All that matters to most buyers is the flow of new REO listings – has the flood started?
San Diego County, Attached and Detached REOs:
| Week Of | # REO New Listings | # REOs Marked PEND | # REOs Closed | Closed $/sf |
| 6/29-7/4 | ||||
| 7/5-11 | ||||
| 7/12-18 | ||||
| 7/19-25 | ||||
| 7/26-8/1 | ||||
| 8/2-8 | ||||
| 8/9-15 | ||||
| 8/16-22 | ||||
| 8/23-29 | ||||
| 8/30-9/5 | ||||
| 9/6-12 |
* late-reporters should fill this out, but will it get to 200?
If anything, the REO market is slowing down a little, not speeding up.
Isnt the 90 day CA moratorium over today? I will be interested to see the results over the next few weeks.
There were enough exemptions to that 90-day foreclosure moratorium, plus backlog, that you would have thought there’d be more properties hitting the MLS by now. Unless the servicers were complying volutarily?
It’ll be interesting alright – here are the other stats:
There are 9,108 properties on foreclosureradar’s NOTS/auction list.
Number of trustee’s deeds recorded:
Jan = 1,325
Feb = 1,366
Mar = 844
Apr = 988
May = 1,007
Jun = 1,799
Jul = 1,607
Aug = 1,358
Below is a link to an article in the North County Times which tells the story we know from reading this excellent blog.
But, I was surprised to see that we now have year over year price gains in North County San Diego! Not just the month over month increases since January news.
http://www.nctimes.com/business/article_9b2b8624-1294-5aa5-99c7-c4bdffb2773a.html
And in other REO news ~~ Breaking News ~~ 9/15/2009 8:27 AM.
“Who wouldn’t want to party in Malibu?
Wells Fargo (WFC) said late Monday that it fired Cheronda Guyton, a senior vice president in charge of commercial foreclosed properties, for using a foreclosed beach house in Malibu, Calif., for private parties and weekend guests.
“A single team member was responsible for violating our company policies. As a result, employment of this individual has been terminated,” Wells said in a statement. “We deeply regret the activities that have taken place as they do not reflect the conduct we expect of our team members.”
Last week, The Los Angeles Times reported that the 39-year-old Guyton had been seen using the property for her own personal use. The bank took possession of the home last May after the former owners, Lawrence and Linda Elins, were wiped out by Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
The 3,800-square-foot house is valued at between $12 million and $25 million and is located in a community that is gated to prevent the public from trespassing on private beaches.”
Yep, karma’s a b*tch…
Of the 99 comments posted so far, one of the first ones posted caught my eye:
“I’m a realtor and a foreclosure specialist. There is a serios (sic) problem with everything about the way Wells Fargo handled this. First, there are foreclosure companies that handle the resale of these properties. They assign them to local realty companies to list for sale. The realty company rekeys, inspects,, recommends pricing and submits a report with pictures. A lockbox is placed at the property. Unfortunately, many mortgage companies require specific combination lock box codes so all who are concerned with that property can gain access without the realtor knowing. Fire her? Yes. But fix the access problem so that inspectors, contractors, etc. MUST contact the realtor to give access with an MLS lockbox key.”
Any comments on this whole situation, JtR?
Could 9/6 – 9/12 be down simply because of the labor day holiday? 20% of the week was a holiday….
True, the county recorder’s office was closed 40% of the days, counting ‘state admission day’. The new listings’ count should be unabated though.
Susie,
More access is better than less access. Ideally they should leave the REOs open 24 hours a day with an armed guard out front.
Mozart,
Thanks for the link – hate this in the second paragraph though:
However, the number of sales continues to be limited by financing problems.
I don’t know why this myth continues on. The “financing problems” were in the boom years, now it’s back to normal.
Interesting item from CNBC about auctions of residential mortgage packages (CDO’s). . .could explain why banks are holding back, until “true value” is found:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/32855829
In trying to think like a greedy banker…The big dogs may have already decided on the $15,000 tax credit. They talk to “their people” and then hold them off for the next two months until they announce it. The plan may be to unload in Dec-Mar just in time to increase spring inventory and create another mad rush for the free money. It worked last time!
The REO (in my subdivision) that was in escrow fell out recently and returned on the MLS at a lower price – LOL. I wonder if a recent sale in the adjacent neighborhood had anything to do with it or perhaps the appraisal didn’t jive with the sale price. This property is a fixer for sure.
Maybe the “Bulk Buys” by investors is gaining steam. Solds behind the curtain. I could see banks having/hiring people to just sell bulk. Even its it is .50 cents on the $. If someone buys 10 or 100 at a time…the banks get cash flow and move chunks of problems at once vs one at a time.
