Predictions, in this day and age, can sometimes be scary, sometimes anticipated. Who do we listen to when we speak of predictions? Shamans? Prophets? Or do we listen to someone who only takes action once a year, and be considered one of the most successful investors in the world?

Warren Buffet, billionaire investor, may just have something up his sleeve. He has predicted a rise in the real estate market that has local investors and businessmen panting in anticipation. In a yearly letter to the stockholders of Berkshire Hathaway, he has foreseen a positive recovery of the beleaguered market when the demands for homes will catch up with the excess supply of foreclosed homes created by the financial crisis more than a year and a half ago.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel at last? Maybe.

In his letter, Buffet wrote that “within a year or so, residential housing problems should largely be behind us. Prices will remain far below ‘bubble’ levels of course, but for every seller or lender hurt by this there will be a buyer who benefits. Indeed, many families that couldn’t afford to buy an appropriate home a few years ago now find it well within their means.”

The prediction may come as a welcome relief to the company’s shareholders. But the historic real estate crisis has drastically affected some of Berkshire Hathaway business units. Home Services of America, Inc., of Minneapolis, the nation’s second-largest independent residential real estate broker, is controlled by the Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway through a subsidiary. Nine percent of its profits fell to $187 million before taxes. A maker of prefabricated houses, Clayton Homes, and the carpet maker Shaw Industries, saw a harrowing thirty percent drop in earnings.

Which will have a harder and much longer time to recover? These will be the high-value houses and those in certain localities where overbuilding was particularly rabid. One of the primary causes of the housing market crash sited by Buffet was overbuilding. It was just a simple case of violating the basic Law of supply and demand.  Before the crisis, the demands for houses were paced at two million units per year. Just before the crash, the demand had dropped to only 1.2 million, way behind the supply at hand.

The ‘housing bubble’ has resulted in a favourable end to the gold rush psyche of construction companies to build more houses than the actual demand for them. Warren Buffet jokingly wrote that that was the best possible solution to the other two which are: if the country decides “to blow up a lot of houses…in a tactic similar to the destruction of autos that occurred with the ‘cash for clunkers’ program” or “speed up householder formation by, say, encouraging teenagers to cohabitate, a program no likely to suffer from a lack of volunteers.”

Are these predictions really what they appear to be? Or are they just simple deductions to a basic principle of ‘what is down has nowhere else to go but up’? Simple deductions these may just well be. But if it comes from someone who is as successful as Warren Buffet, everyone will just have to stop and listen.

The credit crunch has hit the real estate markets in most countries, but waiting for prices to hit bottom before you invest is the wrong tactic. This is because as soon as prices start to turn and the media say “the market has hit bottom and starting to go up”, then every investor will be wanting a piece of the action and prices rise, vendors will not give you a discount. The savvy investors got in earlier!

Just think about it, if you knew you could buy below market value properties at a price with a certainty that you are locked in for the gains when the market turns, wouldn’t you want a piece of the action? The key decision to make is all about timing, that is when is the right time to start buying?

Some have started to say that 2009 could well be the time to start investing, this is when vendors are disillusioned with all the negativity and falling prices, they will sell at even greater discounts of 20% or more on the current valuations. This is very likely to be at a lower price than when the market hits bottom, so this is when the savvy investors start buying.

But, how do these savvy investors find these deals at 20% below market value properties? The answer is simple, seek out the specialist agents who source properties (BMV properties) where the vendor is selling at a huge discount. Within the UK one such agent is Simple2buy.co.uk, they email clients with deals as soon as they come in. The savvy investors are now building their portfolios, what type of investor are you?

If you are considering selling your house, there are many things that you will need to think about right from the very beginning. The decisions you make at the very beginning of the process will affect how easy a time you will have of it by the end, so make sure you think about the options carefully!

Many people today are taking advantage of the options offered by real estate investors and there are lots of reasons for you to do the same! To understand a little bit about the process of using a real estate investor, you need to know a little bit about what it is these companies do. The first thing to keep in mind is the fact that they are not interested in your house as a place where they will want to live; instead, they are thinking of it as an investment. A real estate investor buys properties, does some work on them and then resells them later on. Because of this fact, they are in a very different position than other buyers that you might encounter.

For one thing, they will not be concerned about things like the proximity of schools or jobs. If you are selling a family home, this is one thing that many buyers will be concerned with. They will be looking at the neighborhood, the schools in the area and the bus route. A real estate investment company on the other hand, will already know about these things when they come to look at your property.

A large difference in the way that a regular buyer and real estate investor will look at your house is that a real estate investor will not be as concerned with repairs, whether superficial or structural. Real estate investors tend to have resources on their own in terms of getting repair taken care of, while regular buyers will usually be insistent on you fixing the house yourself before selling it to them. Because of this, you may spend a great deal more time and money on the house itself before you can consider selling it.

A real estate investor will come to your house to take a look at it, much like any other buyer, but unlike other buyers, you will most likely have an offer within a week. Someone who makes a career out of buying houses to turn around and sell them will have the funds available and will probably be able to offer you cash up front. If you are in a hurry to sell due to job relocation or divorce, this may be one of the best options available to you.

This is a process that differs greatly from selling your house in a more traditional way or through a real estate agency. One reason to sell your house to private buyers might be nostalgia, say if you want to make sure that a family gets into your home after you leave it. You also may wish to sell your own home without the aid of a real estate agent in order keep the money from a commission.

A real estate agent will sell your house for the highest possible price, but this may not be as good an idea as it initially seems. Overpriced houses stay on the market for quite a while and if speed is an issue, this is the last thing you want. The offers you get might also be comparatively low to adjust for the overpricing and then you’re in a situation where you will need to select from a variety of under-priced offers. However, a real estate agent will also have access to resources that you will not, and it is important to keep in mind that many real estate agents have quite a bit of expertise to offer in terms of presentation of the house itself. Your real estate agent will also be able to help you with pricing; many people are not sure how much their house may have appreciated in value since they bought it and thus have problems with listing it correctly.

At the end of the day, the most important thing to do is to find the option that best suits your position. Whether the most important option is getting the house sold quickly, or for the most amount money, make sure that you find the solution that will make your move and your experience as painless as possible.