Some of the most attentive pupils at a home-improvement class in Far Rockaway, Queens, are homeowners who are facing the imminent threat of foreclosure..
Pension funds, life insurance companies and private equity funds have been focused almost exclusively on purchasing core properties in a handful of top markets. That tunnel vision may start to expand in 2012 as institutions prepare to venture further out on the risk spectrum.
Mount Vernon, N.Y., draws a lot of newcomers for its rich variety of prewar Tudor, Mediterranean and Colonial single-family homes. The homes are comparable with those in neighboring Bronxville—but at a fraction of the price.