Investing in Real Estate - Creative Opportunities

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To: John Vosilla who wrote (626)	5/18/2012 9:03:04 PM
From: tejek	of 1616

Mortgage fraud was as rampant there as the ground zero markets.. It is also unique as it had a large influx of young black professionals that probably overextended themselves even more than others during the days of easy credit.. It also just expanded in all directions from the center so there is always something brand new and cheap to move to a little further out. Trading in houses like cars is common in the fast growing sunbelt.. As to jobs I doubt it can be as bad as Florida where we really have little of any real economy. Atlanta metro quite diverse economy.. Florida is doing worse but Atlanta is supposed to be more than a resort area. In fact, its supposed to be an industrial powerhouse. Its current job creation doesn't reflect that position. The South in general does not seem to be recovering very well. Even NC, the jewel of the South, is lagging. Its Atlanta and NC that surprise me most.

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From: tejek

5/19/2012 1:14:09 PM

of 1616

O.C. homes draw multiple-offer ‘avalanche’

May 14th, 2012, 7:53 am

posted by Jon Lansner

Orange County’s housing market is back at 2005 intensity, according to one report, with multiple offers for homes commonplace.

Click to see what $35 million would buy you in Newport!

Below $500,000 range is NUTS. Homes priced at or near their market value are generating an avalanche of multiple offers. A home in this range is placed on the market and, within moments, cars filled with buyers are touring the home. Realtors leave their business card behind so that the listing agent and seller know that the home has been shown. In the first couple of days of hitting the market, there are already stacks of business cards on the counter, a leading indicator that this home is not going to last. Upon writing an offer, buyers quickly find that they are one of many, sometimes over ten, offers on the home. Suddenly it becomes a battle of wills. In the end, the seller factors the highest price with the largest down payment. I know, you are thinking, “What about the appraisal?” In many instances, shrewd sellers and Realtors are leveraging the competition to drop the appraisal contingency and require the buyer to make up the difference between the appraisal price and the purchase price, IF there is an appraisal problem. This is precisely what a buyer is experiencing. Now, let’s take a look at the economic principles at play by zeroing in on the irrefutable data. Supply has dropped to levels not seen since June 2005. Demand is at levels not seen since June 2005. The expected market time for all of Orange County is 1.5 months, or six weeks. It is four weeks for homes priced below $500,000, 22 days for short sales, and 19 days for foreclosures.

Thomas’ signature housing measurement is his “market time” benchmark. It tracks how many months it theoretically takes to sell all the inventory in the local MLS for-sale listings at the current pace of pending deals being made. By this Thomas logic, as of May 10 — we see …

Of the 8 Orange County pricing slices Thomas tracks, 5 had faster market time vs. 2 weeks ago; and 8 improved over a year ago.
Orange County homes listed for under a million bucks have a market time of 1.23 months vs. 5.17 months for homes listed for more than $1 million.
So, basically, it is 4.2 times harder to sell a million-dollar-plus residence! And just so you know, the million-dollar market represents 26% of all homes listed and 8% of all homes that entered into escrow in the past 30 days.

Here’s the recent data for listings; deals pending; market time in months; latest vs. 2 weeks earllier, a year ago and 2 years ago. Color coding for market time is red (slowed by 5%-plus in year); green (sped up by 5%-plus in year); and yellow (in between!) Note: k=thousand; m=million …

Slice Listings Deals Market Time (months) 2 week ago 1 yr. ago 2 yr. ago

$0-$250k	858	751	1.14	1.11	2.95	1.75
$250k-$500k	1,607	1,689	0.95	0.94	3.03	1.79
$500k-$750k	1,253	834	1.50	1.53	3.72	2.55
$750k-$1m	678	294	2.31	2.49	4.81	3.55
$1m-$1.5m	521	168	3.10	3.02	5.50	4.99
$1.5m-$2m	309	71	4.35	5.29	8.41	7.17
$2m-4m	442	47	9.40	10.64	10.82	10.89
$4m+	259	10	25.90	35.43	33.89	20.94
All O.C.	5,883	3,848	1.53	1.51	3.68	2.53

Coverage of other data reports from Thomas ARE HERE!

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From: tejek

5/19/2012 1:19:22 PM

of 1616

U.S. Foreclosure Activity Shifting Eastward According to RealtyTrac®

11 of 20 Largest U.S. Metros Post Increases, All in Midwest, South and East Coast; Non-Judicial Activity Down 29 Percent Annually, Judicial Activity Up 15 Percent

IRVINE, CA--(Marketwire - May 17, 2012) - RealtyTrac® ( www.realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, today released its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™ for April 2012, which shows foreclosure filings -- default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions -- were reported on 188,780 U.S. properties in April, the lowest monthly total since July 2007.

