Tuesday, April 29, 2008

No sign of a bottom


Inventory way up, sales way down!
(no story needed!)


Riverside/SanBerdu is number 2 in the nation in foreclosures.

We've arrived in second place, and first place could be around the corner.

The San Bernardino-Riverside area ranked No. 2 nationwide in the first quarter of this year in foreclosure filings, according to a report published today by Irvine-based real-estate data company RealtyTrac.

"Foreclosure filings" include default notices, auction sales, and bank repossessions.

Banks repossessed almost 10,000 homes in the region from January to March, while default notices clocked in at almost 23,600.

And buyers put money down on more than 3,700 foreclosures.

Real-estate expert Michael Carney isn't surprised.

"As more prices fall, there are more homes with no equity," said the director of Real Estate Research Council at Cal Poly Pomona. "If you have no equity in your property, and prices are falling, you have no incentive but to walk away."

One in every 38 households reported a foreclosure filing in the two counties.

Statewide foreclosure filings jumped 213 percent from the first quarter of 2007, and even higher - 230 percent - in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

No sign of a bottom

NEW YORK - In a bad omen for sellers and lenders this spring home selling season, the erosion of house values is accelerating and foreclosure filings are doubling, new data showed Tuesday.

A closely watched index of home prices in 20 cities fell almost 13 percent in February from a year earlier, a record for the 7-year-old S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index. The report follows news that foreclosure filings between January and March also hit a new high, and comes a day after the government said the number of vacant homes on the market also set a record.

"Month-to-month, it gets consistently worse," said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P. "The slope is one direction. There is no sign of a bottom."


New construction down nearly 60% ( I thought the number would be higher)

Home construction has skidded to a near-standstill in Inland Southern California, with the number of new homes started in the first three months of 2008 dropping 59 percent in Riverside County and 64 percent in San Bernardino County compared to the same period a year earlier, a building consultant said Friday.

"It is not a housing recession anymore. It is a housing depression and the Inland Empire is the epicenter," said Steve Johnson, director of MetroStudy, a Riverside firm that tracks construction trends.

The biggest obstacle builders face is tighter lending qualifications for buyers, he said. In addition, people hesitate to buy for fear that home prices may continue to fall or they will be harmed by the region's softening economy, he said.

"Every time we think we found the bottom, something happens globally," Winckel said. "We have gone long beyond the stage where it was all about (the collapse of) the subprime mortgage market," referring to the failure of ill-conceived mortgages that has contributed to a rash of foreclosures.





10 comments:

bigdog76 said...

http://www.redfin.com/CA/Corona/13725-Apple-Moss-Ct-92880/home/12476287

Off the subject nice price on this house. Not sure what theses assessments will set you back.

What do you the GolferX

monkeyking79 said...

you can even find 95$/sqft in the same area. but does not mean that all prices are reasonable. i have been researching that area for almost 6 months. most of the "sold as is" condition is very funny: i saw some of them without toilets, some of them without doors. some of them were damaged even more in a lot of details. i understand that when the previous owner or renters get mad; they might want to do something to express their emotions. that is why in Las Vagas there is a new job for people to put a notice for those foreclosure family says if you can move out in certain time and keep the home right, you can get $1.000.
besides, why do you need to prove Mr. Golfer_x wrong. he did all his evdence-based article to anylize siutation. what do you do? find one relative lower price house. what is your point? let us discuss peacefully.

golfer_X said...

Monkey King, I think you are reading more into Bigdog's post that is there. He's just pointing out a new low price REO.....

I've also looked at a lot of the REO homes in Corona/Norco. Most of them have been in good shape. A few have missing items like the knobs on the cabinets or light fixtures but overall most would have taken less than $1k to repair those things. I have seen 2 so far that were totally trashed with cabinets ripped out, water damage, holes punched in the walls etc. But over all I am not seeing that much damage on the REO homes in the areas that I'm looking.

That home on Apple Moss has a decent price and should go quick assuming it's not trashed inside. I don't know what that yearly special assesment is but it says it's $3800 a year. It might be the mello roos and the realtor is just mixed up. That would be my guess. If so your total taxes would probably be about $8k per year. There's also a small HOA I beleive.

monkeyking79 said...

sorry. misunderstanding.

Razor said...

golfer_x, where were the REOs in corona/norco you saw that were trashed?

golfer_X said...

One was in Eastvale and one is in Norco Hills. I don't know if the Eastvale one is still there but the Norco Hills one is. The Norco home was thrashed. They had pourded paint or concrete in the sinks the carpet had paint all over it. There was water damage everywhere. It looked like they left the upstairs water running when they left. When I saw it it looked like they were going to start fixing or cleaning it. There were paint rollers and equipment sitting in the kitchen.

The Eastvale home, they gutted it. taking all the cabinets, the stair railings all the fixtures and even the AC units. I don't remember the exact street but this was about 6 months ago.

Razor said...

that sucks. Why dont they prosecute those people for theft/vandalism? And as for the people that pour crap down the drains, that HAS to be illegal...

golfer_X said...

They can't do anything. It's their house when they trash it. You can do anything you want to your own house (more or less). Many of the banks now are offering "cash for keys". They will give the owners a check to leave the place in good order. I've read that they are paying up to $3k for them to get out and leave it vacuum clean. I've seen an old car abandoned in one, a boat in another and all manor of other junk left behind.

It makes sense to offer tham a little cash. Even if they don't thrash the place many people will leave the houses full of old crap that they don't want. Others will scratch the flooring or walls when they move out because there is no incentive to be careful.

Razor said...

punks... i cant believe you have to pay people who are already deadbeat "equity-suckers" even more just not to damage things. People suck!

by the way... "equity-sucker" is a new term I coined for people who cashout refi and suck all the equity out of their home and walk away. Proud of myself on that one! :P

bigdog76 said...

I have a friend that all he does is clean theses houses and fix them back up. He has made about $30,000 in the last 2-3 months doing this. He is working non-stop though and there is no end in site for him.