When he looks out a couple of months, John Hayes says he sees better days ahead for the housing industry.
Hayes, president and chief executive of HomeVestors of America Inc., believes that, if the right pieces fall into place, home sales could improve this spring.
In Ohio, where housing market declines have avoided the depths seen in states such as California or Nevada — where home values skyrocketed by double-digit percentages and plummeted with equal force — things will bounce back more quickly, he said.
A former resident of Dover, Ohio, Hayes was in Dayton on Wednesday, Jan. 7, to speak to the Greater Dayton Real Estate Investors Association.
Based in Dallas, HomeVestors trains and supports franchisees who buy distressed properties so they can either hold or re-sell them.
HomeVestors franchisees typically buy homes from sellers who need to unload them quickly, such as people going through a divorce, a job loss or a foreclosure, Hayes said. They buy the homes at a discounted rate and sink thousands of dollars into refurbishments before selling them again, Hayes said.
Hayes believes the market could begin to turn in April. Before that happens, though, Hayes said Congress needs to pass and President-elect Obama needs to sign into law a stimulus bill.
And the nation's banks also need to accelerate the lending of money they were given as part of the federal government's $700 billion rescue plan, he said.
But he remains optimistic.
"We're going to come out of this," he said.
