Guys a couple of distinctions, (at least in my book)
Phantom inventory – To me this would be a bank owned property that is priced by the lender and not on the market.
For those of you who have seen homes with signs in front of the house for sale but have not found the home on any on line site simply call the agent and ask why. I will be willing to be that these homes have not yet been priced by the lender. If you don’t want to call post the number of the realtor and the address and I will call for you.
Nostra – I would classify any property that is a NOD or a NOT as distressed property not phantom inventory. It is not phantom inventory in my book because it is not owned by the bank and it is not being held back by the bank.
Are these properties about to become inventory? Of course. It is a matter of semantics? Yes.
Just a side note as well… right now there are A TON of short sales on the market. Yet nobody acknowledges that a substantial percentage of these short sales have offers on them. Will all of them close? Of course not. What percentage of them close? I am not sure but Rich recently posted that sales of foreclosures are now outpacing regular or non foreclosures. So some of them will indeed close. I personally have closed 2 short sales in the past few months and have a few other short sales offers in for clients. All the offers we have in are on homes that are still active on the market.
pw – I made an offer on a home here in scripps 4 weeks ago. Like all the other offers I made it was quite low and it was not even countered. As I said before, my criteria for the home I want is quite stringent. It has to be old scripps, it has to be in a cul de sac, large lot with a particular orientation, in a very close proximity to the schools I want to send the kids to, and in my price range. The simple fact is exactly what I said before, the inventory out there sucks! It is less then last year and substantially worse.
Guys – Nobody HAS to respond to schizo’s post. If you don’t want to respond to him then don’t respond. No way do I see a bottom is near at all. I have been on record and will continue to say 2011-2012 (for the neighborhoods I want to be in) and could back off of that depending on a variety of factors. I also agree inventory will grow because of foreclosures, there is no argument. These are no brainer points…
Yet I do actually agree that it is pertinent to point out that the MLS inventory is down.
