Archive for the 'Real Estate Trends' Category
How will Schwarzenegger’s new Transparency Standards change Sacramento Real Estate?
September 27th, 2008 Categories: Mortgage and Loans, Pre Foreclosures, Real Estate News, Real Estate Trends, Sacramento RE Stats, Sacramento Sellers
Friday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation designed to protect homeowners and homebuyers in California…
Highlights of the bills the Governor signed Friday:
This one will answer a lot of questions my shortsale clients have; We all hoped this would be enacted:
-SB 1055 by Senator Michael Machado (D-Linden) allows taxpayers to exclude the forgiven mortgage debt from their incomes for state income tax purposes which brings the state in compliance with federal law passed last December 27.
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We should see an increase of Mortgage Modifications and a resulting decline in foreclosures in our area because of these four:
-SB 870 by Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) this will allow the California Housing Finance Agency to quickly establish a mortgage refinance program.
-AB 69 by Assembly member Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) requires that all mortgage loan servicers report specific, detailed data to their licensing agency concerning loan modifications.
-SB 1065 by Senator Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) includes the refinancing of home mortgages in the criteria for a city or county-administered home financing program.
-SB 1675 by Senator Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks) allows the California Department of Veterans Affairs to refinance existing home loans for veterans.
This one will be good for local printers and sign shops: (all those new business card orders and real estate sign changes…)
-SB 1461 by Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-Montclair) says real estate agents will be required to disclose their license number on all first point of contact marketing materials and property purchases beginning July 1, 2009.
Other real estate laws passed:
-SB 1737 by Senator Michael Machado (D-Linden) authorizes the Department of Real Estate (DRE) to suspend (or bar) a person who has committed a violation of the Real Estate Law.
-AB 180 by Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) provides for a registration and bonding process for foreclosure consultants; it also prohibits a foreclosure consultant from entering into an agreement to assist a homeowner in arranging for the release of surplus funds after the trustee’s sale is conducted.
-AB 2454 by Assemblymember Bill Emmerson (R-Redlands) would increase potential recovery for harmed consumers applying for Recovery Account payments filed on or after January 1, 2009, to $50,000 for any one transaction and $250,000 for any one licensee.
In the meantime;
Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) — California home prices tumbled a record 41 percent in August from a year earlier as foreclosure sales pushed down values in the most populous U.S. state.
More than 101,000 California households received a default notice, were warned of a pending auction or foreclosed on last month, RealtyTrac Inc., a seller of default data, said on Sept. 12. That was a third of the nation’s total and represented one in 130 homes in the state. Prices fell in all 20 of the state’s regions surveyed by the Realtors.
It may be a long winter…
By Forth Hoyt
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Folsom real estate shows stability in a storm…
September 19th, 2008 Categories: Real Estate News, Real Estate Trends, Sacramento Home Buyers, Sacramento RE Stats, Sacramento Real Estate
So even though all we hear in the media is the bad news about the housing and equity markets, life here in Folsom goes on! We are still writing contracts and closing escrows! Active, Stable, Predictable is how you can describe real estate here in Folsom. My team and I have eleven active escrows and at least that many offers out on homes with buyers who have heard all the bad news, all the negativity and still want to buy the house of their dreams! Folsom is still adding jobs and office space!
Elliott Homes has been selling an average of 9 lots per month all year up on their custom home site neighborhood of Terrazzo Estates. Jim Greer, of Elliott, told me that probably eighty percent of the lots go to cash buyers, many who have no immediate plans of building. He said that many of his buyers are in the medical profession and understand what Kaiser coming to our community will mean for the demand of those lots! Think about that; these are smart people (you would call this smart money), betting that we are close enough to the bottom, and that they will definately make more money on Folsom dirt than the Stock Market!!
Jim also told me, with some prodding, where he is finding these buyers; he told me “Forth, all my buyers come from the same place… Heaven!”
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Our Brisk Real Estate Turnover: Sacramento’s new “Bank-Owned Sellers Market”- Will it Continue?
