Housing Market Turnaround Up To Banks
People are buying up short sales and foreclosures at the expense of conventional sales and if the housing market is ever going to recover, the banks need to get short sales closed at a much quicker pace. The average short sale length in some communities has increased to 298 days and even up to a year in some cases. These long turnaround times discourage many potential short sale buyers as they turn to cheaper and quicker foreclosure options. These homes lingering as pending short sales in addition to the new short sales flooding the market has created a two-year supply of short sales on the market. At that rate, the first possible opportunity to see a market recovery wouldn’t be until 2012. However, if banks could improve the short sale approval times, much of that inventory would disappear. It seems like this would be simple and banks would be working toward this goal. Instead the banks are concentrating on foreclosures and selling them at much bigger discounts, devaluing properties across the board. It is no wonder realtors would rather wait for a property to foreclose reducing cost and closing time. So whether we like it or not, the banks are in control of the market and unless their actions change to improve the short sale procedures and stabilize the market, it will be a while before things recover.
Foreclosure Numbers Down, But For How Long?
According to the February 15th story in Property Wire US property foreclosure figures easing, defaults are down 12% from December but stayed 4% above levels in January 2009. Foreclosures are down 11% from December and remained 15% above levels in January 2009. However if the market does what we expect and stays consistent with the 2009 patterns, there will be a surge in foreclosure numbers this coming spring. This is disappointing especially with the knowledge that repeating the 2009 pattern doesn’t include the sudden flood of the Alt-A and option ARM loans previously predicted for this coming summer.
Making Home Affordable Program Fails - Long-term Problem, Short-term fix
Housing advocates and politicians are pressuring the administration to make changes to the Making Home Affordable program as the housing crisis continues to grow. The suggestions to retool the program are justified. A few facts follow:
· Less than 200,000 homes owners have received permanent loan modifications even though it is estimated 3 to 4 million are eligible.
· 600,000 of the eligible borrows cannot apply because the companies servicing their loans are not participating in the Making Home Affordable Program.
· Approximately 1,000,000 home owners received temporary modification but less than ¼ have yet to be made permanent.
· Majority of homeowners obtaining loan mods have done so because of job loss or income reduction.
· 25% of borrower receiving relief end up missing payments again.
· 60,000+ of the borrows receiving modification have defaulted.
TransUnion Reports Mortgage Delinquencies Increase 50% Compared to Last Year!
The percentage of borrowers at least 60 days past due on their mortgage increased for the 12th straight quarter, hitting 6.89 percent by the end of 2009, according to new data released by TransUnion Tuesday. That%u2019s an all-time high in the credit bureau%u2019s study, dating back to 1992.
This statistic, which is traditionally seen as a precursor to foreclosure, increased 10.24 percent from the previous quarter%u2019s 6.25 percent average. Compared to the year-ago delinquency rate of 4.58 percent, past due mortgages are up a staggering 50 percent, TransUnion said.
The Chicago-based company called the recent slowing in the pace delinquency increases %u201Cshort-lived.%u201D What was starting to become a trend came to an abrupt end in the fourth quarter, when the mortgage delinquency rate accelerated instead of decelerated as it had done since the beginning of 2009.
Based on TransUnion%u2019s analysis, borrower delinquency rates last quarter continued to be highest in Nevada (16.19 percent) and Florida (14.93 percent). North Dakota (1.84 percent), South Dakota (2.46 percent), and Alaska (2.84 percent) continued to produce the nation%u2019s lowest mortgage delinquency rates.
Stockton foreclosures are going to be around for awhile. We continue to receive a large number of calls from home owners interested in pursing Stockton short sales.
Sac Bee Exclusive: Region’s shuttered stores tell a thousand stories
An empty shell occupies 9,500 addresses across the Sacramento region %u2013 one closed business for every six still open, according to a Bee analysis of U.S. Postal Service data.
That’s more dormant businesses than in 17 entire states, including Utah, Arkansas and New Mexico.
