bubbleinfo.com

Either sellers and agents are starting to pay attention, or the reach of bubbleinfo is improving, because list prices appear to be coming down nicely - hat tip to RE for sending these in:

OLD CARLSBAD

ENCINITAS

LA JOLLA

PACIFIC BEACH / MISSION BEACH

PT. LOMA

CORONADO

CARMEL VALLEY

Hat tip to kwaping for sending this along, from the U-T:

The developer of downtown San Diego’s largest residential highrise said today that it is giving up on trying to sell any of the 679 condos and is returning deposits to dozens of buyers who had been awaiting the close of escrow.

“We’re not able to meet the Fannie Mae or Freddie MAC or FHA requirements in this marketplace because we can’t get enough sales,” said Randy Klapstein, CEO of Pointe of View, developer of Vantage Pointe, which completed construction last year in the midst of the economic downturn.

“We’re not getting the traction we’d hoped for, and we don’t want our customers to stay in limbo, so it’s best to move on.”

It is now likely the East Village condo project will remain a rental complex for the foreseeable future, said Klapstein, noting that there are now roughly 200 renters, about a dozen of whom are buyers who were waiting for the sales contracts to be finalized.

“At this point, we’re going to continue renting,” Klapstein said.

Over the last several months, the Pointe of View loan has been marketed for sale, but no deal has been finalized yet. When asked whether it was possible that the condo project might be sold, Klapstein would only say, “It’s always a possibility.”

The developer is in the process of returning deposits to buyers, and purchasers who are living in the complex as renters have the option of remaining or working with the Pointe of View sales team to find a condo to purchase elsewhere in downtown, said Klapstein.

The August foreclosure stats, plus examples of houses that went back-to-bene last week:

From the latimes.com, and featured at CR:

http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-luxury-foreclosures-20100829,0,479624,full.story

“The number of homes in the $1-million-and-up market that have become bank owned has tripled during the last three years in Los Angeles County, and the trend has shown little sign of slowing.”

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What about San Diego County? On Foreclosureradar.com you can search by approximate value, here are the number of detached properties over $1,000,000 that were foreclosed in SD County for the entire year:

2007 = 74

2008 = 103

2009 = 162

2010 = 126 so far.

From Bloomberg:

The Obama administration plans to set up an emergency loan program for the unemployed and a government refinancing effort in the next few weeks to help homeowners pay their mortgages after home sales dropped in July, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said.

“The July numbers were worse than we expected, worse than the general market expected, and we are concerned,” Donovan said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “That’s why we are taking additional steps to move forward.”   The administration will begin a Federal Housing Authority refinancing effort to help borrowers who are struggling to pay their home mortgages, and will start an emergency homeowners’ loan program for unemployed borrowers so they can stay in their homes, Donovan said.

“We’re going to continue to make sure folks have access to home ownership,” he said.

Sales of U.S. new homes unexpectedly dropped in July to the lowest level on record, signaling that even with cheaper prices and reduced borrowing costs the housing market is retreating. Purchases fell 12 percent from June to an annual pace of 276,000, the weakest since the data began in 1963.

U.S. home prices fell 1.6 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier as record foreclosures added to the inventory of properties for sale. The annual drop followed a 3.2 percent decline in the first quarter, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said last week in a report.

Donovan said on CNN today that it is too soon to say whether the administration’s $8,000 first-time homebuyer credit tax credit, which expired April 30, will be revived.   “All I can tell you is that we are watching very carefully,” Donovan said. “We’re going to be focused like a laser on where the housing market is moving going forward, and we are going to go everywhere we can to make sure this market stabilizes and recovers.”

Reviving the tax credit would “help enormously” in the effort to fight foreclosures and revive the economy, Florida Governor Charlie Crist said on the same CNN program. Florida has the third highest home foreclosure rate in the country, with one in every 171 Florida housing units receiving a foreclosure filing this year.

(EDIT: 1 out of 171?  Or 170 out of 171 didn’t get a foreclosure notice this year? That sounds pretty healthy to me!)

One of our long-time contributors, Kingside, is featured prominently in this video.  The 1br link.

tj and the bear asked about the million-dollar-plus market history in North San Diego County Coastal:

Obviously, the 2010 numbers are year-to-date. There are 137 pendings currently, so we might reach last year’s total of 742 sales, and get about 5% more house at an improved price-per-sf of 14% if these stats stay the same.

Note the pause in sales in 2001, when historically the market should have begun to taper off in a typical 10-year real estate cycle. But mortgage lenders, in particular Countrywide, started pushing the short-term, interest-only mortgages in 2001, and then the neg-ams in 2003. You know how the rest of the story unfolded.

Let’s also note that in 1996 you got a real mansion for a million dollars. There wasn’t a sale over $1,000,000 in 92130 until there was just one in 1998, here’s how other areas have fared since then:

The 1998 sale in 92130? It was new construction in RSF Farms. The seller bought the lot in 1997 for $292,000, built the 4,427sf house and sold it exactly 10 months later for $1,049,000. The agent didn’t put the listing on the MLS for four months, then marked it sold after 2 days, and represented both parties. The house resold 26 months later in 2000 for $1,830,000, a profit of 74%. Those buyers still own the house, and have refinanced four times since. What a country!

This interview with Robert Shiller is 20 minutes long, so here are some markers:

4:00 – He suggests more government intervention, particularly with regards to job creation.

14:00 – Housing forecasters are predicting that ‘nothing’s going to happen’ over the next few years.

17:00 – Deflation will be on and off.

18:20 – Bond bubble = flight to quality

Will there be a big squishdown from above?

It was noted yesterday that 35% of the active detached SD listings in SD, but only 20% of the sales in the last 30 days are over $700,000.  Are the higher-end sellers who have been on the market for over 90 days motivated enough to dump on price, causing a ripple effect below?

Or will higher-end sellers hold out, either due to high loan balances or high equity positions/low motivations?

Here is a review of the 100 active $1M+ listings in 92009 (23), 92024 (43), and 92130 (34). 

(There just happens to be exactly 100 houses listed today at, or above $1,000,000 that have been on the market for more than 90 days in those three zips.)

The calculations were based on the original loan amounts, unless they looked like a neg-am which then 10% or more was added.  Using the ranges as categories should give us a general feel for the equity positions, and potential for dumping on price. The first category describes the ratio of mortgage balance-to-list price, and if they were on a value range, the low end of the range was used:

Other factoids:

1. Thirty have had no price reductions during their listing.

2. Another 17 have reduced their price less than $100,000.

3. Eight were marked as short sales (some with high balances were not marked)

4. One was an REO listing.

5. At least two were on the foreclosure list.

6. Twenty have been on the market more than 300 days on this listing.

What can we deduce? Only 30% to 40% of the current listings are in immediate trouble (those with less than 20% equity), and that’s only if they need to move for whatever reason. We can guess that the 47 who have loads of equity are likely to cancel unless they really need to move. The in-betweeners will make the difference between more sales at lower prices, or more stagnation. My guess is that less than half of these sellers are motivated enough to lower their price enough to sell.