Daren Blomquist

  • Daren Blomquist is vice president of market economics at auction.com. In this role, Blomquist analyzes and forecasts complex macro and microeconomic data trends within the marketplace and industry to provide value to both buyers and sellers using the auction.com platform.

Where Are the Investors?

Where Are the Investors?

| Article | Market & Trends
Shifts are occurring in the 2024 real estate market as investors flock to emerging hot spots and retreat from traditional strongholds. Real estate has always been local—and trends in the 2024 housing market are proving that out with substantial market variance in retail market inventory, home price appreciation, and even ...
Falling Prices Won’t Stop Local Investors

Falling Prices Won’t Stop Local Investors

| Article | Market & Trends
More local investors expect a price correction in 2024. They’re still buying. An increasing number of local real estate investors buying distressed properties on Auction.com expect home prices and rents to fall in 2024, but most still plan to bid at least as aggressively at auction as they did in ...
Where to Spot Distressed Property Buying Opportunities in 2024

Where to Spot Distressed Property Buying Opportunities in 2024

| Article | Market & Trends
Based on scheduled foreclosure auction volume in late 2023, here are some opportunities you might want to consider. Foreclosure auction volume remained muted in late 2023, but scheduled auction data shows which markets will likely have the most volume of distressed property buying opportunities in early 2024. Nationwide, scheduled foreclosure ...
Investing Opportunities in Overlooked Markets

Investing Opportunities in Overlooked Markets

| Article | Market & Trends
Solid returns await investors if they consider looking outside their comfort zone. Rising mortgage rates and slowing home price appreciation have compressed returns for real estate investors, but solid returns are still available in often-overlooked markets across the country for investors willing to step outside of their comfort zone. “The ...
Local Real Estate Investors Move from Caution to Confidence

Local Real Estate Investors Move from Caution to Confidence

| Article | Market & Trends
Local investors stay disciplined even as institutional investors continue to retreat. Local real estate investors who started out the year cautiously bullish have become more confidently bullish as the housing market continues to prove its resilience in the face of elevated mortgage rates and slowing home price appreciation, according to ...
Where to Expect Increasing Foreclosure Volume for the Rest of 2023

Where to Expect Increasing Foreclosure Volume for the Rest of 2023

| Article | Market & Trends
Nearly nine in 10 (86%) mortgage servicing industry professionals surveyed at the Auction.com Disposition Summit in June said they expect their organization’s completed foreclosure auction volume to increase in 2023 compared to 2022. Most (62%) expect volumes to increase slightly while 24% expect volumes to increase substantially. Foreclosure Volume Drivers ...
Why Investors are Cautiously Bullish to Begin 2023

Why Investors are Cautiously Bullish to Begin 2023

| Article | Market & Trends
After pulling back on investment property purchases in the second half of 2022, Paul Lizell has become “cautiously bullish” in early 2023. “We’ve really shifted, and right now we’re very, very bullish, but cautiously bullish, too, because I don’t know what events are going to come in that could throw ...
Hottest Real Estate Investing Markets for 2023

Hottest Real Estate Investing Markets for 2023

| Article | Market & Trends
Data from the fourth quarter of 2022, with the housing markets in the throes of a slowdown, helps shed light on which markets investors think will withstand the continued slowdown expected in 2023 and which markets provide the biggest potential discount cushion to hedge against such a slowdown. The most ...
The Possibilities and Perils of Investing in a Downshifting Housing Market

The Possibilities and Perils of Investing in a Downshifting Housing Market

With a recession looming and home prices predicted to fall in many local markets, 2023 could represent a prime buying opportunity for real estate investors, assuming those investors account for the potential perils of buying during a housing market downturn. “I’m still buying heavy, but it’s harder to find the ...
Sizing and Timing  the Pandemic Backlog of Foreclosures

Sizing and Timing the Pandemic Backlog of Foreclosures

| Article | Market & Trends
Foreclosure prevention efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic helped prevent a tsunami of distressed sales during the thick of the crisis, but it also created a backlog of distress that is beginning to clear as the world slowly returns to normal. Sizing that backlog and when it will hit the housing ...
From Real Estate’s Frontlines

