To the thousands of Texans heading west…have you heard how wonderful Arizona is? Don’t bother going all the way to coast!

From the article re: the so-called CA shift, I found the end of the article interesting:

“California is a primary target for Lone Star boosters. Last year more than 82,000 people from California moved to Texas, while almost 32,000 from Texas went to the Golden State, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service.

Charles and Joan Baker will be joining that trend this year. Even before selling their Rancho Santa Fe town home, on the market for $829,000, the California couple closed on a ranch-style house in the Sun City retirement community north of Austin.

Joan Baker, who is in her 60s, wouldn’t say how much they paid for the new place, which is slightly larger than their property in San Diego County. But a Sun City spokesperson said the average home in the community of rolling hills is running about $218,000.

“I’m not saying it’s easy to leave,” said Baker, a retired schoolteacher. “The whole San Diego area is lovely. To go north and south, east or west, and be able to see the water, it’s pretty unique.

“But other things are beginning to outweigh it,” she said, complaining about crowding and the state budget mess.”

In the final analysis, we all have to look at the pros and cons of any decision we make in our lives. Especially when you write it down on a piece of paper and it’s in black & white–when the pros outweigh the cons–it soon can be crystal clear what decision to make.

Just my two cents, but Joan Baker may well be the poster child for WHY some folks are leaving the state. Either way, mahalo to “koolaid” for linking it here on bubbleinfo. It was a very good read!

Yes, more coming in the under-$685,000 category too, I was trying to find an even 100 group.

There are another 71 SFRs under $685,000 on the F-list in 92009 and 92011.

Overall there are 261 SFRs in Carlsbad on the auction, bank-owned, or 3rd party list. It’s going to change the market to a bank-only, if you were a buyer, why even bother looking at the retail offerings?

Been reading your site for months now. Not entirely sure whether you are a bear or a bull for real estate. But you seem to paint a fairly realistic picture.

You say the 75 properties will probably roll out over the next 2-4 months.

Do you have some info on this? I’ve been watching the OC for some time and all those foreclosure websites. There are nearly 30 homes in the low end luxury range (1-1.5M) in the area I’m looking at which are in some stage of foreclosure (NOT or NOD, but not counting REO). To be clear, these 30 or so homes are probably within about a 2 mile diameter. In this same area there have been maybe 25 homes that sold for between 1 and 1.5M in the last 12 months and there are at least 25 homes in this range listed right now. Of the 25 sold, more than half were REO or short sale.

These NOT/NODs have been up for months and either have not moved to auction, or if moved to auction have been constantly delayed. At least a dozen are scheduled for auction this month, but I wouldn’t be shocked if none actually went back to the banks or were bought by third parties.

These homes don’t qualify for HAMP or loan mods (I assume because the default loans are at least 800K and likely much more).

Frankly, if the banks expect to sell in the Spring/early Summer the banks likely need to move soon. Evicting the occupants seemingly takes 60-120 days and then the banks usually fix them up a little before marketing. So foreclose November. Eviction takes through February/March. Marketing likely begins April/May.

I just found it interesting that you remarked 2-4 months and was wondering what you base that upon. If based upon prior experience that’s fine but considering there are no current REOs listed in those areas, having even a third of the 75 hitting in the next 2-4 months would be shocking to me.

Thanks for your time.

There’s an excellent study recently done by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond comparing the default rates on residential mortgage recourse loans vs. non-recourse loans nationally.

No surprise how it came out. The possibility of a deficiency judgment does have quite an effect on borrower “choices.”