bubbleinfo.com

The foreclosure train is getting back on the tracks.

Here are the November stats, from Ward’s site:

The 18% increase on NODs filed last month is a good sign that the lenders are adjusting to the new 30-day-delay law. Hopefully it’ll mean we’ll see a nice uptick in REO inventory for spring!

Another interesting stat that Ward follows is the number of trust deeds recorded. Back in the day when virtually every buyer was financing with two loans, the mortgage, escrow, and title companies were awash with volume business. Here’s how things have changed:

November’s total is 13% of the 2003 average. Massive consolidation still underway in the mortgage, escrow and title businesses.

Would this bother you if you were thinking of buying a house nearby?

Youtube 34-second video:

Espn.com is running a story comparing Oceanside and Carlsbad through the eyes of two HS football players – both of whom won their county championship games on Friday:

The challenge: To look at class in sports, circa 2008. A story so big it can be captured only in a photograph from a satellite. The alternative: Put it under a microscope. Find two prep teams in the same area code, one where students are constantly reminded of hardship, the other where fortunate sons and daughters might not always be aware of their privileged births. Urban and suburban. And from those teams, find a couple of players, good players, all-conference but not pro prospects — just a couple of young athletes who are starting to figure out their places in the world, who fairly represent their student bodies. Then, across a typical week in the season, measure the distance between their lives.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=sandiegohs

It’s a long story, but worth the read.

from the U-T:

Carlsbad’s new municipal golf course lost nearly twice as much money as was expected for its first year of operation, and taxpayers will be asked to chip in $1.6 million for the course in 2009.

The course, The Crossings at Carlsbad, was projected to lose $893,428 in 2008, an amount the council approved last year. That loss ballooned to $1.6 million, however, and the budget projects a similar loss in 2009.

The course made less money than projected – $6.4 million as opposed to $6.6 million – and cost more to operate – $5.9 million as opposed to $5.6 million.  City Finance Director Lisa Irvine said the course breaks even on operations, but the city charges the construction bond payments and the cost of establishing native habitat to the golf course budget.

“If it didn’t have this debt and didn’t have this habitat, this should be self-sustaining,” Irvine said.

The city was required to set aside half of the golf course’s 400 acres as habitat, which cost nearly $600,000 to establish in 2008. The 2009 budget includes $514,000 for habitat.

The debt payment is $1.1 million a year on $18.5 million in construction bonds.

The staff report on the golf course budget notes that fewer people are playing golf in the recession, and that is pulling down revenue.  However, Irvine said the restaurant on the grounds, Canyons, is still drawing customers and is doing well, offsetting some of that decline.

Irvine said the council is being asked to pay $1.6 million from the city’s general fund reserve to cover the course’s losses, so that will not affect the city’s daily operations.

The City Council will address the golf course’s 2009 budget at its meeting Tuesday.

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The Crossings ranked in Golf Magazine’s Top Ten of new public courses:

http://www.golf.com/golf/gallery/article/0,28242,1690265-10,00.html

But it should be ranked high - it cost $70 million, about twice as much as any other public course in the history of building public courses (and they financed $18.5 million?).

“With all of the major golf manufacturers located here … we view Carlsbad as the golf capital of the world,” said Carlsbad Mayor Bud Lewis. “We are proud that in its inaugural year, The Crossings at Carlsbad is not only representative of who we are as a community, both in the quality of the course and its clubhouse, but also lives up to the area’s reputation for golf excellence.”

from Bloomberg.com

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aGvwttDayiiM&refer=home

By Mark Pittman

Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) — The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it’s allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information. The institution confirmed that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to some of the requests.

“If they told us what they held, we would know the potential losses that the government may take and that’s what they don’t want us to know,” said Carlos Mendez, a senior managing director at New York-based ICP Capital LLC, which oversees $22 billion in assets.

The Fed stepped into a rescue role that was the original purpose of the Treasury’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. The central bank loans don’t have the oversight safeguards that Congress imposed upon the TARP. 

Total Fed lending exceeded $2 trillion for the first time Nov. 6. It rose by 138 percent, or $1.23 trillion, in the 12 weeks since Sept. 14, when central bank governors relaxed collateral standards to accept securities that weren’t rated AAA.

‘Been Bamboozled’

Congress is demanding more transparency from the Fed and Treasury on bailout, most recently during Dec. 10 hearings by the House Financial Services committee when Representative David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, said Americans had “been bamboozled.”

In response to Bloomberg’s request, the Fed said the U.S. is facing “an unprecedented crisis” in which “loss in confidence in and between financial institutions can occur with lightning speed and devastating effects.”

“There has to be something they can tell the public because we have a right to know what they are doing,” said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Arlington, Virginia-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

“It would really be a shame if we have to find this out 10 years from now after some really nasty class-action suit and our financial system has completely collapsed,” she said.

