This youtube video shines the spotlight on Carlsbad’s La Costa Oaks development, one of the four villages subdivided by Morrow Development (La Costa Valley, La Costa Greens, and La Costa Ridge are the others). As with other tracts sold at the peak, there is plenty of noise in the data, challenging buyers to make sense of it.
Southeast Carlsbad’s 92009 zip code is physically about the same size as Carmel Valley’s 92130; 20.2 sq. mi. to 19.7 sq. miles. But 92009 has about 66% more homes than CV, so the foreclosure stats showing them having twice as many NODs and NOTs isn’t that drastic (the stats in video says “Carlsbad”, but they are just the 92009 foreclosure numbers):
Fannie Mae wants out of its defaulted residential mortgage holdings as quickly as possible and is warning loan servicers not to stand in its way.
The government-sponsored enterprise notified servicers Tuesday that it will begin monitoring them to determine why there are delays in moving delinquent loans into foreclosure. If servicers cannot properly account for the holdups, it will perform on-site reviews and assess fees to give servicers “a financial incentive to comply with Fannie Mae policies and improve the overall quality of their performance.”
All year, the so-called shadow inventory of home loans that are delinquent but not yet in foreclosure has been growing. The buildup has been widely interpreted as a sign that banks and servicers are intentionally delaying foreclosures, in part to avoid taking losses on loans that they hold.
About 2.9 million homes have been repossessed by banks or are in the foreclosure process, according to Lender Processing Services. But 4.5 million borrowers are at least 30 days delinquent on their mortgage.
With the economic recovery stalled and housing prices expected to fall further, Fannie appears to be making the first move.
“This is a shot across the bow that servicers have to start paying attention,” said Kevin Kanouff, a founder of Statebridge Co., a Denver special servicer. “Now they’re going to put their feet to the fire and expect to move these loans along as opposed to throwing them in a program and just collecting the fees.”
The late-reporters will add about 10% to these numbers, but it looks like the overall sales will continue their downward trend. When you drill down to the individual zip codes, it’s a mixed bag, but good to see 92067 slip under $400/sf for the third time this year.
Chris Bowden, vice president of the Freddie Mac HomeSteps department, which manages the government sponsored enterprises’ (GSE) REO inventory, said stabilizing neighborhoods will depend on getting first-time homebuyers to buy REO.
In a features perspectives published Tuesday on the Freddie website, Bowden said Freddie’s inventory of REO has tripled over the past two years to more than 62,000 properties. The weight of these properties has had a “significant impact” on home prices in these communities, but selling to owner-occupants can reverse the damage and restore neighborhoods.
“Currently, more than two-thirds of our REO sales are to owner-occupants. Most of our marketing and sales strategies are geared toward attracting owner-occupants, and include incentives for both the real estate agents and prospective homebuyers,” Bowden writes.
The Freddie Mac SmartBuy sales promotion offers owner-occupant buyers a two-year home warranty and closing-cost assistance when they buy a HomeSteps REO. Bowden wrote that its partnership with nonprofit organizations and the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) is putting on auctions targeting first-time homebuyers. In the first one, 200 owner-occupants bought homes in Las Vegas and in Riverside and San Bernardino counties in California. Another 72 owner-occupant buyers purchased homes in the second auction in Phoenix.
In some ZIP Codes, HomeSteps offers REO homes for sale to these owner-occupants through nonprofits before the property is listed for sale on the multiple listing service (MLS).
But owner-occupants are attracted to properties that have been repaired and restored since the foreclosure. Freddie’s “Good Neighbor” property preservation policies require that the home is “secured, preserved and cleaned” within three business days of the property is deemed vacant. Neighboring properties receive door hangers containing contact information for any interested homebuyers or for someone concerned about the REO in their community.
Approximately 50 percent of the homes that Freddie Mac acquires have occupants – either owners or tenants. In March 2009, they introduced the Freddie Mac Rental Initiative to offer qualified former owner-occupants and tenants month-to-month leases for homes where they live that are now owned by Freddie Mac.
Here is the list of the 338 Freddie-owned properties in SD County – most are somewhat inferior:
The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for San Diego dropped from May’s 163.78 to 163.27 in June for seasonally-adjusted numbers, breaking the 13-month streak of slight increases – though the non-seasonally adjusted went up from 163.11 to 163.82. Here is a link to their site.
The S&P’s Dave Blitzer had the standard negative slant on cnbc.com:
“Given the way home sales collapsed in July and given the boost in housing activity across the board in the second quarter, it’s clear this may have been the calm before the storm,” David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P, told CNBC.
S&P, which publishes the indexes, also said home prices nationally rose 4.4 percent in the second quarter after a 2.8 percent drop in the first quarter.
Prices rose in 17 of the 20 metro areas in June, S&P said, adding that in the first half of the year 15 of the 20 areas had positive annual growth rates. The housing market is in better shape than a year ago, S&P said.
“The worry starts when you remember that the Homebuyers’ Tax Credit has expired, foreclosures are still at high levels, and July data on home sales and starts were very, very weak,” Blitzer said in a statement. The inventory of unsold homes and months’ supply data were particularly troubling,” he said, adding that “if this relative weakness in demand continues, it will likely filter through to home prices in coming months.”
Look for September to be cancellation city – sellers aren’t going to put up with this!
In 1960 Sam Bell heir to General Mills (Bell Potato Chips) purchased a summer home with a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean. His property extended down a 300 foot cliff to the mean high tide line of the surf below. His beach is isolated 4 miles from public access to the North, and is accessible only at low tide through rugged, slippery rocks from the south, and remains unused and out of sight. Only surfers 100 yards away can see the mushroom shape of the guest retreat.
You can also see it from above in murph’s paragliding video:
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