Just like carlsbadworker pointed out, inventory is very low. I’ve seen reports that it is under 6 months but I believe those numbers are too high. I ran 92592, 446 listings, of that only 199 are not short sales. Shorts are really hard to use for stats because they can be in escrow and they don’t change the status to “backup offer” because of the time it takes to get an answer from the bank and offers on shorts are not binding. In a nutshell, you can make an offer on a short and after the bank agrees, you can say no, so the agent tries to get as many offers as possible. There are usually a bunch of offers on each short by the time you look at them and they will show as active for the six months the bank is thinking about it.
[/quote]
Inventory is low? What are you smoking? Ever heard of shadow inventory? Have you looked at the tsunami of new pre-foreclosures and foreclosures about to make the huge shadow inventory seem tiny?
Home Depot and Lowes? You can fire off a cannon in those stores anytime of the day and not worry about hitting a customer or employee, jeez! New Mall? Sure there are people there, few buying, lots eating with money that should go to the bank for the mortage, but’s that’s so 2006. People at that Mall dress like they are in Wall Mart. Thats a change for TV and you know it!
——————–
Four T.V. house bears walk into BofA to bid on BofA owned REOs.
Mr. Banker says: Thanks for coming, today we are bidding on 2 fine REOs, one on Main St. and one on 3rd St. We’ll start at $200k for the Main St. property and $160k for the one on 3rd.
TV Bear #1: But I see 250 REOs on your list for the area we are interested in.
TV Bear #2: Why can’t we just make you an offer on any one of the 250 we prefer?
MR Banker: It does not work that way. There are only 2 available for sale. So there is an extreme, dire shortage of these affordable houses. “Inventory is very low”
TV Bear #3: Makes sense! Here’s my bid on the one on Main St. My realtor said I need to get ahead of the bidding if I expect to win one off these 50% of REOs so I’m gonna go with…. $220k
TV Bear #2: My realtor told me he was too busy to help me, I bid $225k!
TV Bear #1: I want to bid but I am worried because I see 250 REOs on that list right now and I read somewhere that there is a tidal wave of even more foreclosures coming soon.
Mr. Banker: The new mall is rocking, the dress code is the new hip “casual poor”, more restaurants are going in to replace the ones that went out of business in the mall over the past few years. Sure we recently added interpreters for the schools but that’s just for 1 or 2 kids. Those for lease signs and empty store fronts across TV are intentional, we are waiting for high quality tenants. TV has wonderful weather, It’s different here, Its different this time. Mortgage rates are low. You had better hurry and put an offer in on this house on Main St. because it seems everyone wants it!
TV Bear #1: Well PF Changs was busy last night so things can’t be too bad. That house on 3rd St. is a mess so….I’ll go $230k on Main St!
