The foreclosures are abundant in Orange County and the impact is felt by many – including tenants.  With the sharp increase in investment purchases during the boom, many of the properties currently in foreclosure are tenant occupied.

What Happens When the Home You Are Renting Forecloses?

Tenant rights have been addressed in recently weeks under the ‘Helping Families Save Their Homes Act’.   On May 20th, 2009, Obama signed the new law that extends the rights of a tenant to stay in the foreclosed property from 60 days to 90 days.

Recently I had a client ask whether this would apply only to homes foreclosed from this date forward or those that have recently been foreclosed on.  From contacting various tenant’s rights groups, it looks as though the 90 days applies to homes foreclosed from May 20th, 2009 and forward, otherwise, it is still 60 days.

Also, it is worth noting that the  following language is included in the law:  “the lease or tenancy requires the receipt of rent that is not substantially less than fair market rent for the property.“  In other words, you still may be required to pay rent to the lender that now owns the property.

If you have questions about your rights, I’m happy to assist. You may also find assistance at various Tenant Advocacy sites.  For example, TenantsTogether.org, California’s Statewide Organization for Renters Rights.

Wagon Wheel

Wagon Wheel is small community in Trabuco Canyon located off Oso Parkway not far from the south gate of Coto de Caza.  The homes were built in the mid 90’s by Kaufman & Broad who subsidized the original mello roos bonds making it known in part, for it’s very reasonable tax rate.

Homes range in size from the condos in the Dakotas (835 to 1,117 square feet) to the gated community of Stonecliff (up to just over 3,000 square feet).

Current market conditions in Wagon Wheel are not dissimilar to Orange County as a whole.  The upper price points remain very slow and the lower price points are plagued by distress inventory.

Market Conditions

Note that there is very little bank owned inventory on the market currently, but given the recent completion of the moratorium on foreclosures, we are seeing Notice of Defaults on the rise again and in the coming months, I expect to see bank owned homes back on the rise in Wagon Wheel and all over Orange County.

The highest sale year to date is in the California Laredo tract at $725,000 in February.  The next closest sale was $600,000.  The poor sale history for the upper price points is  not isolated to Wagon Wheel and is seen across the market due to the lack of available financing and buyer cautiousness.

The highest sale in the last 30 days was in the California Landmark tract, a traditional sale for $556,000.  Between $500,001 and $750,000, there are 5 available properties and 3 in escrow.

Under $500,000 is plagued by distress sales.  Currently 4 out of 5 active listings are short sales, yet the 4 equity sellers currently in escrow reflect the buyer demand – buyers are often reluctant to wait out the lengthy short sale process and opt for a traditional sale.

Questions?

If you are wondering how these statistics and trends impact your buying, or selling process, please don’t hesitate to let me know.  I’m always happy to help.  No pressure and no obligations.  I can be reached at (949) 939-2514 or emailed at linsey@ocrealestatevoice.com.

This information and stats are from SoCalMLS and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

No crystal ball needed here – we are about to see a sharp increase in foreclosures in the coming months.  The foreclosure report for the month of March was recently released by Foreclosure Radar.

During the final months of 2008, many lending institutions participated in a voluntary moratorium on foreclosures.  Notice of Defaults (NOD’s), the first step in the foreclosure process in California, plummeted.   The final days on the moratoriums have just passed.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s were lifted as of March 31.

And if you’ve been paying attention to my ‘Microscope on the Market’ series, you’ve noticed the drop in bank owned homes on the market – hence the second half of that headline, ‘Foreclosure Sales Drop’.  Without the new NOD’s, there’s been a dramatic reduction in bank owned homes.

Notice the following chart that tracks Notice of Defaults and Foreclosure sales.  The green line represents California’s NOD filings.  Notice the arrows – the dramatic dip in September and the sharp rise as of March ‘09.

With the rise in filings, we can expect the foreclosures to rise.  Will Obama’s plan help?  My guess is no for Orange County.  Why?  The loan modifications the banks are offering, by and large, don’t change the significant negative equity that many of these homeowners are facing.  Without a substantial equity reduction, many sellers (who’ve already seen their credit damaged) will opt to walk away from the property.

What does this mean for buyers and sellers?  If we see a large rise in distress inventory, this market may see some downward pressure on pricing – although in some of the lower price points, overall inventory is still low (especially if you remove the difficult short sales).  I would expect that demand for this inventory will remain high – as we have seen in recent months.

One interesting note in the Foreclosure Radar report:

The California Foreclosure Prevention Act, which goes into effect this summer, adds an additional 90 days to the foreclosure process if lenders fail to take certain actions.  It is quite possible that the dramatic rise in foreclosure notices occuring now is an attempt by lenders to process as many foreclosures as possible before this law takes affect.

