10 Homes You Can Buy With Your Credit Card
For brave bargain hunters here are 10 homes one can put on plastic.
June 18, 2009— -- Looking for a property within walking distance to the beach? How about a five-bedroom home in Cragin, a North Chicago neighborhood 25 minutes from downtown? Just two years ago, these sales pitches might have been accompanied by warnings like: "Hurry, at $500,000, these prices won't last!"
Not today. With transactions scarce, desperate sellers are dropping prices. A three-bedroom, two-bath bungalow in Huntington Beach, Calif., is on the market for $100,000. That's down $142,000 from August 2008. Being 1.5 miles from the beach helps to make up for the vinyl sided-exterior. And a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Fort Washington, Md., a leafy D.C. suburb just outside the Beltway, sold for $350,000 in January of 2007, a huge flip from its $120,000 sales price in 2002. That it's currently listed for $74,900 should be a sign of a serious seller.
Such prices allow select buyers to use their credit cards to purchase them. Today, even with credit tight, American Express, Visa and MasterCard offer cards with a $100,000 limit, and often more, to those with an outstanding FICO score. For most cities and regions, $100,000 is a shockingly low figure representing a major drop from the height of the market. Of homes currently listed, a total of $27.4 billion has been slashed from their original asking prices, according to online marketplace Trulia.com.
Most sellers won't take plastic, but they will accept cash. For someone who isn't liquid enough to have $100,000 cash, but doesn't want to miss out on a steal of a deal, taking out a cash advance can be a useful alternative. Given interest rates on credit cards, however, this should only be considered if you'll be able to pay off the debt within a few months.
With that in mind, we looked across the country for 10 homes that could be had for under $100,000, but weren't properties in dilapidated, far-flung neighborhoods.