Although odd to see prices rising and REO’s trickling out I would prefer this to the economic chaos we were facing 7 months ago.
I use the 5 freeway between Oceanside and Del Mar as an Economic indicator for San Diego. Most of last year and the first part of this year was easy sailing but now the southbound is jammed up every morning even with the new lanes. Could be just the cheap gas prices but people are going somewhere again(hopefully to work and to buy stuff).
I’m going to get in early on the next bubble Goldman Sachs is brewing up in carbon credits.
Mark in SD, these CDO’s may headed for inclusion in the new Closed End Funds to be offered by Blackrock Investments. Talk about putting Lipstick on a pig!
JtR- I completely agree.
“Tsunami Off To Slow Start”
Doesn’t the water level recede when a tsunami is approaching?
The NC Times article posted by Mozart is another classic piece of shoddy journalism if you ask me. All you have to do is read the first paragraph and then simply look at the inset chart to see the massive contradiction.
The story lead should be “Median values up in Escondido, Pala, Valley Center and Vista – everywhere else in North County is either close to flat or down with some zips down massively”. 3 of 4 Carlsbad zips are down big – the only one up has a sample of only 10 homes. Del Mar is down big. Encinitas is down. Fallbrook is down big. Poway is down. Ramona is down huge. RSF is down huge. SB is down huge. RB is down. RP is down. CV is down.
Just thrown the entire article in the garbage after cutting out the inset chart because that is where the story is told. What a joke.
3 clicks, are you talking about 1618 Blossom Field Way?
dacounselor is right; just ignore any of the positive numbers and remember to discredit anything that doesn’t match your worldview.
Never mind that there is actually year over year price increases. Yeah.
Mozart, what dacouncelor said is accurate:
Other than a few pockets in North County median prices fell. Also, as has been shown repeatedly in this blog, median prices are very misleading.
“In the rest of the county, detached home prices fell 6.94 percent from last August’s median of $360,000 to $337,000.
In the rest of the county, attached homes sold for a median $206,000, a decline of 11.21 percent from $232,000 in August 2008.”
Your comment should also have an asterisk noting that the modest increase is due to massive government intervention/subsidies/rebates which distorts true market pricing. Median prices may well go up this year and next year with another 15,000 subsidy. However, some time in the future it will be time to pay the bill. FHA financing is masking and enabling lots of losses which will cost the honest taxpayer while people like yourself, the NAR and corrupt politicians trumpet increasing median prices.
First of all that was lame of me to be so snappy. Sorry DA.
afikoman- I think the importance of a YOY turnaround cannot be discounted or easily dismissed. If you’ve been on this blog for a while you might remember that I have said in the recent past, (with much heckling), that the median sales price would go up as the upper and middle came down in price because the bottom tier had overshot. However, the median sales price increase would also spark more interest in buying in part because of sensational headlines.
And to pin this market improvement on FHA is a hollow argument. Sounds like Tea Party talk to me, (before the bad guy was the first time homebuyer tax credit of a whopping $8,000), always something to blame when things get better.
I don’t know why but some people just don’t like good news.
No worries Mozart.
I think the chart pretty much speaks for itself. Not that I lend much weight to medians anyway. But a fine example of misleading journalism nevertheless.
The NSDCAR HomeDex uses flawed data, the guy compiling it isn’t a realtor, and accuracy isn’t a priority.
Getting something, anything published that looks like it could help is the focus of the association of realtors.
Ignore all hype that uses median sales prices as their foundation.
Jim, thanks for making things clear.
Mozart, a genuine YOY turnaround would indeed be something. And I agree with your call about the effect of sensational headlines. However, in most of the rest of the county – Encinitas, Del Mar for example, the median is down.
This despite the sharp stock market rally, temporarily high FHA limit, the 8K credit and the NAR and media hype about green shoots (mostly due to cash for clunkers and inventory restocking).
I don’t think you can discount the FHA effect. Right now they are a large part of the market. Their default rates are going up for Prime loans just as subprime started off 2 years ago.
We could well be in for a W shaped home price rise and recession the minute interest rates go up.
After all the cheerleading, when the stimulus effect wears off, there could be trouble brewing for the economy and RE market after next summer’s selling season as we head into the November 2010 Congressional elections.
From Mozart’s link:
“Several investor, corporate-type clients are buying properties in bulk. So there is bulk buying going on, behind the scenes,” Lund said. He cautioned that his information was “hearsay,” and he couldn’t quantify how much of this buying is taking place.
And foreclosure activity is lower than expected, Lund said, based on anecdotal evidence.
“We are seeing properties that should have been foreclosed upon that are not on the market,” Lund said.
———————–
These comments are red flags to me.