September 19th, 2008 Categories: Mortgage and Loans, Real Estate News, Real Estate Trends, Sacramento Home Buyers, Sacramento Real Estate
What a difference we have seen in our market compared to last summer… multiple offers, over-priced offers, market stability and finally some predictability; Can it continue with all the bad news?
For the first time in fifteen months, our Sacramento, Placer and El Dorado County Median prices held mostly stable month-to-month.
And instead of a years worth of unsold inventory sitting on the market; there is less than 4 months!
Can it continue? I guess we’ll see… This time of year usually sees swelling inventories anyway and with the mess that the stock market is in…. They are calling it the “Worst Crisis Since ’30s, With No End Yet In Sight.”
I really think our under 200k market has found a price level that will hold, unless, of course, rates start moving. However; those jumbo-homes still have a long way to go. You know what they say; the bigger they are the harder they fall…
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Stability and continued liquidity; what does it mean to sacramento?
September 8th, 2008 Categories: Mortgage and Loans, Real Estate Trends, Sacramento Home Buyers
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest buyers of mortgages in the secondary market have been placed in a government conservatorship; the Treasury Department and new leaders have replaced prior leadership at the two mortgage giants. The government is taking as much as an 80 percent ownership of the two over the next 18 months.
How will it affect our market here at home?
Well, anything that will add strength, liquidity and confidence to the secondary market is a good thing and will add to available programs and $ for mortgages…
I just wonder, though, how long has this been in the works; in July, Congress passed legislation granting the government the authority to bail out the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs).
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Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae: Crumbling Cornerstones
September 6th, 2008 Categories: Graphs and Charts, Mortgage and Loans, Real Estate News, Real Estate Trends
The federal government is poised to take over the two largest Mortgage Giants. Between the two of them they own or guarantee almost half the home loans in the country’s roughly $12 trillion mortgage market. Over the past year, the companies have recorded combined losses of around $14 billion.
Fannie and Freddie were created in the 30’s and 70’s; respectively, to create a secondary mortgage market. Banks and thrifts hold more than $1 trillion in Fannie and Freddie bonds because they are considered as good as cash.
Without the bailout, the Credit Crunch would only get worse, as the mortgage market would have huge liquidity problems; Without buyers like Fannie and Freddie, big mortgage lenders have nowhere to go to sell packaged loans in order to continue to write new loans.
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First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit/Refund; Are You Eligible?
August 31st, 2008 Categories: Mortgage and Loans, Real Estate News, Real Estate Trends, Sacramento Home Buyers, Sacramento Real Estate
We may start to see families and employers lending money to first time buyers for down payment Money; to be paid back after the buyers do their taxes…
You see; as part of the the recent Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, all first time home buyers who purchase a home after July 9,2008 and before July 1, 2009 are eligible for up to 7,500 in tax rebate money-
Anyone who has not bought a home for the last three years is eligible!
This is not so much a tax credit as it is an actual rebate; except it has to be paid back; so it’s like an interest free loan.
Here’s the rules:The credit will be equal to 10% of the purchase price of your home but can not be more than $7,500. You will be able to subtract the amount of the credit from your tax liability, increasing your refund or reducing the taxes you owe. For example, if you were to file your ‘normal’ tax return to find that you owe $2,000 in taxes; with the credit, your tax are lowered by $7,500—which means, you would get a $5,500 REFUND!
So, what’s with the loan part of the deal? The tax credit is really a loan; two years after the credit is claimed, you start repaying at a rate so that you will have paid the credit back in full over the course of 15 years. So for those who get the full credit, the pay back amount is $500 per year. For those getting less than the full credit, you pay equally over the 15 years. But it’s interest free!
