California Pending Home Sales Rise for Second Straight Month

Pending home sales in California increased 4.4% in June from one year ago and were up 1.9% from the previous month, the second-straight gain for one of the hardest hit states since the housing downturn, (as reported by JON PRIOR from HousingWire.com), according to the California Association of Realtors.

The distressed property share of the market remained unchanged from the previous month, totaling 47% of all sales. Of these 19% were short sales, dipping from 20% in May. REO made up 27% of all sales in the state, relatively unchanged from the month before.

"Pending home sales have improved in the last couple of months and the next few months should bring continued gains," said CAR President Beth Peerce.

Foreclosure activity is on the decline in the state as well. According to real estate data provider DataQuick, default notice filings dropped 19.2% in the second quarter from last year. The 56,633 filings was a four-year low.

Some counties are heading toward a recovery faster than others. Distress sales made up 20% of the market in Humboldt County, in the far northwestern part of the state. That's compared to Riverside and San Bernardino counties in Southern California where roughly 69% of sales were distressed properties.

"So much depends on the direction of the economy, going forward," Peerce said. "As for the makeup of the market, distressed sales continue to be a significant part of the market with the split between short sales and REO sales varying greatly across the state."

Behind on your house payments? Even if a foreclosure sale date has already been scheduled . . . even if you're doing a loan mod. . . even if you think you're in the eleventh hour . . . I can help.

If your property is in Irvine, Tustin, Costa Mesa, Mission Viejo or anywhere in Orange County, speak to me before doing anything. You HAVE to have a back-up plan. Ask me what your options are!

New law gives added protection to short-sale hopefuls

On Friday, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 458 (Corbett) into law. The new law, which contained an urgency clause and became effective upon signing, protects homeowners pursuing short sales by barring first and secondary lien holders from going after sellers for money owed after the short sales close.

Making sense of the story.

A short sale – a transaction in which the homeowner sells the property for less than is owed on the mortgage – must be approved by the lien holder or lien holders, if there is more than one.

Under previous law (SB 931 of 2010), a first mortgage holder could accept an agreed-upon short-sale payment as full payment for the outstanding balance of the loan, but the rule did not apply to junior lien holders. SB 458 extends the protections of SB 931 to junior liens.

This is great news for people considering a short sale!

Fallen behind with your mortgage payments? If you're presently doing a loan mod, you MUST have a backup plan.

Ask me what your options are.

How to get a good FICO score

Sage advice from John Ulzheimer at Smart Credit on keeping your credit score high. He says he's a broken record on the subject, but I would contend that it is counsel that we need to revisit often...

You know who you are – you want to get the maximum FICO score of 850. You can’t be satisfied with an 849 or even 800. I hate to burst your bubble, but don’t waste your time on trying to reach the maximum score. You can get the lowest interest rates with a score of 760 and above. You don’t have to have the perfect score.

In your attempt to increase your score, you may actually decrease it instead so BE CAREFUL. Some actions you think may work can actually lower your scores, such as closing open accounts with no balance, paying off old charged off accounts, and applying for more credit card accounts.

Your score can change constantly because of the updates to your credit reports by the credit grantors. Even if you pay your bills in full each month, a balance will be reported to your credit reports unless you stop using them altogether.

Profile of consumer with 850 score:
A credit reporting agency and analytics company for communication industry, SubscriberWise, conducted research on their database of one million consumers to analyze those with a FICO score of 850. Of those that received a score, .002% had a score of 850. The average age was 61 years (ages ranged from 44 to 89); and average age of credit file was 30 years (ranged from 1958 to 1994). Keep in mind this was a small population and for a particular industry. That doesn’t mean that those younger can’t achieve the maximum score.

The ideal range is 760 to 810; you still get the best interest rates. Don’t try to game the system. You may lower your score instead. I am a broken record on the best way to keep your credit score high – pay your bills on time, don’t use more than 20% of your available credit, pay down your debt and don’t apply for new credit.