Weekly Inventory Report discussion board

[Fearful]

[quote=sdrealtor]Yes it is getting interesting. Pressure has to be up on pricing with these kinds of conditions. In my hood prices gapped down 50 to 75K between nov and Feb as did most of my area. Some nice listings are coming on but well about even the prices from last Summer. They will need to reduce but will be interesting to see what happens. I can see a possibility of the gap down reversing and gapping back up.[/quote]
Exogenous forces pressure prices in one direction or the other, but buyers resist the change, holding on to historical prices. What’s more, the distressed inventory, little as it may be, occasionally deflects the price metrics down.

Part of the stickiness is some buyers’ unwillingness to face the possibility of a short sale or foreclosure. So they put the houses on the market at elevated prices: what they need to get in order to not have to bring cash to closing. Some of these houses stick on the market. In other words, sellers aren’t resisting selling out of greed but out of necessity.

The old listings are all simply overpriced, either relative to their shabby condition or to their flaws.

This should result in prices climbing, but it will be self limiting, as rising prices will shake more fruit from the tree.

[sdrealtor]

That all sounds very reasonable.

[CA renter]

Agree very much with your reasoning, Fearful.

[carlsbadworker]

Do you have the ratio of distressed sales over total sales? DQNews says it is over 50% in SoCal. That doesn’t bode well for realtors as the sales might keep declining for the year because there will be less inventory and eventually there is a standoff.
Even many of the standard sales now are flipper homes with a turn around time within 90 days. So the real statistics is alarming.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=carlsbadworker]Do you have the ratio of distressed sales over total sales? DQNews says it is over 50% in SoCal. That doesn’t bode well for realtors as the sales might keep declining for the year because there will be less inventory and eventually there is a standoff.
Even many of the standard sales now are flipper homes with a turn around time within 90 days. So the real statistics is alarming.[/quote]

Agree with all of this, carlsbadworker, but I tried in vain to get sdr to answer this for us.

http://piggington.com/weekly_inventory_report

Perhaps the answer is not readily apparent the way the info on REALIST is set up.

If there ends of being a “standoff” between few sellers and many buyers, my take is that the sellers will prevail (IF they are “equity sellers”).

[sdrealtor]

CW
There is neither an easy nor reliable way for me to measure this so I dont try because I wouldnt trust the numbers I got. On the otherhand, the old adage that 80% of the sales are done by 20% of the people still holds true. The make up of that 20% has changed and many of the old guard have fallen off. Its too broad to say it doesnt bode well for realtors because it does for some like me. When it was easy any blonde with a Lexus could be a realtor and survive. In this environment they cant and people who are good at dealing with complex situations rise to the occassion. I have never been busier.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=sdrealtor]CW
There is neither an easy nor reliable way for me to measure this so I dont try because I wouldnt trust the numbers I got. On the otherhand, the old adage that 80% of the sales are done by 20% of the people still holds true. The make up of that 20% has changed and many of the old guard have fallen off. Its too broad to say it doesnt bode well for realtors because it does for some like me. When it was easy any blonde with a Lexus could be a realtor and survive. In this environment they cant and people who are good at dealing with complex situations rise to the occassion. I have never been busier.[/quote]

That’s what I figured. REALIST doesn’t break down “distressed” listings over non-distressed listings and it would be difficult and time consuming to do manually, esp since they change in composition every day.

That old (80/20) adage has applied since the dawn of time. Many agents don’t care about their production numbers. They have a full or part-time job doing something else and RE commissions are not and never have been their primary source of income. There are many, many people who are licensed for the primary purpose of handling occasional transactions for themselves, family and friends. Many, many CA attorneys are licensed RE Brokers and only occasionally broker RE transactions. Licensed attorneys and CPA’s in CA don’t have to have four years consecutive RE Salesperson experience to take the broker exam. They can sit for the exam by paying the fee only.

Lots of people are good and dealing with “complex situations” and unraveling thorny problems . . . myself included. In fact, my middle name is “Fineprint.” This doesn’t mean they couldn’t successfully complete a “short sale.” (I completed two during the “gulf war malaise” [’91-’92]) in which in one of the transactions, sellers filed for Chapter 7 in the middle of escrow. Yes, it DID close but it took 153 days and two BK hgs. This was in an era where little was known about SS’s.

To shed some light on why I choose not to work in the RE biz, I am at a point in my life where I don’t feel I need to take a lot of sh!t from people anymore (been there, done that for YEARS). The nature of the beast of this biz is that you often work hard for (often flaky) buyers/sellers for no pay who end up deciding not to purchase or remove their listing after you have spent lots of time and money on them. I need to be paid for what I do …. nothing more/nothing less. To each his own.