April foreclosure activity decreased 5 percent from the previous month and was down 14 percent from April 2011. One in every 698 U.S. housing units had a foreclosure filing during the month.

"Rising foreclosure activity in many state and local markets in April was masked at the national level by sizable decreases in hard-hit foreclosure states like California, Arizona and Nevada," said Brandon Moore, CEO of RealtyTrac. "Those three states, and several other non-judicial foreclosure states like them, more efficiently processed foreclosures last year, resulting in fewer catch-up foreclosures this year.

"In addition, more distressed loans are being diverted into short sales rather than becoming completed foreclosures," Moore continued. "Our preliminary first quarter sales data shows that pre-foreclosure sales -- typically short sales -- are on pace to outnumber sales of bank-owned properties during the quarter in California, Arizona and 10 other states."

Non-judicial foreclosure activity down, judicial foreclosure activity up
Combined foreclosure activity in the 24 states with a non-judicial foreclosure process and the District of Columbia decreased 7 percent from the previous month and was down 29 percent from April 2011. More populous states like Arizona, California and Nevada drove the overall decreases in non-judicial foreclosure activity, but 14 of the 24 states and the District of Columbia posted month-over-month increases in foreclosure activity. Still, only seven of the non-judicial foreclosure states posted annual increases, including Georgia, Tennessee and Minnesota.

Combined foreclosure activity in the 26 states with a judicial foreclosure process decreased 3 percent from the previous month but was still up 15 percent from April 2011. Foreclosure activity decreased on a month-over-month basis in 14 of the judicial foreclosure states but increased on a year-over-year basis in 15 of the judicial foreclosure states.

Foreclosure starts down nationwide, but up in more than half of states
After three straight monthly increases, U.S. foreclosure starts -- default notices or scheduled foreclosure auctions, depending on the state -- decreased 4 percent from March to April. A total of 97,665 properties started the foreclosure process for the first time during the month, down 2 percent from April 2011.

Despite the overall decrease in foreclosure starts, 26 states posted monthly increases in foreclosure starts, and 27 states posted year-over-year increases in foreclosure starts. States with the biggest annual increases in foreclosure starts included New Jersey (180 percent), Utah (179 percent), Indiana (49 percent), Pennsylvania (44 percent), Florida (43 percent), and Michigan (42 percent).

Bank repossessions decrease for third straight month
Bank repossessions (REOs) decreased on a monthly basis for the third straight month in April, down 7 percent from March. Lenders completed the foreclosure process on 51,415 U.S. properties during the month, down 26 percent from April 2011 -- the 18th consecutive month with a year-over-year decrease in REOs.

REO activity decreased on an annual basis in 37 states and the District of Columbia, while 28 states posted monthly drops in foreclosure activity. States with the biggest year-over-year decreases in REO activity included Nevada (71 percent), Arizona (70 percent), Washington (67 percent), California (52 percent), Virginia (47 percent), and Maryland (47 percent).

11 of 20 largest metros post annual increases in foreclosure activity
Eleven of the nation's 20 largest metro areas based on population documented annual increases in foreclosure activity, led by the Florida cities of Tampa (59 percent) and Miami (38 percent). Other cities with increases included St. Louis (29 percent), Chicago (26 percent), Philadelphia (24 percent), and Atlanta (21 percent).

Among the 20 largest metros areas, cities posting the biggest annual drops in foreclosure activity included Seattle (54 percent), Phoenix (44 percent), San Francisco (34 percent), Washington, D.C. (30 percent), Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif., (30 percent), and Los Angeles (28 percent).

The metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates among the 20 largest were Riverside-San Bernardino (one in every 213 housing units with a foreclosure filing), Miami (one in every 273 housing units), Atlanta (one in every 298 housing units), Phoenix (one in every 313 housing units), and Tampa (one in every 315 housing units).

The 11 cities with annual increases in foreclosure activity were all in the Midwest, South or on the East Coast, while six of the nine cities with annual decreases were in the western states of California, Arizona and Washington.

