The investors are paying cash and buying ‘as is’ at discount prices.  No regular buyer who needs financing and inspections can compete with the cash-rich investors.  Investors are also back to flipping houses.  The buy-fix up- resell cycle has begun again. 

The down side for those of us who aren’t even trying to buy a house is that those foreclosures will now become rental property.  It is no secret that neighborhoods with a disproportionate number of rental properties goes downhill much faster than where homes are owned by the occupants. 

According to the Washington Post:

“There are bidding wars out there. It’s like the 2005 market but at discount prices,” said Stella Barbour, a real estate agent at Jobin Realty in Northern Virginia. “I put in offers for my clients only to find there are already multiple offers. They always choose the one that’s all cash.”

Some of these cash-only investors use their own money to buy properties, while others borrow it at high interest rates from other private sources.

Chris “CC” Cormack, an investor, said she used her own money to beat out four other offers and buy a townhouse in Ashburn this year. The home, a foreclosure, was listed for $214,500, and she got it for $220,000. Cormack fixed it up and sold it a few months later for a sizable profit.

“It had been under contract twice before, and both of those loans fell apart,” said Cormack, who is also a real estate agent. “By the time I came along with all-cash offer, the bank said, ‘I’ll take it.’ They did not want to take a chance on the deal falling apart again.”

Many of the real estate practices are happening right here in Prince William County:

Investors have reemerged with brute force in the Washington region’s real estate market over the past few months, triggering bidding wars in some neighborhoods teeming with foreclosed properties and hindering traditional home buyers such as Melissa Diggins.

Diggins and her fiance, George Mills, made a dozen offers on houses in Prince William County but lost more than half of them to investors making all-cash offers.

Frustrated, they gave up their search for a new home, convinced that they could not compete.

“We thought to ourselves: ‘Enough is enough,’ ” said Diggins, a graphic designer. “We’d sometimes offer more than the asking price and we wouldn’t even get a call back.  It was crazy.”

A year or so ago we heard several commentators singing the praises of the Prince William County Real Estate market. They spoke of how things were snapping back and how new families were moving in, returning the neighborhoods to the pastoral  scenes before the ‘illegals’ came to town. In the first place, many of the foreclosures were not illegal immigrants or even Latino families.  They were families who simply had bitten off more than they could chew.  This new situation truly reminds us of being careful what we wish for.  Homeowner occupancy is generally always superior to a neighborhood of rental units when it comes to homeowner upkeep and the general conditions of the community. One can expect both cities to be undergoing the same real estate situation.

    <————-    Location of assaults in the area

A serial rapist who has been terrorizing the East Coast since 1997 arrived in time on Halloween to attack and rape 3 teenage girls who were out trick or treating in Dale City.  This rapist has been on the loose and has attacked in 4 states:  Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maryland and Virginia. 

A video update has been added to the end of this post.  It is a multi-jurisdictional  police press conference containing critical information for the public.

His DNA connects him to the following crimes:

• Feb. 12, 1997 – 6800 block of Marlboro Pike in Forestville, Md.
• Aug. 20, 1997 – 4600 block of Silver Hill Road in Suitland, Md.
• July 3, 1998 – 2900 block of 31st Avenue in Temple Hills, Md.
• June 19, 1999 – Richmond Highway/Memorial Street in Alexandria, Va.
• Jan. 13, 2000 – 7300 block of Fordson Road in Alexandria, Va.
• July 8, 2000 – 1900 block of Beechwood Road in Hyattsville, Md.
• Nov. 20, 2000 – Timber Forest Drive/Edsall Road in Alexandria, Va.
• May 24, 2001 – Plaza Street in Leesburg, Va.
• Aug. 16, 2001 – 4500 block of 23rd Parkway in Temple Hills, Md.
• Dec. 28, 2001 – 3700 block of Rolling Hills Avenue in Alexandria, Va.
• Nov. 28, 2006 – Valley View Drive in Cranston, RI
• Jan. 10, 2007 – Smith Avenue in New Haven, Conn.
• Oct. 31, 2009 – 4300 block of Dale Boulevard in Woodbridge

The rapist seems to take a break if you notice the hiatus in the crimes.  This could mean something in his life has changed during that time frame or that there are crimes not being reported. 

According to WTOP:

In most cases, the victims were walking and were approached by the suspect, who often threatened them with a knife or gun. In several cases, the suspect approached two women walking together and raped both of them.

Two incidents – one on Plaza Street in Leesburg and one in New Haven – involved the suspect breaking into the victims’ homes and raping them.

In the most recent attack, the suspect raped a 16-year-old girl and a 17-year-old girl at gunpoint as they were walking home from a night of trick-or-treating near Glendale Plaza.

Authorities believe the suspect lived in or spent a considerable amount of time in the areas of the attacks.

The suspect is still at large and potentially poses a risk to the community, police say. He is described as a black man in his 30s or 40s with a medium build.

Police are urging people to consider whether they know someone who fits the description, or know someone who may have lived in the areas or is known to spend time in the areas.

Authorities also say people who know the suspect may not think he’s capable of committing the crimes. However, they welcome any information that may be helpful in identifying or eliminating potential suspects.

WTOP credited with all facts for this post. This information is too critical for me to sort through and pick and chose what *I* think is important. Consider it a community service. It should come as no surprise that I think rapists should be killed.  A crime profiler was featured on WTOP Channel 9 news  at 11:00 last night.  There was also a PWC police press conference.

UPDATE from insidenova.com:

The video contains critical information that multi-jurisdictional law enforcement wants the public to know.

The announcement has caused a firestorm not only in the political community but also in the legal community. Perhaps the greatest gripe is that these terrorists will be afforded all the liberties entitled to a US citizen. There are also worries about turning the trial into a lengthy 3 ring circus. Then there are about 20 more reasons, pro and con for this action that I am sure our contributors would like to share their opinion about.

