March 28, 2008

Next Stop, Crown City

It’s a sort of a tailor-made human interest story born of the housing crash: buses of of cheerful folk looking for a slice of the American Dream off the backs of those who are living the nightmare. It’s no wonder that the likes of “60 Minutes”, “Nightline” and CNN have all helped to propelled Stockton realtor Cesar Dias and his “RepoHomeTour” concept to national attention.

From the foreclosure capital to our backyard– LTV Real Estate of Pasadena has franchised Dias’ repo tour concept, becoming the first in Los Angeles county to adopt in earnest. (Dias’ goals of franchise-ation touched upon previously here on Sweet Digs in “All Aboard the Foreclosure Bus!“) A $20,000 fee buys the franchisees “a logo-wrapped used bus, training and marketing materials and a Web site“, reports Melissa Pamer in this Pasadena Star piece, a fascinating chronicle of the tours which have already begun charting caravans of deal-seekers and speculators around the San Gabriel Valley.

The bus-tour concept, Dias said, is “kind of the darling of real estate right now.”

But he also noted he’s been called an opportunistic “vulture” for taking advantage of people losing their homes.

“If we weren’t doing this, this market would still be in doom and gloom,” Dias said. “This is business. We have to survive either way.”

Back in Pasadena, LTV CEO Cesar Haro is forecasting declines in this area will mirror those which have befallen upon Stockton, and that it will be “happening in two to three months.” No one expects the wheels of the proverbial foreclosure bus to stop spinning anytime soon, but does anyone out there heartedly agree with Haro’s prognostication?