Foreclosure Activity in 20 Largest U.S. Metros - April 2012

MSA Name	April 2012 Properties with Foreclosure Filings	1/every X Housing Units	% Change from Mar 12	% Change from Apr 11
Riverside-San Bernardino, CA	7,049	213	-10.81	-29.97
Miami	9,031	273	-9.18	38.43
Atlanta	7,271	298	-11.07	21.30
Phoenix	5,755	313	-22.64	-44.44
Tampa	4,295	315	18.19	59.02
Chicago	11,840	321	-7.63	25.52
Detroit	5,201	363	3.90	-32.22**
San Diego	2,960	394	-6.12	-18.68
Los Angeles	10,906	412	-10.85	-28.26
San Francisco	3,391	514	-18.88	-33.68
Minneapolis	2,497	543	17.29	3.44
St. Louis	1,793	696	-0.33	28.53
Dallas	3,376	741	11.68	17.84
Houston	2,741	842	-0.72	-2.46
Boston	1,961	960	46.67	2.35
Philadelphia	2,444	996	-11.96	24.31
Seattle	1,172	1,249	-8.58	-54.24
Washington, D.C.	1,530	1,447	-7.89	-30.23
Baltimore	637	1,777	9.64	20.42
New York	2,812	2,677	-7.62	7.25

Nevada, California, Florida post top state foreclosure rates
A 15 percent month-over-month increase in foreclosure starts helped Nevada post the nation's highest state foreclosure rate in April: one in every 300 housing units with a foreclosure filing. Despite the monthly increase in foreclosure starts, overall Nevada foreclosure activity decreased 67 percent from April 2011.

California foreclosure activity decreased 30 percent from April 2011, but the state still posted the nation's second highest foreclosure rate: one in every 351 housing units with a foreclosure filing.

Florida foreclosure activity increased 26 percent from April 2011, boosting the state's foreclosure rate to third highest in the nation. One in every 364 Florida housing units had a foreclosure filing during the month.

The top 10 foreclosure rates among metropolitan statistical areas with a population of 200,000 or more were all in Nevada, California and Florida. Stockton, Calif., led the way, with one in every 213 housing units with a foreclosure filing during the month. Seven other California cities had foreclosure rates in the top 10, along with Las Vegas at No. 7 and Miami at No. 9.

A 44 percent year-over-year decrease in foreclosure activity dropped Arizona's foreclosure rate -- one in every 377 housing units with a foreclosure filing -- to fourth highest among the states, while a 21 percent year-over-year increase in foreclosure activity helped Georgia maintain the nation's fifth highest state foreclosure rate -- one in every 398 housing units with a foreclosure filing.

Other states with foreclosure rates ranking among the top 10 were Illinois (one in 418 housing units with a foreclosure filing), Utah (one in 419), Michigan (one in 487), Ohio (one in 525), and Wisconsin (one in 547).

Click here for more details on foreclosure activity across the nation and to learn about RealtyTrac's report methodology.

Report License
The RealtyTrac U.S. Foreclosure Market Report is the result of a proprietary evaluation of information compiled by RealtyTrac; the report and any of the information in whole or in part can only be quoted, copied, published, re-published, distributed and/or re-distributed or used in any manner if the user specifically references RealtyTrac as the source for said report and/or any of the information set forth within the report.

Order Customized Reports
Detailed and historical foreclosure data used to create the above report may be purchased through the RealtyTrac Data Licensing Department at 949.502.8300 Ext. 158. Aggregate data is available at the state, metro, county and zip code levels dating back to 2005, and address-level foreclosure records are also available historically.

About RealtyTrac Inc.
RealtyTrac ( www.realtytrac.com) is the leading online marketplace of foreclosure properties, with more than 1.5 million default, auction and bank-owned listings from over 2,200 U.S. counties, along with detailed property, loan and home sales data. Hosting millions of unique monthly visitors, RealtyTrac provides innovative technology solutions and practical education resources to facilitate buying, selling and investing in real estate. RealtyTrac's foreclosure data has also been used by the Federal Reserve, FBI, U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee and Banking Committee, U.S. Treasury Department, and numerous state housing and banking departments, private companies and academic institutions to help evaluate foreclosure trends and address policy issues related to foreclosures.

marketwire.com

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To: John Vosilla who wrote (629)	5/20/2012 10:43:56 PM
From: tejek	of 1616

