Pemeliza already took a couple of swings this morning, here’s the first:
JTR, I know you don’t cover Mission Hills much but here is a new short sale listing in my neighborhood at more than 50% off the 2007 price. It also has the modern clean look and I think it is a great deal at the asking price of 1M. http://www.sdlookup.com/MLS-100063015-906_W_Lewis_St_San_Diego_CA_92103
His other was:
There are many properties on the market priced 10% lower than the prior comp and are still sitting on the market….
I haven’t seen any listings priced 10% under the prior comp and not selling. If you have examples, I’d like to see them – I have buyers! I have a client that sends over low sales occasionally, and every time they’re examined, there is a reason – bad condition, inside deal, etc.
If anyone knows of under-market listings, leave them in the comment section – let’s take a look!
This contemporary villa in Manhattan Beach was designed and built by Steve Lazar for his family’s personal use, though he probably gets a few gawkers passing by.
An excerpt from Nick’sarticle in the WSJ about housing inventories:
The growing pessimism is attributed partly to rising inventory in many markets, a trend that doesn’t bode well for prices. The Wall Street Journal’s latest quarterly survey of housing-market conditions in 28 major metropolitan areas found inventories of unsold homes were up in 19 markets at the end of the third quarter, compared with a year ago, with especially large increases in San Diego, Los Angeles and Sacramento.
“We’ll see some additional price declines,” said David Berson, chief economist at PMI Group Inc., a mortgage-insurance company in Walnut Creek, Calif. “The gains we’ve seen can’t be sustained given the current supply situation.”
He is right about the increase in active inventory since last year.
Our active-inventory count of detached and attached listings is taken around the middle of each month. In September, 2009 the count was 7,848, last month it was 12,565 – a whopping 60% increase. Here is how this year compares with others:
Once potential sellers think prices are going up, they want to get in on it, and sell too.
But these are psuedo-sellers tip-toeing in from the sidelines. For whatever reason (their high loan balance, elevated ego, etc.), they aren’t motivated enough that they’d sell for what the last guy got – they have to try for more.
Over-priced turkeys are everywhere, and the buyers aren’t going for them. Thus, the active inventory has been building all year, though the trend has tapered off over the last 3 months with healthy sales combined with post-season cancellations.
Why don’t psuedo-sellers get realistic and lower their price after a few weeks or months? It would be normal to think that they won’t lower their price because they can’t, due to loan balance, or just working the short-sale/free rent package.
But only 2,753, or 22% of the 12,447 active listings today are marked as short-sales.
Yes, there are listing agents who aren’t marking their listings as short sales – but it looks like the majority are elective sellers, just happy to have a sign in the front yard from which they can hang holiday decorations?
We have seen in the past that when the inventory gets bloated, buyers tend to back off. Sales have been holding up, but it appears like we’re heading for the Big Stalemate:
Sellers who need to sell, need to lower their inflated list-price. To casual observers it might look like prices are going down, but consider this from SR, zillow’s CEO:
MP: I know you’re out there discussing data and stats on a regular basis, including in our Daily Real Estate Advisor. Despite the story the data tells, what positive messages do you think are important to get out there about real estate?
SR: Home values have bottomed and bounced off the bottom in some parts of the country. In San Diego, for example, they’re already 5-10% off the bottom. We don’t expect a significant price appreciation from here, but we don’t expect home values to go further south in those parts of the country. This points to the way we must look at home values—which is at the neighborhood and regional level. It’s more nuanced than what the national media typically reports. There is definitely some good news for our industry which has been underreported. For example, we’ve clearly passed through the bottom in terms of transaction volume. Homes are selling again and the dark days of two to three years ago when there were no sides taking place are behind us.
We’re off the bottom, but there has not been continually-increasing trend – we went flat at $250/sf:
The buyers have tolerated a little bump in pricing when there was little to choose from (note how the active inventory during the second half of 2009 was the lowest of the seven years), but now that so many over-priced turkeys have proven what homes aren’t worth, the buyers are happy to sit tight and wait.
Will sellers lower their inflated list-price? I think it is very doubtful. There isn’t enough difference between a short sale and foreclosure, so those sellers won’t care to lower their price just to sell. The elective sellers think they have enough resources to wait it out, and don’t mind that 38% of the listings have been on the market for more than 90 days. There will be an occasional flurry, but mostly stagnation ahead.