You can see it on Madison Avenue in Fair Oaks, where Mike Castagnola is liquidating his party supply store, counting down the final days on a business with a 30-year run.
It’s just as apparent on Lake Tahoe Boulevard, the main strip cutting through South Lake Tahoe, where James Dalton counts five vacant businesses within sight of his antiques shop %u2013 and plans to add his store to that number.
And it’s vivid along Main Street in Woodland, where Jill Caunedo happily ran a bagel and coffee shop %u2013 until about two weeks ago.
“Thirty percent of all the businesses (on Main Street) are vacant,” Caunedo said, adding that she is left to sell her former cafe’s equipment for a quarter on the dollar.
A glut of empty businesses means less sales tax revenue for the four-county region, fewer jobs, fewer shopping options, less commercial construction, plenty of thwarted dreams.
It also makes for depressing scenes during the morning commute: the empty Hollywood Video, for instance, near Folsom Boulevard and Howe Avenue, with its large red sign fruitlessly offering “New DVDs for Sale“; the health store just down the road surrounded by vacant storefronts and halfheartedly removed gang graffiti.
No California county has a higher proportion of shuttered businesses than Sacramento, according to the data. Placer County ranks third.
As of September, the number of dormant addresses in Sacramento, Yolo, Placer and El Dorado counties had jumped more than 50 percent during the recession, according to the postal service data, which logs formerly occupied commercial addresses %u2013 office and retail %u2013 where mail has not been picked up for more than 90 days.
There is some hope. Besides a nebulous optimism that the economy may have bottomed out, commercial rents have fallen sharply as supply exceeds demand. Entrepreneurs with cash can get a deal and jump-start a new business.
But cautious and troubled banks aren’t granting many loans to launch enterprises. Many businesses and offices are stuck with rents they can’t afford, while relocation costs keep them from moving. And consumers and companies have changed their spending patterns, growing accustomed to smaller offices and brown-bag lunches.
“Retail’s pretty much been the hardest hit,” said Garrick Brown, research director for the Sacramento office of real estate firm Colliers International. “The pool of new businesses is gone %u2026 and small business lending has fallen off the cliff.”
Collateral damage
Behind all of these vacant businesses are thousands of small, personal decisions, most of them justifiable %u2013 even necessary %u2013 in a sour economy.
In Woodland, for instance, “People just gave up their once-a-week coffee,” said Caunedo, the entrepreneur who ran Bagel City until its recent closing.
Besides selling coffee and bagels from her Main Street shop, Caunedo relied heavily on catering. Her biggest customers were the city of Woodland, the local school district and nearby University of California, Davis.
Each of those public institutions shut the spigot amid budget woes. Caunedo doesn’t blame them: How can you justify serving quality bagels, for instance, at a meeting about whether to lay off teachers?
“In January 2008, all the catering just came to a screeching halt,” Caunedo said.
So Caunedo started laying off workers herself, going from seven to two. Many of her neighbors succumbed alongside her.
Just down the street from Caunedo’s cafe is the center of downtown Woodland, a quaint jewel of the Sacramento region, walkable and charming. But the shops there tend to sell art and antiques, not diapers and medicine, so the recession hit them hard. On just a half block of Main Street, for example, the body count of empty addresses is daunting %u2013 Nos. 503, 505, 507, 509, 511, 514, 516, 517, 518, 519, 535, all vacant.
? Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.
Call The Bee’s Phillip Reese, (916) 321-1137.
The commercial real estate market will provide the next wave of foreclosures. Check out the Sacramento Bee story.
Posted via web from www.Homes-In-Stockton.com Posterous
CA Foreclosure Law - Civil Code 2924
We process more Stockton short sales than any other short sale agent in the Central Valley. We receive numerous requests for information on the California foreclosure process. A copy of CA Foreclosure Law - Civil Code 2924 follows. Please call or email us if you are interested in buying or selling a Stockton short sale. You can view all the Stockton homes for sale at www.homes-in-stockton.com.