Underwater Homeowners 'Walk Away' (Yet Stay Put), and Other Tales From the Bust By Nina Shapiro Thu., May 10 2012 at 9:00 AM As the housing crisis wreaked havoc across the nation, Washington state for many years seemed in a protected bubble. The state ranked almost dead last nationwide in rates of foreclosures and mortgage defaults. Well, as we report in this week's cover story, things have changed. Last year, the state ranked 5th in the rate of mortgages that were more than 90 days past due. "Why is Washington state going in this direction?" asks Scott Jarvis, director of the state Department of Financial Institutions."Boeing is going great guns. The last time I checked Microsoft is still in business." In other words, a lot of people should still be able to afford their mortgages. It's whether they want to pay them off that's the tricky part. As property values have declined year after year, more and more homeowners have realized that they owe far more on their mortgage than their home is worth. Witness an engineer named "Jane," who bought a condo in Renton for $175,000 in 2008. It may now be worth as little as $60,000 or $70,000, such has been the hammering of south King County's condo market. And so Jane and her husband, also an engineer, have decided to stop paying their mortgage and let the bank foreclose. (Jane is chronicling her adventure on a blog she started.) They made the decision to "strategically default," as it's called in the case of relatively affluent homeowners, with the full blessing of their attorney, whose advise can be summarized thusly: "Walk away, right now!" It's a slow motion walk, though. Banks, which in many cases banks don't want the properties either, are taking literally years to foreclose. So homeowners can continue to stay put with, as one lawyer says, "zero housing costs." Forget all the rules you knew about the housing game. As Tales From the Bust shows, this is a new, far more chaotic era blogs.seattleweekly.com

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From: tejek	5/21/2012 12:38:38 AM
	of 1616