“A disappointing report. Home prices broadly declined in August. Seventeen of the 20 cities and both composites saw a weakening in year-over-year figures, as compared to July, indicating that the housing market continues to bounce along the recent lows,” David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor’s, said in a statement.
“Over the last four months both the 10- and 20-City Composites show slowing growth, after sustaining consistent gains since their April 2009 troughs,” he said.
Blitzer said the housing market appears to have stabilized at new lows.
“At this time, it does not seem that any of the markets are hanging on to the temporary momentum caused by the homebuyers’ tax credits,” he said.
Annual growth rates slowed down in the three California cities, with Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco posting annual gains of +5.4%, +6.9% and +7.8%, respectively – a significant drop from the +7.5%, +9.3% and +11.2% reported for July.
“The recovery that started in 2009 has petered out,” Karl Case, one of the co-founders of the index that bears his name, said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio’s “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene from Wellesley, Massachusetts. He said excess supply was the main challenge to a recovery in housing. “That’s the big negative: the vacancy inventory.”
For the first time in 16 months, the San Diego month-over-month was negative (-0.6%) for both seasonally-adjusted, and non-seasonally adjusted from July to August.
Hat tip to Susie for sending in this latimes.comarticle:
For example, Jean C. Wilcox of Irvine has sued EMC Mortgage Corp., accusing it of stringing her along for three years while making several offers to modify her nearly $800,000 loan, losing documents repeatedly and never intending to permanently change the terms of the mortgage. An EMC spokesman declined to comment.
“It was just ‘extend and pretend,’ ” said Wilcox’s lawyer, Anthony Lanza of Irvine. “And it was like they had the fax machine hooked up to a shredder.”
Anaheim lawyer Damian Nassiri said his firm had filed about 100 lawsuits against mortgage lenders since 2007. Earlier suits alleged that lenders misrepresented terms of mortgages or engaged in other shady practices to foist abusive loans on borrowers. Most of his firm’s suits now accuse lenders of dealing in bad faith with borrowers who have become delinquent on loans.
Worse, Nassiri said, in cases where foreclosure was inevitable, banks misled borrowers into accepting trial loan modifications. The intent, he claimed, was “to get some kind of money out of them” while stalling actions to seize the homes.
“There are too many bad loans for the banks to handle, and they can’t dump all these properties out on the market all at once because we would have another Depression,” Nassiri said.
Similar allegations of breaches of contract and acting in bad faith have cropped up in lawsuits around the nation, said Anthony Laura, a Washington lawyer who represents lenders accused of wrongdoing and tracks litigation trends.
Some suits allege that the problem is so widespread that courts should certify the plaintiffs as representing an entire class of aggrieved borrowers. Wilcox’s suit, for example, seeks class-action status on behalf of other California borrowers with similar complaints about EMC.
Boston consumer lawyer Gary Klein, a longtime antagonist of mortgage lenders, has filed suits seeking class-action status against the top three loan servicers — Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. — and others.
A multidistrict panel of federal judges on Oct. 8 consolidated eight such suits, including two from California, for pretrial proceedings in federal court in Boston.
The suits allege that trial loan modifications extended by Bank of America under the Obama administration’s anti-foreclosure plan were contracts that the bank violated by denying permanent modifications to borrowers who fulfilled their obligations.
In court documents filed in one of the cases, Bank of America said the plaintiffs mistakenly believed they were guaranteed loan modifications if they made three trial payments under the government’s program.
“A borrower must actually qualify, including income verification, an analysis of the modified loan’s affordability and other factors,” the bank said in the filings.
Wilcox said she had about $250,000 in equity in her home when EMC first offered to modify her loan and would have sold the house had she not relied on the company’s promises for a permanent modification. Now it’s not clear whether any equity remains.
“You’re paying out all this money,” she said, “and all the time the value of your house keeps going down.”
Thieves are walking into homes filled with poison to get their loot, according to police.
At least six homes have been targeted in La Jolla while they were covered with tents and being treated for termites.
“Some people think it is a circus tent,” said Mike Lawson with La Jolla Termite & Pest Control. “In reality it is a deadly tent.”
The tented homes are filled with a fumicide that is mixed with tear gas. Only thieves using gas masks could pull off the crime and even then it’s a dangerous move.
