How LOW will it go?!

Right now, there are only 16 Woodbridge homes listed for sale! Inventory is the lowest it's ever been that I can remember!!! There are 161 properties for sale elsewhere in Irvine. In August last year I posted a blog about the super-low inventory, but it's gotten even lower! 

See this chart showing active Irvine housing inventory since December 2005.

20 Woodbridge homes sold in December 2012, at prices from $268K, (for a 3 bedroom short sale condo at 3213 Briarwood), to $1.2 million for 19 Buckthorn, a 5 bedroom standard sale single family home in the Gables tract.

The prices of Woodbridge homes for sale right now, range from $379,500 for a 3 bedroom 1,117 square foot attached condo at 110 Echo Run, (standard sale) in the Park Vista tract, to $1,750,000 for a 2 bedroom 3,363 square foot SFR at 18 Bayview!

31 Woodbridge homes are in escrow, (Pending or Backup Offers status), at a total list price a little over of $13.5 million.

I hear from fellow-agents all the time "there's nothing to sell!", but there ARE homes to sell. In fact more Woodbridge homes sold in 2012 than in 2011, (298 vs 259). That's a 15% increase. 

Read some of my previous blogs to see what I do to find my buyer clients homes when there are none!  :)

Clearly the inventory "problem" isn't caused by sellers not listing their homes, (because they ARE), but rather by buyers who snap these homes up, (competing with multiple other offers), thus reducing the available inventory. 

Will the inventory drop any further? How low can it possibly go? Stay tuned....

How to get your REO offer accepted - just break the front door key in the lock!

My very excited first-time homebuyer met me at the newly-listed house at 7:30 am this morning.

She was sure that this REO property was THE house, and yesterday I had urged her to meet me there before other buyers had the opportunity to view it, and submit offers ahead of hers!

As usual, I got there early, and retrieved the key from the lock-box. The top lock opened OK, but the key didn’t fit in the bottom lock. I was still struggling to open the door when my buyer client arrived, all excited and happy that she was about to see the house…..

 

I texted the listing agent and was pleasantly surprised that he responded almost immediately, (at 7:30 in the morning!):

“Yes I know… Someone broke the key in the lock.” He texted. Then: “Sucks, there is more and more of it happening these days”.

My client understood and told me that it wasn’t a big deal that she had travelled for 25 minutes at that crazy hour in the morning to meet me. Of course neither of us was happy.

Clearly agents are so desperate to get a property for their buyers that they resort to this tactic, (correctly), assuming that if they prevent other buyers from viewing the property, there is more chance that THEIR offer would be accepted.

Yes, inventory is the lowest it’s been since December 2005, and what with the lowest interest rates we’ve EVER seen in this country, demand is higher that the supply. BUT, (this to those few guilty agents out there – you know who you are), this is not acceptable.

Breaking keys in locks or removing them from the premises, is not only unethical, but ILLEGAL too!

And to the listing agents out there, what’s with these combo lock-boxes? You have no idea who last opened the lock-box, so don’t know who the offending agent is. It’s an MLS regulation that the electronic lock-boxes are used on all listings, so why aren’t you using them?

It’s great to get an email immediately after an electronic lock-box s opened, telling you WHO opened WHICH lockbox at WHICH property, and WHEN!

Yes I’m ranting and raving a bit, (a bit?!), but you’ll understand why when I explain that all this happened BEFORE my first Starbucks Grande Espresso Macchiato!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

It's not magic. If there aren't any listings out there.... make one appear.

Everyone knows that house prices are on the way up again, in fact the average sold price per square foot of SFR homes in September was the highest Irvine has seen since April 2010.

A few weeks ago I blogged about the super-low housing inventory.  This low supply has caused bidding-wars, and many buyers are throwing caution to the wind, submitting offers higher than list price, and dealing with the appraisal issues later. A large percentage of these buyers remove appraisal and loan contingencies long before the appraisal has even been ordered. That's a great way to get an offer accepted these days, as long as the buyers understands that they will have to bring more money to the table, and possibly have unexpected mortgage insurance costs too.
 
Although prices are rising, they are still generally much lower than years past, and with interest rates being the lowest that they've ever been, it remains a seller's market here in Irvine and beyond.
 