From Real Estate’s Frontlines

| Article | Market & Trends
Competition at distressed property auctions is starting to slip after hitting record highs in the first quarter of 2022. This trend foreshadows a continued slowdown in the larger retail market while also signaling emerging opportunities for real estate investors willing to swim against the current. Proprietary buyer bidding data from ...
Investors More Bearish, But Still Buying Aggressively at Auction

Investors More Bearish, But Still Buying Aggressively at Auction

| Article | Market & Trends
More than half of real estate investors in first quarter 2022 described their local housing market as “overvalued with a correction possible,” but nearly nine out of 10 expect their property acquisitions to increase or remain the same this year, according to an Auction.com buyer survey conducted in March 2022 ...
Redesigning Distressed Properties to Appeal to Modern Buyers

Redesigning Distressed Properties to Appeal to Modern Buyers

When he quit his day job March 1, 2020, to start investing in real estate full time, Will Wenzel counted on two things to support his strategy of buying and renovating distressed properties in the Connecticut communities where he grew up: a combination of aging suburban housing stock and millennial ...
After a Two-Year Hiatus, Will Foreclosure Volume Return in 2022?

After a Two-Year Hiatus, Will Foreclosure Volume Return in 2022?

| Article | Market & Trends
Data from Auction.com and other sources suggest that foreclosure volume will increase substantially in 2022 off a record low in 2021, while staying safely below pre-pandemic levels. The trend of gradually rising foreclosure volume was already established leading into 2022. Completed foreclosure auctions on the Auction.com platform in the fourth ...
A New President at Auction.com

A New President at Auction.com

| Article | Market & Trends
Auction.com, the nation’s leading distressed real estate marketplace, today announced that Ali Haralson has been promoted to president, a new position in the company that will oversee both sales and operations. She is the company’s first female president. This move intensifies the company’s focus on “get to sold” with innovative ...
Distressed Market Outlook

Distressed Market Outlook

The nation’s leading distressed real estate marketplace, Auction.com, released its Q4 2020 Distressed Market Outlook, which shows that completed foreclosure auctions in September increased 24 percent from the previous month to the highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March. The Auction.com Distressed Market Outlook report combines proprietary ...
Foreclosure Buyers Respond to COVID-19

Foreclosure Buyers Respond to COVID-19

Auction.com has just published its Q2 2020 Foreclosure Buyer Insights report, which sheds light on how real estate investors on the frontlines of the housing market are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing market turmoil. Here are some high-level findings: 61 percent of investors now say online auctions are ...
Flipping-Trends

Flipping Trends

| Article | Market & Trends
After falling off in late 2018, the U.S. home flipping rate rebounded to a nine-year high in the first quarter of 2019, according to a recent report from ATTOM Data Solutions. ATTOM’s Chief Product Officer Todd Teta concluded that the jump in home flipping was likely due to real estate ...
foreclosure starts

Increased Foreclosures in the West?

| Article | Market & Trends
According to a new client survey conducted by Auction.com, Western markets are most at risk for increased foreclosure inventory in the second half of 2019. Most respondents (80%) expect only slight changes in foreclosure and bank-owned (REO) inflow in the next six months. On July 9, 2019, Auction.com, the nation’s largest ...
housing market

The Terminology of Housing Market Progression

| Article | Operations
You’ve probably heard terms like “major metro,” “primary metro area,” “secondary market,” and “tertiary market” when reading market analyses. This nomenclature is “slippery” and often relies heavily on context and speaker intent to make sense of it and apply the commentary to your specific investment goals and strategies. Here, we ...
single family rental

The Best Counties for Buying Single Family Rentals

ATTOM Data Solutions analyzed 449 U.S. counties for potential single family rental returns in 2018 to help real estate investors identify the best places for buying single family rentals this year. Rental data was from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and home price data was from publicly ...
housing markets

Housing Markets Most Impacted by Tax Plan

| Article | Operations
The Republican tax proposal unveiled in late October and passed in December, included at least two changes to the income tax structure that could potentially have significant impacts on homeowners, and by extension the housing market. We’ve created two heat maps to illustrate which local housing markets could have the ...