Gov REO's up 22% in the first quarter

The combined REO (Real Estate Owned) inventory for Fannie, Freddie and the FHA increased by 22% in Q1 2010 from Q4 2009. The REO inventory (foreclosed homes) increased 59% compared to Q1 2009 (year-over-year comparison).

Even with all the delays in foreclosure, the REO inventory has increased sharply over the last three quarters, from 135,868 at the end of Q2 2009, to 153,007 in Q3 2009, 172,357 at the end of Q4 2009 and now 209,500 at the end of Q4 2010.

These are new records for all three agencies.................................

This does not count REO inventory from private lenders. I'm still not seeing much of an increase around here. The total inventory has been climbing slowly but it's sure not as high as I would have thought. Of course it does take a few weeks to a few months for the lenders to get those REO properties on the market. I was looking at one home that got foreclose on in early Feb and it just hit the market last week. That's nearly a 3 month gap from the foreclosure to the home hitting the market.

Now here's a bit from 60 minutes on mortgage walk aways.


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Bubble street

A few weeks ago I went to look at a house and noticed nearly every single home on this particular cul-de-sac had a sign in the lawn. I forgot about it until this weekend when I was in the area again. I checked redfin to see how many of the homes were for sale and how many had sold since the bubble popped. There are twenty homes on this street 12 of them are for sale or have sold recently.

This tract is the Bridle Creek development by Lyon Homes in Woodcrest. Here's the details of the 12 homes that are for sale or have sold. I wonder if the remaining 8 homes will stick it out. Some could have been cash buyers so they may stick it out.

17892 Glen Hollow, Bought new for $773k, sold for $410K
17864 Glen Hollow, Bought new for $699k, sold for $480k
17808 Glen Hollow, Bought new for $1.1M, sold for $422k
17780 Glen Hollow, Bought new for $720k, pending at $415k
17724, bought for $787k, sold for $446k and is now pending again
17696, bought for $750k, pending at $429k
17619, bought for $698k, sold for $398k
17647, bought for $866k, sold for $430k
17675, bought for $647k, sold for $325k (this was probably another pocket listing)
17703, Bought for $734, pending at $415k
17815, Bought for $791, sold for $430k
17843, bought for $813, sold for $415k

Now for the "mathy" bit.... The average sales price for the new homes was $781K, total for the 12 was $9,378M. The homes are now averaging $417k with the 12 adding up to $5,015M. That is a loss of $4.363M on just these 12 homes (the average loss is 47%).

The better deals were the more recent ones, the higher sales prices are from at least a year ago. These are big homes on big lots so don't think these sales prices are high for Riverside. These are not you average tract homes. But none the less you can see what the effect of the bubble is on the newer tracts. Tracts built near the peak are going to see most of the homes turn over. The good news is that once they homes turn over they should turn into nice communities again.

Oh yea, this is a bubble poster child

Some of the biggest losers in this bust are coming out of The Retreat in So Corona. It looks to me that there were quite a few scam sales in this tract at the end of the bubble. 22197 Silerpointe looks to be one of these. I don't know if the current occupant were in on the scam but the last seller and probably the agent and appraiser were. The house sold for $780k new from the builder in Dec 2005. 14 months later is sells for $920k. Now here's the scam part. ONLY 5 months later the house sells for $1.345 Million! This house still has a dirt back yard so they didn't drop a dime on upgrades in those 5 months. Yea, this one just screams FRAUD.

Now it's listed as a short sale for $525k. And that's probably $40k too high based on the comps of this floorplan.

More on interest rates

Reading the blogosphere tonight I ran across this very good article on interest rates (and other stuff). It's a good read, check it out.