Housing Crisis Upside: Bargains for Everyone

FONT SIZE

EMAIL

PRINT

RSS

DIGG

SHARE

Real estate watchers have been saying it for months now: It's a buyer's market and it's only getting better.

If you do your homework, you can find an array of real estate bargains: Thanks to the weak housing market, sellers and banks are slashing prices on everything from mansions to modest single-family homes.

(Dean Hamilton Realtors/Inter-City Realty)
More Photos

"There are all kinds of opportunities out there for people who have money," said James Wedgeworth, a real estate agent in South Carolina. "The smart money's buying right now."

Unfortunately for Wedgeworth, no one's buying the mansion at 74 Brams Point Rd. on Hilton Head Island. He and other real estate agents have been trying to sell the eight-bedroom, 18,000-square-foot estate for about two years. Thus far features like a private deep-water dock, indoor and outdoor pools, multiple fireplaces and a home theater haven't sealed any deals. So to entice buyers, the property, which has been appraised at $17 million, is now on sale for less than $8.8 million, a discount of nearly 50 percent.