I don’t have any respect for people that have bled the “equity” out of their propertie(s) and then “cry wolf” because they can no longer afford to keep them. I have a fundamental problem with lenders not currently adhering to CA nonjudicial foreclosure procedures set up for them to sustain no more than 111 or 141 days of loss. If they all adhered to CA law (like 90% of them did in the past), there would be no need for SS’s because they would sustain far less loss foreclosing and reselling the property.

I lack respect for these “deadbeat wanna-be sellers” because, in the absence of millenium-boom purchasing (where they paid too much for the property with ONE purchase-money TD), their stories are all the same. They took money out of their properties to live on, enhance their lifestyles or for whatever reason and now think they should have a remedy against foreclosure. They should have thought of the ramifications of potential bad credit when they took the money out of the property and/or when they decided to stiff their lender(s).

I don’t buy that it is cheaper for lenders to sell short than foreclose. Those lenders selling short are only doing so after sustaining 9-36 mos of loss whilst the mortgage often resets with deferred interest during the process, making their HUGE losses upon short sale due to their own malaise.

Second and subsequent TD holders have ALWAYS been able to bid at trustee sales and take the first TD note “subject-to” with no qualifying. If they did this early on (in a timely TS scheduled 111 days of default on older loans), they likely would get more than a “few thousand” or 6% of the face value of the remaining balance of their note upon resale. This is because they can (and did) take control of the property after three business days, rent back to the occupant or evict the occupant and fix the property up to sell themselves! This is what they did in the past. This is FAR preferable to getting shafted in a SS. Of course, before MBS, the vast majority of these 2nd TD investors were local.

The non-judicial foreclosure procedure is not being followed in CA and THIS is what led to this slow meltdown/standoff/f-u’d whatever-you-want-to-call-it RE market we have before us today.

And btw, if you were referring to me as one of the “old guard,” I am still licensed but left (P/T) RE sales long before this “millenium boom” debacle set in and have never been a “blonde. ;=]

Signed,

Bearishgurl “Fineprint” Morgan

PS: btw, you can never take away the knowledge of the “old guard.” It is what it is.

[lpjohnso]

Today in the North County Times:
“Fewer Houses on the Market Ignite Bidding Wars Among Buyers” http://www.nctimes.com/blogsnew/business/realside/housing-fewer-houses-on-market-ignite-bidding-wars-among-buyers/article_1a5bc3e5-9848-5a51-8591-b5382c5d33ca.html

[scaredyclassic]

I still get daily email updates from Redfin for anything with acres in temecula area. I look at them pretty often. I haven’t seen much I’d want for quite a while. There used to be a lot. Not sure if that means anything but I am glad I did buy because my wife would be super pissed right now if I hadn’t because I don’t there’s much we could bid on that would be acceptable to her when a few years ago there were at least some. But she’s picky picky picky.

[lpjohnso]

walterwhite, I am glad we already bought too!

Wow, I didn’t realize that it was happening in so many other places..

http://realestate.msn.com/going-fast-strong-demand-has-melted-away-inventory-in-some-housing-markets

[CA renter]

Ditto that.

Being a potential buyer right now must be extremely frustrating and maddening.

[carlsbadworker]

[quote=CA renter]Being a potential buyer right now must be extremely frustrating and maddening.[/quote]

That’s right. I am only kidding in the other thread that after flu bought now we can see price drop. I cannot imagine how we will ever see price drop in this market…because I am a potential buyer right now, I feel the market first hand. I made bids on 4 houses in the last 3 months at the listing price. Each time, I am either being outbid or beaten by a cash buyer. Good houses go pending within 4-5 days, sometimes within one day. You have to have a right strategy to win a house, and apparently I don’t.

[Coronita]

that sucks.
Looks like I won’t be moving anytime soon.

Still waiting for 50% off on LJ or CV.

[Coronita]

[quote=carlsbadworker][quote=CA renter]Being a potential buyer right now must be extremely frustrating and maddening.[/quote]

That’s right. I am only kidding in the other thread that after flu bought now we can see price drop. I cannot imagine how we will ever see price drop in this market…because I am a potential buyer right now, I feel the market first hand. I made bids on 4 houses in the last 3 months at the listing price. Each time, I am either being outbid or beaten by a cash buyer. Good houses go pending within 4-5 days, sometimes within one day. You have to have a right strategy to win a house, and apparently I don’t.[/quote]

carlsbadworker… Trust me. I wish you WEREN’T kidding. Because there’s no chance of me upgrading in the near term it seems. What’s worse, it seems like mortgage interest rates are rising (at least the 15 year conforming is)… There was a time when I could have 2.875% and now it’s about 3.12% again… And we know why….Because I’m trying to lock again… Go figure 🙁

[sdrealtor]

Time for a preview into tomorrows report. No surprises….inventory still dropping everywhere. Time to make the dinner reservations

[Author]

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