[quote=mcpk]I recognize that this is a decidedly anecdotal report, but:
Last Monday, my wife and I drove through a few select neighborhoods within about a mile of where we live in east Chula Vista. Obviously, the zip codes of 91913, 91914, and 91915 have been hit pretty hard by foreclosures and price reductions, but I’ve recently been hearing about bidding wars for homes due to a shortage of listings.
Taking one specific neighborhood within the 91914 zip code as an example, we made note of the address of every home that was either listed as for sale with a sign in the front yard or clearly was vacant (no cars in the driveway, dead lawn, no furniture inside, no items in yard, etc. – but all of these factors had to be there to qualify, or it’s a bit like declaring people dead when they’re merely napping). There were 12 such homes in our quick survey. Of those homes, only 3 showed up on the MLS listings as either currently for sale or sold within the past year. Admittedly, any number of the others could be rentals that are currently vacant and therefore not for sale, and it’s certainly possible – though unlikely in this neighborhood – that people could be living in the houses with dead lawns, no furniture, no cars, and no power on at night. But it strikes me as highly unlikely that all 9 of the homes we pegged as likely foreclosures are either rentals or still occupied by invisible people who don’t drive cars, sit in chairs, or water their lawns. But it is southern California – anything is possible.
Before anyone begins flaming my post, I recognize that my methodology is neither foolproof nor all that scientific, and there are any number of explanations beyond shadow inventory for what we saw. (And, as I stated before, this is all highly anecdotal.) That said, it was a very interesting activity, and I’m hoping to follow up on these properties to find out if they ever do show up on MLS. It does seem to me that there is at least some degree of backlog in the listings of foreclosures.
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Give us an address or two…it’s fishy otherwise.