Countrywide sent over this rate quote today:

Conforming 30-year fixed: 4.625% with one point

FHA 30-year fixed: 5.00% with one point

I still think buyers will wait to find the right house for their primary residence, but how about a rental property?  The non-owner-occupied rate is usually 1/2% higher than O/O.

On a $200,000 purchase with a 20% down payment, the loan amount is $160,000 – and at a 5.125% fixed rate, your P&I payment is $871.18/month! 

PITI = $1,150 and you should be able to rent most detached homes for at least $1,200 per month.  They are renting for $1,500 and up around the back gate!

Today there are 1,033 detached homes for sale under $200,000 in SD County.

Heard in every foreclosure in town, this lovely chime gets my vote for Sound of the Year!

The 92078 zip code is south San Marcos, which is a cheaper alternative to neighboring Carlsbad. Currently there are seven 3,000sf or more SFRs listed for $550,000 or less. In this neighborhood of Old Creek Ranch there are 10 active listings starting in the low-$500,000 – four are REOs, three are short sales, and the highest three are builder inventory.

Here is what one of the pendings looks like – sold in 2005 for $695,000, now listed for $525,000 (the models sold for $800,000+). Some call this area ‘dump-adjacent’, but the old landfill is at least a mile away.

Kelly Bennett asked how many foreclosures were on the market, so I checked the MLS using the new REO category available.

The resulting MLS search found 586 active REO listings in SD County, with 382 closed escrows since 11/1/08.

There has to be more, right? Using the new category is not required, so let’s keep checking.

Using the new ‘foreclosure activity’ criteria, a search of the tax rolls showed 10,277 bank-owned properties currently in San Diego County.  Here are the counts by area:

It’s tougher trying to figure how many of the 10,277 are actually on the MLS, so let’s just look at Carlsbad for a sampler.

There are 66 of Carlsbad’s 133 bank-owneds on the MLS, or 49.6%.

Kelly, want to guess that there are roughly 5,000 bank-owned properties listed on the MLS, broken down to around 3,000 actives and 2,000 pendings?

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The actives/pendings ratio of the 66 listings is 39/27, or 1.44 (which is pretty good selling).

The overall Carlsbad actives/pendings ratio is 607/158, or 3.84 on 12/8/08.

Last year the actives/pendings ratio was 490/58, or 8.45 on 12/6/07.

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I don’t have the cost-per-sf from last year, but this year’s avg sf:

607 Actives: Avg LP = $813,468 or $334/sf.

158 Pendings: Avg LP = $639,760 or $285/sf.

91 Solds since 11/1/08: Avg SP = $578,502 or $276/sf.

from sddt.com

Most speakers at the University of San Diego’s Ninth Annual Residential Real Estate Conference: Outlook 2009 were not optimistic about the coming year, describing the current market as “extremely weak,” a “web of terror” and a “death spiral.”

While speakers touched on the issues in the residential real estate market next year throughout the conference, a panel discussion held at the end of the conference called, “Oh My Gosh, What Next? How You Can Take Advantage of the Opportunities Ahead,” primarily focused on what the market may see in 2009.

Panelists Joseph Anfuso of Florsheim Homes, Anthony Botte of Hearthstone Advisors, Jason Hall of RE/MAX Associates and Michael Schuerman of San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. agreed that stabilization of a “rational” housing market is key to recovery.  “A rational market would be great,” said Golovato. “’04 and ’05 made no sense.”

However, there was some disagreement about when recovery would occur.  Alan Gin said the market might reach a bottom in the latter part of 2009 at the earliest, Anfuso and some of the other panelists said the market might not return to “normal” for some time.

“I come from the opinon that we lived in a fake economy for more than a decade,” Anfuso said. “I would just say we’re in for some trying times, not that you can’t take advantage of them … but you need to splash some cold water on your face and look what’s happening and make your business plans accordingly.” 

Anfuso said creating strategic partnerships and making cuts in one’s business is key to surviving in an economy where people are trying to scramble for market share.

However, not all in attendance said the market is as bad as it seems. Lori Staehling, president of the San Diego Association of Realtors, was in the audience and voiced her opinion on the market during the question and answer session with the panel.  “There are a lot of positives going on and there will be positives that come out of this for our industry,” she said. “Prices are incredible. Interest rates are incredible … and I don’t think anyone who has a fixed rate loan is going to regret it.”

The panel and Staehling agreed that building fees in the city of San Diego are too high for new building to be profitable now that prices have come down from their 2005 peaks to encourage construction.

Hall said it is a positive sign that home sales have increased over the past few months, though the market is currently seeing a seasonal slowdown.