Downtown Seattle condos are finally filling up The glut of condos that hit downtown Seattle right during the real-estate downturn is disappearing as buyers move back into the market. By Eric Pryne Seattle Times business reporter The past few years haven't been good ones for condo developers in and around downtown Seattle. They brought about two dozen new projects to market between 2007 and early 2010 — just in time for the real-estate crash. Hundreds of pre-sale buyers backed out. Some developers converted their buildings to rental apartments. Others lost their projects to lenders. Many slashed prices, in some cases more than 40 percent. Even so, sales remained tepid. Now, however, the market finally seems to be bouncing back. Here's some of the most compelling evidence: Early this year the biggest downtown project, Escala, began raising prices a hair on some units. And it did so quietly, without the splashy advance announcement developers sometimes make just to scare up business. On average, condos in the 31-story tower have been selling for 99 percent of asking price so far this year, according to listing-service reports. "As we sell units and have less supply, we will continue to raise prices," Erik Mehr, who heads Escala's sales team, said recently. It's been about four years since anyone associated with a downtown condo project said anything remotely like that. Market analysts agree the balance between condo supply and demand has shifted recently — if only because most of the supply, at long last, is gone. Many buildings have sold out, and "most of the others have been cherry-picked," says Seattle real-estate economist Matthew Gardner. Of 2,500 new condos delivered in downtown, Belltown, Lower Queen Anne and South Lake Union during the market's darkest days, fewer than 250 developer-owned units remain unsold, according to county records. That number drops below 200 when you count pending sales expected to close in the next few months, according to statistics compiled by Realogics Sotheby's International Realty, which markets several of the new buildings. And there are no new projects in the pipeline — developers and lenders have sworn off condos for now. "We've been saying for a long time that at some point the inventory was going to disappear and the opportunity was going to slip away," says President David Thyer of R.C. Hedreen, developer of 39-story Olive 8. "Now it's finally happening." There's more unsold inventory in downtown Bellevue, where more than 350 condos in two giant projects, Bellevue Towers and Washington Square, still haven't sold. But Bellevue Towers, like Escala, raised prices 1 or 2 percent earlier this year on some models that were close to selling out. That's what's supposed to happen in a healthy market, says researcher Glenn Crellin of the University of Washington's Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies. For the most part, the new-condo backlog has sold off slowly and steadily. County records show no big bump in overall sales recently — in fact, closings at several big projects are behind last year's pace. But brokers and market analysts say those numbers don't yet reflect a surge in activity this spring. "Buyers are just more confident now about the economy and real estate," says Matt Goyer, who blogs about new in-city condos at Urbnlivn.com. Those buyers include young professionals, empty nesters, investors and folks seeking second homes. Some come from out of state or overseas. Some are former downtown renters. Some of them have been watching the market, and waiting, for years. Downsized commute Dave and Kari McGrath started looking for a downtown Seattle condo in 2009, in part to put an end to hellish, three-cornered commutes. They have one car. She works downtown, he works in Lynnwood. He drives her from their Woodinville home to Lynnwood to catch a bus in the morning, and in the evening drives downtown to pick her up. Trouble was, they couldn't sell their five-bedroom, 3,400-square-foot house. And they needed the proceeds to buy another home. The McGraths watched from the sidelines, frustrated, as condo prices fell. Then, this spring, they put their house on the market again, and it sold in just two weeks. So this month they signed a contract to buy a one-bedroom, 823-square-foot condo on the 37th floor of Olive 8. Kari, 49, can walk to work from there. Dave, 52, says his commute will be "a piece of cake compared to what I've been doing." Low mortgage-interest rates helped persuade them to buy now, the McGraths say. So did the shrinking downtown inventory — they'd already seen some floor plans they liked in other buildings sell out. "We didn't want to miss out," says Kari. Other recent buyers tell similar stories. Gene Burrus, a Microsoft lawyer, rented in a downtown condo building for four years. While he intended to buy eventually, he says, "there was no sense of urgency." But Burrus kept an eye on the market, and in recent months he watched for-sale inventory in his building shrink and units there sell for higher prices than he'd expected. He worried his rent would rise. Last month he closed on a two-bedroom condo at Fifteen Twentyone Second Avenue. "We definitely got the sense that now was the time," Burrus says. Stephan Schier, also a renter, bought a two-bedroom at Escala the same week. "I don't think prices will get this low ever again," he says. "The price to build a unit like the one I have is prohibitive." Most industry insiders agree it probably will be several years before the next big downtown condo project breaks ground. Developers are wary. "You'd have to see a lot more stability in the for-sale housing market first," says Dan Ivanoff, developer Schnitzer West's managing investment partner. Schnitzer was finishing four big projects with a total of 1,000 condos in Seattle and Bellevue when the economy tanked. Two were converted to apartments; despite steep price cuts, the other two didn't sell out until last year. Schnitzer won't jump back into the condo market anytime soon, Ivanoff says. Lenders won't finance big new condo projects now, the UW's Crellin says. With downtown Seattle's high land prices, only high-end projects will pencil out — and sale prices haven't bounced back enough yet to make them work. At Escala, for instance, despite the recent price increases, "We're still selling units at prices where you couldn't build a new tower and make a profit," says sales manager Mehr. Escala's owner, a real-estate arm of Deutsche Bank, is resigned to losing money on the project, he says. The only question is how much. Most observers expect the remaining developer-owned condos in Escala and other new buildings will sell out in the next year or two. Where will the new condo supply come from after that? Dean Jones, brokerage Realogics Sotheby's president and CEO, expects some condo owners who bought near the market's peak, then watched the value of their units plummet, will put them up for sale as prices recover. That "shadow inventory" should meet some of the future demand, he says. Still more probably will be met by developers who convert their apartment buildings to condos, Jones adds. But he doubts there will be too much of that. Apartments in many new buildings are too small and lack the quality finishes to easily market as condos, Jones says. What's more, some newer projects built as condos — but converted to rentals when the market turned — have since been acquired by investment firms that intend to hold them as apartments long term. The bottom line is, there's not much new inventory on the horizon. And that's helping to drive the condo market now, analysts agree. "The whole conversation has changed," Jones says. "Over the last six months or year, people seem to have agreed there's no benefit in waiting any more." seattletimes.nwsource.com

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To: tejek who wrote (634)	5/21/2012 11:36:55 AM
From: John Vosilla	of 1616

Witness an engineer named "Jane," who bought a condo in Renton for $175,000 in 2008. It may now be worth as little as $60,000 or $70,000, such has been the hammering of south King County's condo market. And so Jane and her husband, also an engineer, have decided to stop paying their mortgage and let the bank foreclose. (Jane is chronicling her adventure on a blog she started.) They made the decision to "strategically default," as it's called in the case of relatively affluent homeowners, with the full blessing of their attorney, whose advise can be summarized thusly: "Walk away, right now!" It's a slow motion walk, though. Banks, which in many cases banks don't want the properties either, are taking literally years to foreclose. So homeowners can continue to stay put with, as one lawyer says, "zero housing costs." Seems it took longer to happen out your way. I would guess we are near the point especially in the worst hit markets where most mortgages from the bubble that are still current most likely will continue to be paid down and see light at the end of the tunnel. The rest have stopped paying by now either living for free, moved out and now renting or getting another family member to qualify and buy another property at today's low prices and record low rates.. You will probably be a that point in Seattle within another couple of years

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