A buyer client of mine was out-bid on an offer he made, (2% higher than list price), and the sellers accepted an offer 5.2% higher than their asking price! I knew that I had to find him a property that matched his wish-list although there were no other properties listed. I do this for my buyer clients.
 
How do I find listings when they do not exist? Well, there are a few ways, and without giving away all my secrets, let me tell you how I found this buyer a home. I wrote a letter to all homeowners in the tract that my buyer liked, explaining our challenge, and then, a couple of days later, I put on my walking shoes, and started door-knocking.

I've had good results doing this in the past. Some homeowners are skeptical, thinking that my intention was to get a regular listing, and that my buyers don't even exist. However, after explaining that a "one-party-show" agreement was only for a couple of days, didn't tie them up for months on end, and either the buyers liked the house and submitted an offer.... or they don't! No harm - no foul. Everyone moves on.
 
We close escrow on the "one party show" listing today! Both my buyer and seller are very happy and the transaction was an extremely smooth one.
 
Sellers who like the idea of a "one party show" are made to understand that it's likely that they'd sell their house for a higher price if they exposed it to all buyers, rather than just to one buyer. For a regular listing, I advertize on hundreds of websites as well as in print, with direct mail, and more. Most "one-party-show" sellers prefer not to have to keep their homes spic and span, not to have to vacate the house during showings and open houses.
 
22 Woodbridge homes sold in September 2012, at prices from $290K, (for a 2 bedroom short sale condo at 218 Greenmoor), to $950K for 21 Bayside, a 4 bedroom standard sale SFR.
 
Right now, there are only 33 Woodbridge homes listed for sale!
 
The prices of Woodbridge homes for sale right now, range from $355K for a 3 bedroom 1,135 square foot attached condo at 193 Briarwood, (standard sale), to $1,750,000 for a 2 bedroom 3,363 square foot SFR AT 18 Bayview!
 
42 are in escrow, (Pending or Backup Offers status), at a total list price of $19.4 million.

Today's housing market challenges bring OPPORTUNITIES.

All indicators are pointing to a gradual real estate market recovery. Woodbridge, (and the rest of Irvine), has a shortage of available housing inventory, which is sparking price increases and bidding wars for the first time in many years.

This chart shows that we haven't seen inventory this low since December 2005!

In addition to this low inventory, rising rental costs and the lowest mortgage rates EVER, are a significant incentive for potential homeowners to purchase and also for investors to increase their portfolios.

Over a third of Woodbridge sales prices the past couple of months were at, or OVER list price.

Attitudes about the U.S. housing market continue to improve. Fannie Mae’s recent survey showed that 73% of Americans surveyed believe it is a good time to buy a home.

Most people know that while real estate is LOCAL, the market has become GLOBAL. About a third of all buyers these days are from overseas, and international buyers bought $82.5 billion in real estate in the U.S. over the past year.

There is always an attraction to buying a foreclosed property, (REO), or a short sale. Whenever I meet with new clients, particularly investors, their purchase goals typically include the purchase of a distressed property. Most buyers still believe that they can get the best screaming deal ever by buying a distressed property.

The problem in Irvine is there are not many to choose from.

In the past 9 weeks, only 14 of the 65 Woodbridge closed sales were distressed properties, and as of today, NONE of the 32 active Woodbridge listings are distressed.

Last year when defaults were higher and the market was weaker, the number of Irvine bank-owned properties, (REOs), listed as active, regularly ranged between 35 and 50.

Today we have only SIX active bank-owned properties listed in the whole of Irvine, and there are only 30 short sale listings, (out of a total of 402 active Irvine listings). Note that many of those "active" short sales are not really active. Many agents working with offers just haven't changed the status of the listings on the MLS to "backup offers" or "pending".

There are 28 Woodbridge distressed properties in "backup offers" or "pending" status right now, and who knows ho long each will take to close, (and some will NOT close!). Short sales can take anything from a few months to over a YEAR to close.

Sometimes buyers have offers in on multiple properties, or their situation changes after a few months, and when the whole long process is finally near completion, they decide not to go through with the purchase. So the process starts again with another buyer.

An offer was accepted on my 9 Cedarlake short sale listing after only a few days on the market. This was in late January. The "buyer" disappeared after six months, so I relisted the property as “active”, and an offer was accepted the next day. Escrow is scheduled to close this week.

