So a house in default that sells through short-sale for a 50% bank haircut is somehow not part of the REO disaster? It’s REO disaster 2.0, as in a disaster on top of a disaster.
Nothing has changed since 2008; we are in a reset of the entire bubble. How many REOs will there be? For CA that’s easy; any house with a bubble era mortgage balance is going to go jingle mail or short sale or something. Who is going to keep paying a $500k mortgage on a house worth $300k, then $200k? Not many, and as this correction in prices drags on more people will lose the fallacy of a re-inflation of the bubble and realize RE ain’t coming back anytime soon, then they will capitulate.
The only twist was the shadow inventory, that’s the only thing we can debate. Housing is crumbling but we can keep ourselves busy wondering about all those empty homes that are not for sale.
However, banks selling homes at 50% off through short-sale is just more inevitable bad news for housing, not some argument against calamity.
Those with Option ARMS are still holding on because the teaser rate, interest only payment is still a cheap payment, that’s going to start changing soon and payments on those $200k underwater mortgages are going to shoot up.
Like any crash you have the knife catchers to consider as well. Those who bought REOs in 2008 and those who out bid the other guy for an REO in 2009 are going to end up underwater as well (many 2008 REO buyers already are), especially in areas of SD where prices are still stupid. Many of these folks will be really underwater, some will end in default as well. A small 40 year old house in Poway that was $160k ten or twelve years ago is somehow viewed as a deal at $400k today? The pain train has lots of cars.
Sure the Gov. is trying to prevent deflation but it can’t work. They will get many people to overpay along the way, but prices will keep falling. Japan tried everything to keep deflation at bay, didn’t work. 18 years of falling RE prices and counting. For CA this crash is very different, you can’t look at the tiny blips that were the CA RE crashes before. You need a long timeframe. A lost decade and a decade of knife catchers.