If you are interested in viewing foreclosure data and bank owned homes don’t hesitate to contact me.

This may not be the most politically correct piece that I’ll write but that’s never been my goal here on OC Voice.  So here goes….

One of my clients sent me a link to an article published online on CNBC about ‘Mortgage Re-Defaults Rising with No Sign of Slowing’.  The article states that, “…after 6 months, nearly 37 percent of mortgage loans modified in the first quarter were 60 or more days delinquent,”  and goes on to say that, “after three months, 19 percent were 60 or more days delinquent or in the process of foreclosure.”

There is no question that watching a family lose their home is beyond heartbreaking.  The article did point out a small piece of good news in this fiasco – 9 out of 10 home loans are current.

The article has me thinking about a few things.  Why does someone default?

The rates on the adjustables are actually lower in recent months than they were a year ago.  In addition to that, some of the Interest Only notes have yet to adjust at all.  Payments in many cases are the same, or even less than they were one year ago.

I’ve seen that in some instances, people frankly are not interested in paying $500,000 for a home that is now worth $375,000 and decide to walk away from the property.  Does a loan modification make sense for those owners?

Lending restrictions were way too lenient up until recently.  Some folks were approved for loans that they never would have qualified for under the strict requirements of today’s lending standards.  Does a loan modification make sense for those owners?

Temporarily reducing the interest rate, tacking on the arrears to the back-end of the loan may provide immediate relief but is it only delaying the inevitable?  Do loan modifications like this make sense?

Maybe it’s time to be honest and say that current levels of home ownership are higher than they’ve ever been, and just maybe, that isn’t a good thing.  It’s not good for the homeowners that aren’t really qualified, and it’s not good for the housing market.

Maybe it’s time to really help those homeowners get out from underneath the homes that they cannot sell for what they owe.  Maybe it’s time to let this market run it’s course without trying to fix it with band-aides and superglue.  Maybe it’s time to get a really efficient and effective short sale process to assist these distressed homeowners.

Bailout plans that focus on loan modifications and saving the homes may not necessarily be the answer.  As I’ve said before, where is a Bailout plan that really deals with the heart of the crisis?  Where is a plan that is effectively dealing with the real issues on Mainstreet?   I’m waiting…and not patiently.

Even in a tough market for sellers, there are still those that must sell due to personal circumstances.  Whether it’s a divorce, job relocation, or financial strain – there are still homeowners with equity, that find themselves in the position of having to sell and in this market, that can pose some challenges.

I come across articles all day on the Internet and share with you those that I find most interesting or those that in which I feel compelled to share my 2 cents.  This article on foreclosures and pricing from early December on CNN Money, was sent to me by a past client that is selling a home out of the area.  She is also a buyer in Orange County and sees the significant impact that foreclosure pricing has on her view of traditional, or equity, sellers.

It creates an interesting dynamic for her – she is both a buyer and a seller in this market.  That dual role allows her a tremendous clarity in the ability to position her listing.  She knows that she must price it to compete with the distress inventory in her marketplace.

As a buyer, she is also seeing that the although distressed inventory in our marketplace is not always in great condition, the best deals are often in that sector of the market.

As stated by CNN Money, “In California, the median price for an REO listing was $259,000 during the week of November 10, 23% lower than the non-REOs on the market according to Trulia.com.”

With REO’s in the state priced 23% lower than the traditional seller, it definitely puts the price pressure on equity sellers.  You must price to compete.

That being said, I have noticed (and discussed here) that traditional sellers do seem to get a higher price per square foot ultimately.  The possible reasons?  Full disclosure from the seller about past problems, often superior condition, less competition with other buyers because many investors target foreclosures, and the ability to have a timely response to an offer as opposed to the lengthy one in short sale circumstances.

Bottom line – look at your competition.  Are there distressed properties in your sector of the market?  You may have a bit of an edge as an equity seller, but buyers are looking for a good deal.    If you want to sell, you must be perceived as a good deal with pricing that is competitive.

This morning I came across an article on CNNMoney.com.  They predicted the top 10 worst housing market for 2009 across the country and California had the unfortunate distinction of having 8 out of 10 spots. 

Ranked as number 6 for the worst real estate markets in the country was the Santa Ana – Anaheim area.  The Median sales price for 2008 was stated at $532,140.  The prediction for ‘09 was a 23.7% decline.  The prediction for 2010 was a 3.5% decline.  If these predictions are accurate, that would leave us with the median sales price around $391,812 at the end of 2010.