“The house is filled with chemicals designed to kill things,” said San Diego Police Lieutenant Jim Filley. “If you’re in an environment like that for a prolonged period of time, you’re going to get very sick and you’re certainly capable of losing your life.”
People in the pest control industry have worried about thieves for years. A tented home is a sign that no one is home. There have been incidents where burglars have been overcome by the toxic gas and died.
Lawson said that thieves are breaking in with crowbars and smashing windows. He said during the two-day tenting, homeowners might want to hire security firms or ask neighbors to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.
Police suggest that while you are covering up and removing food from the house, you may also want to take valuables away. “Just get your video camera, small electronics, the things that are stolen in burglaries,” said Filley.
In the 1973 comedy classic, “Sleeper”, Woody Allen’s character, Miles Monroe, wakes up 200 years in the future to discover that mankind has regressed into an “inept totalitarian state”.
Things are kinda rough a mere 37 years after 1973, and now the home made famous in that film for its spaceship design is in foreclosure. If you’ve ever driven on I-70 west of Denver you’ve seen the home on the south side of the highway, way up on a ridge.
It can now be yours.
The home was bought in 2006 by businessman Michael Dunahay from another local entrepreneur, John Huggins, for $3.43 million. Dunahay is about $171,000 behind on his payments, and the holder of the note, Bayview Loan Servicing, is planning a foreclosure sale next month. An earlier sale planned for October 6 was postponed. This is not the first time Bayview has moved to foreclose on Dunahay. It filed paperwork to do so last year, but withdrew.
Back in January 2006, I interviewed Huggins, the previous owner, who had bought the house for under $2 million:
Donna and Jim provided exceptional support and professionalism throughout the entire process. We couldn't have been happier with their efforts. They made our house shine, and thanks to their expertise, it sold above the listing price in the very first weekend! Truly a fantastic experience from start to finish.
jesus a sahagun
2024-11-10
Verified
This year has been difficult on our family, mainly due to having to sell our home. Thankfully we knew God had a plan for us and working with the Klinge team was a key part of it. It was an obvious decision to work with them again after such an amazing experience when purchasing the same home we needed to sell. The challenge was, how will we do this in so little time with so much going on? Jim and Donna held our hand every step of the way. Whenever an unexpected issue arose they found and provided a solution. Never once did we feel pressured to make a decision and the Klinges were always reassuring after providing the information that the decision was ours to make. Despite the curve balls, they never panicked and exemplified the “can do” attitude, making us feel optimistic and taken care of. Their expertise and professionalism was superb. But of all the reasons to work with the Klinges, the most impactful and valuable is their compassion and genuine care for their clients. We pray that we can one day purchase our forever home and you better believe that Jim and Donna will be representing us - as long as they will have us of course. Thank you again Klinge team! Your execution, experience, and care are unmatched.
SabihaPasha
2024-07-22
Verified
Jim and Donna were fantastic! Jim understanding my needs, recommending potential places, pointing out the pros and cons of each property was invaluable. Then when the offer was accepted Donna’s organized guidance through the inspections, paperwork etc made the whole process seem effortless.
So grateful that I had them on my side!
dodyfrancis
2024-07-10
Verified
I appreciate Jim & Donna's great teamwork, sound advice, and guidance that eased the stress of selling our Carlsbad home. Their professional input and assistance throughout the process was very helpful. Highly recommended!
sbisachsen
2024-07-10
Verified
The Good
The Klinge Realty Group operates like a finely tuned machine, with a very personal touch. We contacted them on a Sunday and they were talking to us about our family and our needs on our living room couch the following day. They carefully listened to us and worked with us to identify the best and quickest path to listing within 2 weeks to take advantage of the low inventory conditions in our South Carlsbad neighborhood. They knew our tract specifically and had many previous sales there over the years - they came prepared with a thorough analysis of comparative sales and recommended a pricing strategy that they felt confident would yield offers the first weekend on the market.
The Great
Over the next two weeks Donna coordinated a range of vendors who she knew from experience could get the preparation to list work we needed done on time and with high quality. Our light tune-up involved excellent experiences with their stagers, landscapers, contractors, electricians, and plumbers. Throughout this period Donna's daily communication was clear, concise, and responsive. Any time we had questions Donna picked up the phone or texted immediately - but almost always, she answered our questions before we even knew we had them.