Home Buyer Tax Credit Timeline!
Time is running out to take advantage of the home buyer Tax Credit. Visit www.homes-in-stockton.com to view all the Stockton homes for sale!
Washingtonpost.com reports 9.1% of borrowers had missed at least 3 months of payments in December!
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California $1M-Plus Home Sales Drop 24%: DataQuick « HousingWire
Monday, February 8th, 2010, 2:41 pm
Million-dollar home sales continue to decline in California, as price declines are bringing homes below the $1m threshold and hesitant buyers have yet to return to the market, according to property data provider MDA DataQuick.
A total of 18,621 California homes sold for $1m or more last year, down 23.8% from 24,436 sales in 2008. It marks the fourth consecutive year of sales volume declines and follows similar year-over-year declines in 2007 (42,506 sales), 2006 (50,010) and the peak year of 2005 (54,773), DataQuick said.
The decline in higher-priced house sales was countered by higher sales in all price levels. Total California home sales increased 16.9% to 460,166 in 2009, from 393,703 in 2008, DataQuick said.
“Prestige home sales are a unique sub-category of the real estate market,” said DataQuick president John Walsh. “The buyers and sellers respond to a different set of motivations. In the multi-million-dollar price ranges, decisions are largely discretionary and aren’t as dependent upon jobs, prices and interest rates the way they are for most buyers and sellers.”
The overwhelming majority — 15,569, or 83% — of homes that sold for more than $1m priced between $1m and $2m. There were 1,902 homes sold between $2m and $3m. Another 590 units sold between $3m and $4m, 228 sold between $4m and $5m and 332 sold for more than $5m.
DataQuick calculates its figures from public records confirming the presence of a buyer, a seller, money transfer, and legal transfer of property ownership, including sales to companies and trusts. The data does not include property swaps, sales of multiple lots, sales where no price or loan amount was available, property tear-downs, or large farm or ranch properties.
The largest and most expensive purchase DataQuick confirmed for 2009 was a 22,721-square-foot, 9-bedroom, 10-bathroom Bel Air house built in 2008 that sold for $26.5m in July.
Million-dollar home sales in Riverside County dropped 48.6% last year, while they dropped 13.3% in Los Angeles County, DataQuick said. Sales in Portola Valley and Atherton in San Mateo County, Newport Beach in Orange County, Ross in Marin County and Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego County were almost exclusively million-dollar or higher transactions.
New homes accounted for 1,457 of last year’s $1m-plus sales, down 50.3% from 2,933 for 2008. There were 1,542 condo sales priced at $1m or more, down 34.7% from 2,362 in 2008. The median size for a million-dollar home was 2,646 square feet, with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.
There were 4,925 notices of default issued in 2009on homes previously sold for $1m or more, while the number of trustee deeds, which count total foreclosures, was 2,698 in 2009.
DataQuick said 29% of buyers in the $1m-plus range paid cash, up from 24% in 2008. In the $5m or higher category, two-thirds of buyers paid cash. The median down payment for a buyer who financed a purchase was 39.4% of the purchase price.
DataQuick said the lenders that extended the most credit for $1m or more home purchases were Bank of America (BAC: 14.28 -1.38%), Wells Fargo (WFC: 26.42 -0.04%) and Union Bank (UB: 0.00 N/A).
Write to Austin Kilgore.
The author held no relevant investments.
10 steps to ’short sale’ buying
Bobbi Dempsey one of the authors of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buying Foreclosures” blogs on the following list:
10 steps to short-sale homebuying
1. Identify potential short sales.
2. View the property.
3. Do your research.
4. Find all liens and mortgages.
5. Figure out the financing.
6. Contact the lender.
7. Complete the lender’s short sale application.
8. Assemble the proposal.
9. Negotiate.
10. Seal the deal.
This is a very informative and insightful list which can be read in detail at 10 steps to ’short sale’ buying. I highly recommend that anyone considering buying or selling a short sale property take the time to read this article in its entirety.