Couple things to note from this report – it’s important again to remember the definition of median sales price as I discussed in my previous post.  We still have a tremendous amount of distress inventory to consume and  much of it is in the under $750,000 price points.

These bank owned properties and short sales that will make up a tremendous amount of our 2009 activity will result in a lower median sales price.  I am not saying that prices won’t decline, but again, it’s important to look at the meaning of these numbers in the right context.

The other question that I find confusing is what is meant by Santa Ana – Anaheim area.  Did they look at the numbers from those two metro areas?  They don’t appear to be referring to Orange County as a whole and Santa Ana has been in the top of the worst performing zip codes in the county so that I’m not sure we can say these are county wide predictions.  The news is not good nonetheless.

Other California cities that were facing some unpleasant predictions include Los Angeles (ranked as the worst real estate market in the country), Stockton, Riverside, Sacramento, Fresno, San Diego and Bakersfield.

The only two cities that were out of the Golden State were Miami – Miami Beach and Washington, D.C.

This week Jonathon Lansner did his recap of the Dataquick report on the Orange County real estate market. Where are we today?  And what does it really mean?

The Median Sale Price as reported by Dataquick for a home in the OC was $400,000 – which brings us back to May of 2003 if you’re tracking the bust backwards.  Lansner states, “That means that 53% of the 1996 to 2007 profit has evaporated.”

I found some other interesting tidbits on the DQNews site to report:

• 44.2% of sales in Orange County in the month of November were foreclosures.
• Sales volume is up 38.9% in November ‘08 as compared to November ‘07 numbers.
• Median sales price is down 31.4% from the median sales price in November ‘07.

I want to draw your attention to one common misconception.  Take yourself back to your statistics class (come on now – don’t kick and scream like that – it will be a brief visit, I promise).  Remember the definition of median.  Dictionary.com defines ‘Median’ as “the middle number in a given sequence of numbers”.

Look at the above statistic and look at it with that definition now applied.  Median is not the average.  It just means that if there are 5 sales – the price of the number 3 sale is the median home price.

You cannot draw the conclusion that prices have all fallen 31.4% when comparing November ‘07 and ‘08 median home price figures.  Remember that 44.2% of the sales in November were foreclosures.  Much of the movement in our market is in the lower price points and in the most distressed price points – hence a lower median price.

Median home price is still a valuable indicator in the market but you must be careful of the conclusion you draw from the information.  There is no denying prices have fallen precipitously.  But, I do think it’s important to evaluate the numbers in the right context.

Okay – statistics class dismissed.

I did some research for a client tonight and the findings are important to share with readers here.  If you are a serious buyer or seller, this information is telling.  Please stick with the tedium of the stats because the story it tells is meaningful.

This particular buyer is looking in Mission Viejo between $450,000 and $550,000.  He wants a single family residence.  With that criteria, I hit the MLS looking for a picture of where we really are. 

As many of you know, I’m the last person to jump on the ‘Hurry Buy Now’ band wagon.  However, if you are in this price range in South Orange County – this is speaking to you.  What did I find?

There are 40 Active single family residences currently listed in Mission Viejo between $450,000 and $550,000.  How do those breakdown?

• 19 are short sales (BTW – refer to my posts on shorts sales to understand the challenges with these sales)
• 4 Bank Owned
• 17 are supposedly equity sellers.  Upon further reading of the agent remarks in the listings 2 more of these are actually short sales and 1 is bank owned.

So, what does this leave us?  14 Traditional, Equity Sellers?  I should add 5 of these 14 are 55+ communities.  There are really only 9 equity sellers in my client’s search criteria out of 40.

It then becomes important to analyze the recent resale activity.  I pulled sales from the last 30 days with the same criteria - Mission Viejo, single family residences, $450 to $550.  Here are the stats:

• 21 Sales
• 6 Bank Owned
• 3 Short Sales
• 13 Traditional Sales (one 55+ community sale)

No rocket scientist needed here.  This is out of balance.

If you are not a numbers person, it’s okay, just try to stick with me here – 52.5% of the Active Inventory are short sales, but last month only 14.3% of the sales were short sales.

12.5% of the Active Inventory is bank owned, but last month 28.6% of the sales were bank owned.

And most telling, 22.5% of the Active Inventory are equity sellers (not to include senior communities), yet the sales from the last 30 days indicate that 51.1% were traditional sellers.

I’m actually not a numbers guru.  I love reading.  I love writing.  But, I also love logic and this should speak volumes to you.  The sellers that don’t have to sell have chosen not to; they’ve heard the message.  Buyers that have been fence sitting or have had affordability problems, have found that it is indeed their time.  Demand does exist.  The inventory may actually be lacking.  Do I hear – supply and demand?