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Interesting Sacramento Market Statistics for First Two Weeks of August
August 16th, 2008 Categories: My Stories, Real Estate Trends, Sacramento RE Stats, Sacramento Real Estate, Sacramento Sellers, Shortsales
New listings are finally outpacing pending sales. In the tri-county area (Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado) it looks like the summer flurry is already subsiding- the total available homes on the market is now building again.
| Active: 2207 | Pending: 1846 | Sold: 893 | Other: 0 | Total: 4946 |
| Bedrooms | Bathrooms | Square Feet | List Price | Selling Price | Days on Market | |
| Minimum | 0 | 0.00 | 90 | $22,900 | $28,500 | 0 |
| Average | 3 | 0.00 | 1,806 | $283,188 | $276,468 | 37 |
| Median | 3 | 2.00 | 1,575 | $232,900 | $247,000 | 12 |
| Maximum | 7 | 0.00 | 10,500 | $3,600,000 | $3,500,000 | 518 |
| Total Dollar Value | $246,886,155 |
| Average DOM Breakdown and Average % of List Price received on Solds by Market time: |
| 0-30 Days | 31-60 Days | 61-90 Days | 91-120 Days | 120+ Days | |
| No. of Listings | 488 | 124 | 76 | 86 | 119 |
| Breakdown % | 54.65 | 13.89 | 8.51 | 9.63 | 13.33 |
| Avg SP % LP | 100.96 | 97.19 | 96.18 | 94.45 | 94.25 |
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What Will the First Anniversary of the Credit Crunch Mean to Sacramento?
August 4th, 2008 Categories: Real Estate News, Real Estate Trends, Sacramento Home Buyers, Sacramento Real Estate
In some ways, I can’t believe it’s already been a year… But in other ways it seems like this market is just the ‘new normal’, and its been like this forever…
Ben bernenke said just over a year ago that “Troubles in the subprime sector seem unlikely to seriously spill over to the broader economy or the financial system”.
Wonder what he has to say about that now; with the Dow Jones down almost 15%, economic growth down more than 50% and eight major U.S. banks along with thousands of employees now gone.
Michael Burry,head of Silicon Valleys Scion Capital’s says “I doubt we’re even a third of the way through it,”see full story.
Add the financial woes of the California State Budget , four dollar a gallon gas… the future seems a little scary…
I’ve done some numbers crunching and it seems that the Sacramento area housing inventory of homes for sale over the $350,000 mark is now growing. Demand for the lower prices up to around $350,000 is still running neck and neck with supply.
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Mortgage rates headed up… Sacramento buyers: Hurry!
June 30th, 2008 Categories: Mortgage and Loans, Real Estate News, Real Estate Trends, Sacramento Home Buyers, Sacramento Sellers
Asset managers and Homeowners have finally dropped prices enough to stimulate buyers interest here in the Sacramento area. But in order to do it, median price of an existing, single-family home in Greater Sacramento declined to $233,230 in May, a 34.5 percent fall from a year earlier. The California Association of Realtors reported a 18.1 percent increase in sales last month.
For the first time in 30 months we had a year over year increase in number of homes sold.
Now or newest alarm is on mortgage rates… As if we needed more to challenge our housing market.
Bloomberg says:Homes Less Affordable as Prices Fall, Rates Rise.
We all knew it would happen sometime…
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The Worse Housing Bust since World War II?
May 26th, 2008 Categories: Mortgage and Loans, Pre Foreclosures, Real Estate News, Real Estate Trends, Sacramento History, Sacramento RE Stats, Sacramento Real Estate, Sacramento Sellers, Shortsales
Sacramento area homesellers, more than most other areas in the country, are battling the most brutal environment in decades…
We were one of the hottest and now one of the hardest hit. In Sacramento’s Curtis Park, even Congress members are losing homes here to foreclosure!
I am seeing way more short sales coming on the market in many areas; I hope that the banks will continue on their path and eventually the short sale will become a viable option for Sacramento area homeowners to avoid foreclosure.
My team and I have closed several; more than anyone else in my office, I think, but we have also lost many to foreclosure. Loan servicers were set up to process payments, not work out loan delinquencies on a massive scale! But recently, most of the banks seem to be getting better about communicating, processing the package, ordering the Broker Price Opinions and/or appraisals, presenting the package to the “Investor”, etc…
We are not seeing the high turnover in the Loss Mitigation Departments and some of the banks are reportedly adding massive staffing. (I understand Countrywide hired over 2,000 loss mitigation rep’s recently).
Hopefully we are getting closer to some level of predictability and stability in our market here in Sacramento.
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