The Outstanding
We had a tricky situation with a shared fence that could have delayed our escrow. Donna used superb mediation skills to negotiate the terms of replacement and was personally on site with the fence contractor to make sure everything went smoothly. The fence looks great and escrow closed on time.
The Truly Exceptional
Our house came on the market on a Wednesday and between then and Monday morning Jim was personally at all three open houses. He was in constant communication explaining potential buyer reaction and strength. As he predicted offers began to come in on Saturday and each one was incrementally higher than the last. At the end we had 5 offers, 4 of which were over list, and the final accepted offer was $100,000 over list. In addition to being over list it included rent back terms that met our needs.
The Recommendation
For all of these reasons we would strongly recommend The Klinge Team to anyone wanting to sell in North County Coastal San Diego. I had been reading Jim's blog for 15 years and knew when the time came to sell that he would be our first call. Jim Klinge is not your standard realtor. He is keenly aware of market conditions and sales strategies. And, works his tail off - though not as hard as Donna . At this point he's gone from realtor to friend and I plan to have him over to grill and chill at our new place to talk real estate, but also just about life and raising kids in San Diego. He's more interested in relationships than his sales numbers - and that's why his sales numbers are so high. We have already recommended the Klinge's to some close friends and another successful sale is on deck right around the corner...
user19164788
2024-06-21
Verified
We recently had the pleasure of working with Jim and Donna from Klinge Realty Group to sell our house, and we couldn't be more satisfied with the experience. From the initial meeting, they listened attentively to our needs and provided invaluable guidance on specific improvements to get our home market ready.
Their responsiveness throughout the entire process was truly impressive. Anytime we had questions or concerns, they were quick to address them, ensuring we felt comfortable and informed every step of the way. What stood out the most was their team and extensive network of tradespeople, which made addressing any necessary repairs or updates seamless and stress-free.
Thanks to their expertise and dedication, our house sold quickly and at a great price. We highly recommend Jim and Donna to anyone looking to buy or sell a home. They are a fantastic team who truly care about their clients and deliver exceptional results.
cali4neal
2024-05-07
Verified
We had a wonderful experience buying our home with Donna and Jim! In particular I was very impressed with their efficiency and support through the purchase process. As we were doing the walk through, Donna started contacting roofers, plumbers, aircon, electricians, etc for all the areas we needed potential repairs - by the time we were done with the walk through appointments were already set up to get estimates for all the major services. When we had to change an appointment, or couldn't make one, Donna was there to arrange things to fit our schedule. Even after we closed on our home, Donna helped set up the repairs we needed before move in day. They truly went above and beyond to deliver exceptional service. I'll be calling them for our next home!
zuser20160809095816651
2024-03-16
Verified
The sale of our home exceeded our expectations - Jim and Donna Klinge are the best!
We’ve followed Jim’s Bubbleinfo blog since the 2006 housing bubble. After he helped us buy in 2017 we stayed in touch and Team Klinge were the obvious choice when it came time to move. They guided us through the preparation of the house, including a kitchen refresh - Donna and Lisa skillfully managed the various contractors for us after we had moved out of state. Donna’s excellent attention to detail and regular communication made the whole process run smoothly from a distance.
Jim’s market knowledge, expert negotiating skills and candid opinions, together with Donna’s responsive communications and problem solving, set them in a league of their own.
Highly recommended!
bourmakin
2024-02-09
Verified
Jim and Donna have exceeded my expectations with sale of my house. It was best experience with house sale. Professional, responsive, superior negotiating skills. I would recommend them with 5 star (I would give them even more than max) rating. Sale of my house was closed for really good price in 10 days. Jim and Donna perfectly handled house preparation for sale. Thanks a lot!!!
user1916779
2023-11-17
Verified
Jim and Donna have exceeded my expectations and made my most recent move back to California go so much more smoothly than I expected. Jim’s Bubbleinfo blog was full of useful information about the current market conditions. His experience helped us make a successful offer for the home we wanted in a desirable neighborhood. After the purchase Donna organized the work we needed done in the house without us having to make an additional trip. We were pretty worried when we started searching for real estate that not being in the area was going to makes things really difficult but Jim and Donna made the process so much easier. I enthusiastically recommend them.
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