Just to temper my enthusiasm, let’s look the sales prices.  No question – these are some other stats to consider from the last 30 days with that same criteria:

Short Sales – Sold at 98.29% of asking price with an average days on market of 143.  The average price per square foot was $253.09

Bank Owned - Sold at 101.55% of asking price with an average of 16 days on the market.  The average price per square foot was $263.06.

Traditional Sellers -Sold at 97.38% of asking price with an average of 34 days on the market.  The average price per square foot was $323.09.

I will suspect that the knee jerk response is that traditional sellers are overpriced on a per square foot basis – but look at the demand.   There’s a reason these are selling.  They are in superior condition (sometimes by a lot) and you can actually submit an offer to a live body, that has real emotion, and a desire to sell.  What’s the value in that?

So, if you think it’s a buyers’ market, think carefully and ask for the stats.  You need more than a cursory overview.  You need to drill down into the makeup of what it means to get a clear picture of the marketplace.

This is one picture of the OC marketplace, but from what I’m seeing, in certain pricepoints, it’s not isolated.  Thoughts?  I’m open to our interpretation of these numbers.

I had this conversation on Twitter today and had to share it as further evidence of the common problems we see in the marketplace when it comes to the handling of Short Sales.  In case you are not familiar with Twitter, it’s a social media and micro-blogging platform.

The banks aren’t improving things for the local housing market, their other local assets, or the housing recovery itself with this methodology.  But, this conversation serves to continue to illustrate my point about the short sale crisis and its impact on the overall health and stability of our marketplace.  Love to hear your thoughts.

There has been much discussion about the big bailout.  But in case anyone with any influence is listening – I have an idea that could make a big contribution to our market recovery.  Just call anytime and I’ll share my insight with you – from the trenches.  I’ll be waiting for your call.

For the rest of you that might be curious about what I have in mind, I’ll share with you some of what happened to me this week.  Brace yourself because I feel a rant coming on….

As I have said countless times on this blog, short sales are a HUGE factor that is driving our market prices and inventory in Orange County.  For example, 64% of the active homes on the market today in Rancho Santa Margarita, under $500,000, are short sales!  In Mission Viejo, 50% of homes active on the market today under $500,000 are short sales. 

These short sales have offers that have been submitted to banks and are just awaiting approval.  They may have multiple offers.  This is buyer demand that is waiting and the last thing we need in this market is pent up buyer demand waiting.

I’d like to share with you a story about one of my short sale listings.  Within 72 hoursof listing the home back in May, I had 4 offers for asking price, and over.  We submitted them to the bank, along with the package from my seller that clearly qualified for a hardship.  The following dialogue is from this week between my short sale coordinator and the the banking institution’s (a very common and well known lender) negotiator.

My Short Sale Coordinator:

“We now had 4 buyer’s who have cancelled, including the last offer we submitted due to the fact that this process has taken almost 6 months.  We just can’t keep buyers around that long and we can’t keep the value the same for that period of time.  Values are dropping.  We do have another offer, but it is lower than any offer we have received.

“At this point we, as long with the seller, are at a loss as to what to do.  Do you have any suggestions, or any time frame that we can tell buyers?”

The Bank Negotiator:

“I will have to cancel this file because the buyers are no longer interested.  I suggest faxing in the new offer.  Because it is a new offer it will be considered a new file.  Anytime you have a new buyer it starts all over.  A short sale can take 4 - 6 months.  When you send in a  new contract the time frame starts all over. ”

The negotiator goes on to say that they are trying to make time frames shorter and the last response time was 30 days.  But in my experience, that response is inconsistent at best and clearly, they aren’t willing to commit to anything better than 4 to 6 months.

So what’s my big idea?  Let’s save a big bailout expense.  Forget giving money to banks with no accountability for how they use it.  Instead, let’s create an efficient, streamlined method of handling the massive number of properties that are in foreclosure and that are short sales. 

In the case of my listing, it may take one year to get a buyer in that property and a closed sale.  In the meantime, values are detrimentally impacted,  inventory remains misleadingly high,  property condition deteriorates, and suffering sellers can’t restart their lives.  If you shorten this process to 90 days, can you imagine the positive impact on our market?  Just think, 6 months ago I had 4 buyers that wanted to pay full or over list price.  Today’s buyers are thinking about 20% less than that.  THAT is a huge reason prices continue to decline in Orange County and in many parts of the country.

Maybe this is too simplistic.  Maybe this addresses only part of the problem.  But, if we are looking at some of the real, on the ground solutions for the much touted ‘Main Street,’ this seems like a great place to start.  Like I said, to those influential individuals and government institutions dying to hear my Bailout alternative, I’ll be standing by waiting for your call.