Look at the great location of this Lakeside tract home.

Sure there are challenges in today's housing market, but those challenges bring opportunities.

The main challenge that I see in the market today is the shortage of housing. I believe that shortly, more and more homeowners who have casually been thinking of selling, will realize that low supply = high demand, and the "sellers market" that we are in right now, could be a good time to talk with a real estate professional about their home's value, and to find out what creative means that agent could use to get top dollar for their home.

Foreclosure Crisis Subsiding?

Severely delinquent balances among first mortgages are on the decline, according to Equifax’s May National Consumer Credit Trends Report.

While still elevated relative to historic levels, the May 2012 total of $450 billion in delinquent balances represents a 37 percent decline from the peak of more than $700 billion in January 2010. Of note is that 70 percent of outstanding delinquencies among first mortgages still remain tied to loans opened between 2005-2007.

The greatest level of change was seen among severely delinquent non-agency first mortgage loans (90+ days past due or in foreclosure), which fell 45 percent to $320 billion in May 2012 from its peak of $580 billion in January 2010. By comparison, agency-sourced (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA and VA) first mortgages reported as severely delinquent declined just 9 percent to $130 billion in May 2012 after peaking at $142 billion in January 2010. Similar reductions in severely delinquent totals were seen among home equity installment loans, which declined 31 percent from their peak in February 2011 ($880 million) to May 2012 ($615 million).

“That severe mortgage delinquencies are trending downward is not surprising given generally improving economic conditions,” explains Equifax Chief Economist Amy Crews Cutts. “What is surprising is that even with the foreclosure moratoriums and and the slow resolution of foreclosure backlogs, the downward trend has been a steady, consistent drumbeat of recovery. If this pace continues, we expect the volume of severely delinquent mortgage balances to return to mid-2007 levels by the end of 2014.”

Other highlights from the most recent data include:
* Home equity revolving balances fell 18 percent from their peak of $680 billion in May 2009 to $560 billion in May 2012.

* Total credit limits among home equity revolving accounts have declined 27 percent to $1.02 trillion in May 2012 since their peak in March 2008 ($1.30 trillion).

* Year-to-date total mortgage write-offs through May 2012 are down 28 percent from
their 2010 peak. Home mortgage balances are down 12.5 percent in May 2012 from
their record-high of $9.8 trillion set in Oct. 2008. Total mortgage debt outstanding now sits at $8.6 trillion.

Source: Equifax, Inc.

4 bedroom Single Family home ~ just listed for lease

Today I listed a spacious 2 story Woodbridge SINGLE FAMILY home for lease.

It's a Magnolia model at 4 Fairdawn, (4 bedrooms, 2 car garage), with GRANITE COUNTERTOPS in the kitchen.

Located in the popular Summerfield tract of Woodbridge, the home is within easy walking distance to award-winning schools, the Blue Lake Swim Club, South Lake, parks & tennis courts.

The kitchen has lots of storage and has a charming eating alcove.

The family room opens up to the kitchen and has an open view of the LARGE AND PRIVATE BACKYARD, perfect for entertaining.

Separate step-down living room with a fireplace and cathedral ceilings. AIRCON & CEILING FANS. Formal dining room. INSIDE LAUNDRY.

This really is a great family home.

The landlord will pay for the gardener.

Please contact me if you, or anyone you know, may be interested in viewing the property.

See more of 4 Fairdawn at www.WoodbridgeRental.com

First new Woodbridge development in 15 years!

“The Branches” is being built in Woodbridge by William Lyon Homes.

This is your only opportunity to own a brand new house in Woodbridge ... no new developments have been built in Woodbridge in 15 years!

An unusual, (and good!), thing about this development is that there is no Mello-Roos.

“The Branches” will be made up of 48 detached homes, at Alderwood and E. Yale Loop, adjacent to Fallbrook Park, and you can see the plan below.
The 6.2-acre site was obtained after the closing and sale of a school. The model homes should be ready to view in February next year.

A bit about the new homes:
Three floor plans.
Two stories.
Living area of between 2,209 & 2,542 square feet.
3, 4 & 5 bedrooms.
2 car garages.
Lot sizes will average 3,900 square feet.

The homes are expected to be priced from the $900,000s