On another terrorist note, According to News and Messenger:

NEW YORK (AP) — In what could be one of the biggest counterterrorism seizures in U.S. history, federal prosecutors sought to take over four U.S. mosques, a New York City skyscraper and 100 acres in Prince William County owned by a Muslim organization suspected of being controlled by the Iranian government.

Prosecutors on Thursday filed a civil complaint in federal court against the Alavi Foundation, seeking the forfeiture of more than $500 million in assets.

The seizures include land in the Catharpin area. The addresses listed on the federal criminal complaint are 4300 and 4204 Aldie Road

In the Iranian case, there are ties to the funding of nuclear weapons. It appears that the property was just that: property. Nothing nefarious has been found at the site, according to other sources.

Just days after Help Save Manassas was classified as “an extremist organization that employs hateful rhetoric” by the Anti-Defamation League, the man responsible for earning this classification for his followers has sunk to a new low.

A private email I wrote eleven days ago found its way to Greg Letiecq, who has posted a new thread on his blog intending to intimidate and persecute, not only me, but everyone who was on the email list.

In it, I questioned the judgment of Gainesville District Supervisor John Stirrup, who tomorrow will ask his fellow Supervisors to vote to approve his appointment of Robert Duecaster to the Prince William County Strategic Goals Task Force. I have made no secret of my feelings about Duecaster’s racist writings, or his infamous outbursts before our Board of Supervisors (see previous thread). But now Letiecq is trying to intimidate and defame those who received the email (many of whom did not respond).

Supervisor Stirrup’s apparent trust in Duecaster — the only man in this county who has personally threatened the Board of Supervisors with more hatred and rage than Letiecq himself — is just one symptom of the toxicification of Prince William County at the hands of Letiecq, his blog, and his extremist organization. The Center for American Progress has documented how intimidation and incitement of racial conflict are common methods of attack for anti-immigrant organizations.

The persecution began last year, targeting the Hispanic community, though often worded to focus on “illegal” immigrants rather than the Hispanic community in general. But it did not stop when many members of the Hispanic community left the county. It did not stop when our county’s Citizen Satisfaction Survey revealed that both the Hispanic and the African American communities have lost trust in county government and the police force.

For more than a year, Letiecq has been targeting anyone who dares to oppose his relentless attempts to dominate our county government by exploiting his influence over Supervisor Stirrup and Chairman Corey Stewart. Now, he is not only targeting those who criticize him, he is targeting anyone who associates with his critics, or thinks about joining them.

Letiecq has made a habit of attacking me. But he knows I am not intimidated. He knows I will stand up to him.

Many of the those who received my personal email have not criticized Letiecq or taken any action to challenge his greed for power. By publishing their names without permission and “identifying” them, he has violated their privacy in a despicable attempt to make them appear guilty of some infraction, and bully them into silence.

I for one am not afraid of Greg Letiecq’s Neo-McCarthyism. And I am not afraid to say I oppose the appointment of Robert Duecaster to our county’s Strategic Goals Task Force. But more importantly, I oppose the persecution tactics Letiecq has employed to unduly influence this county government, its leaders, and its citizens.

P.S. Question for Greg Letiecq: Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

OUR OPINION
Published: July 24, 2008

As noted in a recent editorial in a nearby national newspaper, it’s been a year since the Board of Supervisors in Prince William County “launched its drive to hound, harass and humiliate illegal immigrants.” The editorial cites what it calls the toxic effects of the board’s resolution against illegal immigration and claims that “across the nation,” our county has become known as an intolerant community.

We have said before that the resolution doesn’t accomplish anything valuable and the machinations necessary to pursue the policy set by that resolution — like all the hoops through which the county police must jump — have certainly put an unnecessary strain the pocketbooks of taxpayers.

But your local paper agrees with the national newspaper that the board’s action is embarrassing for most of us who live here.

It’s not necessarily this newspaper’s job to practice boosterism and, certainly, part of our job is to point out some of the blemishes we see when the community looks in the mirror, but a year after the board’s regrettable move, we thought it might be appropriate to remind ourselves of the county’s attributes of which we can be proud.

So we turned to the Prince William Regional Chamber of Commerce for some assessments that are far from embarrassing:

1. Our location: We are close the capital of the free world and home to many federal government employees. We have access to good housing and affordable office space.

2. Transportation: Yes, we have issues, but we also have access to three major airports and two smaller ones and a county government that, in the past, has stepped up to build needed some road improvements like the Prince William Parkway and the extended Va. 234.

3. Education: The county is home to a university research and development facility at George Mason and a huge public school system, where teachers work hard to foster success among 72,000 students. (That’s more people than a small city.)

4. Quality of life: We have a couple of symphony orchestras, several community choral groups a thriving theater community, national parks, local parks and — despite the impression left by the
resolution — a diverse population that brings much to any table. We also have a huge heart, demonstrated by ACTS and SERVE and many smaller groups that focus on taking care of those in need.

Yes, that 1-year-old resolution is an ugly zit, but the overall reflection from our mirror shows us a pretty good place to live, work and play.

…these immigration-related cases raise complex questions about the interplay of local and federal law and are likely to pose special challenges for Prince William County police in the push against illegal immigration that began this week.

The police department has said it will treat illegal immigrants who are criminals differently from those who are crime victims. But in prostitution cases, the women involved might be both.

These types of cases are going to cause a nightmare for our local police who will have to add extra time to investigating in order to ascertain which of these two categories suspects fall into – are they victims or criminals. As word gets out about the differences between the two groups one could expect to see a lot less ‘criminals’ and a lot more ‘victims’ being caught.