical expenses.

You can search any of the states’ sixty plus counties and find page after page of foreclosed and distressed homes for sale and sitting vacant. The figures here are astonishing and are up, in Alabama alone, almost sixty percent in January 2009 over the same figures in January of 2008.

That means that there are homes in every price range imaginable ready for a person with insight, knowledge and capitol. To come in and purchase them and make a return on investment that could be astronomical in proportion as long as they have the financial means to make it through the storm.

Everyone agrees that the market, while soft today, will return slowly to a strong market and when that happens, the people that had the ability to make the investments now, will be in a position to reap big financial rewards as the economy rebounds.

There are a large number of sites on the Internet where you can research and find these properties. All you need to do is to enter the information of what you are looking for into your favorite browser and you can have a listing that is full of everything from mobile homes to mansions and everything in between.

The recent down turn of the economy has left many in either a current or pending state of foreclosure and is threatening to get severely worse before it swings back in the other direction.

The government is telling people in Alabama, and the country over, not to panic and to do whatever they can to weather the financial disaster and that there will be light at the end of the tunnel. This is little consolation for the family that is watching the family home grow closer and closer to being lost.

Some of the most active countries in Alabama in regards to foreclosure are Talladega, Mobile and Montgomery and some of the most active cities are Birmingham, Montgomery and Gulf Shores.

These counties and cities also have a corresponding high un-employment rate and are notoriously low on the average income scale in the state.

As I stated earlier, there are some good buys to be made in Alabama if you have the wherewithal to search and acquire them and you certainly stand to make some decent returns on you investment if you can withstand the current trend.

The secret here may well be to make sure that you are one of the survivors of the crisis and do not over extend yourself. You do not want become one of the negative statistics that people end up talking about for years to come as the experts analyze the economic crash of 2008 and 2009 and if you play your cards right, and make the right moves, you can actually come out ahead.

Alabama’s foreclosure figures do not make as grim reading as elsewhere in the country but that is not to say they have escaped the foreclosure crisis. Although the State is the 39th hardest hit nationwide, according to a recent survey, and problems are certainly not as dire as Nevada and Las Vegas (who have been the worst affected for twenty-two straight months now) but residents in the local towns and cities are certainly seeing the effects on the ground.

In pleasant neighbourhoods across the State there will be an abandoned house or two with an overgrown lawn and broken fence, possibly with smashed windows – the vivid effects of foreclosure. Across Alabama, the Police department have had to increase patrols in areas particularly badly affected by foreclosures. Once properties become run down, they seem to spiral very quickly, either by bored kids vandalising the houses or by squatters moving in. All of these issues do not help to sell the house, at what is a very difficult economic time.

Unemployment figures are also supporting evidence to show that this crisis is not over yet, in fact it may not have reached its peak. The State unemployment rate has risen to the highest levels since 2004 and sits at 5.4%, which is below the national average of 6.5%. As jobs are lost, more people struggle to maintain their mortgage repayments.

There are various government initiatives on the wire in an attempt to ease the pain being felt by everyone during this recession. Alabama may be on the receiving end of a portion of the $45m government grant to assist, but this money is unlikely to deflect the drama of those undergoing the foreclosure process at the moment.

Lee County has announced a 45 day moratorium on homeowners going through the foreclosure process, but many say this is not going to keep people in their homes for Christmas, merely delay the recovery that is hoped for whenever it starts to come.

Lawyers are even feeling charitable and offering people in the Birmingham area free services in efforts to avoid foreclosures. These services may include making phones calls or writing letters on behalf of beleaguered residents. One of the many issues associated with foreclosure is the owners’ reluctance to contact the bank to discuss the problem and hopefully this initiative will prevent at least some people from having their home repossessed.

Real Estate companies are also trying to help, with some companies particularly targeting those who cannot maintain payments and working alongside them to offer better solutions for the future.