by Jim the Realtor | Oct 12, 2014 | Foreclosures/REOs, REO Inventory, REO Pre-Listings, Short Sales, Short Selling |
I hope the headline porn grabbed you! 😆
REO listings have increased lately around NSDCC, though they are still a small fraction of the overall marketplace (there have been 2,238 detached-home sales closed this year between Carlsbad and La Jolla).
The short-sale listings coming to market haven’t changed much all year, which would be the first place you would see the effect of mortgage servicers getting tougher with deadbeats:
| Type of Listing |
Jan 1 – June 30 |
July 1 – present |
| REO |
4 |
8 |
| Short-sale |
36 |
18 |
| Non-Distressed |
2,672 |
1,262 |
| Total |
2,712 |
1,388 |
This guy borrowed $3.75 million to do a spectacular remodel on this Del Mar home (the house with the glass-bottom pool), but he wasn’t going to give it away. The original list price was $6,750,000 in October, 2013, and dropped to $5,950,000 before getting foreclosed in June. The bank promptly listed for $5,495,000, and sold it for $5,210,000 last month:
http://www.sdlookup.com/MLS-140036477-116_Nob_Ave_Del_Mar_CA_92014
There is some hope that lenders and servicers are increasing the flow now that prices are so much higher than before, and it would make sense that they would cherry-pick the properties on which they could make a profit.
But no flood of notices yet:
by Jim the Realtor | Sep 4, 2014 | Foreclosures, Short Sales, Short Selling
Yesterday I saw a for-sale sign in front of an upcoming REO listing. It made me wonder, “How many REO and short-sale listings of detached-homes have we had this year around NSDCC? Here are the counts:
REO: 5
Short Sales: 43
Non-distressed: 3,516
There’s not much chance of finding a deal these days!
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Here is the update on the Mortgage-Debt Tax Relief:
(more…)
by Jim the Realtor | May 25, 2014 | Short Sales, Short Selling |
From CAR:
After receiving comments from California tax practitioners and its own review of California law, the IRS has issued a clarification to its September 19, 2013 letter to Senator Barbara Boxer concerning short sales and taxes on the forgiven debt. The new IRS letter indicates that forgiven short sale debt is not subject to cancellation of debt (COD) income only if it is non-recourse at its inception and that their prior letter was overly broad.
In their new April 29, 2014 letter, the IRS states that in order for a debt to be non-recourse at the time of the short sale, the original debt must be used to purchase or build a 1-4 principal residence or a refinance of such debt. As in the prior letter the IRS affirms that a lender’s forgiveness of such debt in a short sale will not result in COD income, but instead will be treated as capital gains. And as before, single or joint tax filers selling a principal residence can use the appropriate $250,000 or $500,000 capital gains exclusion.
What changed is that a loan used to substantially improve the taxpayer’s principal residence may now be treated as COD income instead of capital gains. Additionally, the IRS clarified that an investor’s short sale debt will also be characterized by the nature of the debt at inception. If it was recourse debt (non principal residence purchase) originally, it will remain recourse debt at the time of the short sale. This may be somewhat good news for investors who may prefer to have short sale debt treated as COD income rather than capital gains. COD income may be avoided under a claim of insolvency where capital gains cannot.
C.A.R. will continue to seek additional clarification about some issues not addressed, such as a taxpayer’s reliance on the IRS’s prior letter, and whether forgiven home improvement debt should not also be excluded from COD income. As always REALTORS® must advise their clients that they cannot give tax advice and that the client should seek tax advice from a qualified tax professional. A copy of the letter from the IRS is available for reference.
by Jim the Realtor | May 2, 2014 | Flips, REOs, Short Sales
The MLS shows that 11% of the 1Q14 residential sales in SD County were REO and short sales, and this article shows 7.1% flips (hat tip to SD Squatter):
Realty Trac, the nation’s leading source for comprehensive housing data, today released its Q1 2014 U.S. Home Flipping Report, which shows 3.7 percent of all U.S. single family home sales were flips — where a home is purchased and subsequently sold again within six months — in the first quarter of 2014, down from 4.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 and down from 6.5 percent in the first quarter of 2013.
Among metro areas with a population of at least 1 million and at least 25 single family homes flipped in the first quarter, those with the highest share of flips in the first quarter were New York (10.2 percent), Jacksonville, Fla., (10.0 percent), San Diego (7.1 percent), Las Vegas (6.7 percent) and Miami (5.9 percent).
Eighty-two percent of all properties flipped in the first quarter were sold to owner-occupants; 18 percent to buyers with a different mailing address than the property. Forty-three percent of all properties flipped in the first quarter were all-cash sales to the new buyer.
http://www.realtytrac.com/content/foreclosure-market-report/q1-2014-us-home-flipping-report-8047
by Jim the Realtor | Apr 23, 2014 | Bubbleinfo TV, One-Story, Short Sales, Short Selling
The elimination of short sales has had several benefits – one is a cheerier outlook on life by one easy-going realtor:
by Jim the Realtor | Apr 22, 2014 | Fraud, Scams, Short Sales, Short Selling |
Here is investigative reporting for you.
Jason Hidalgo from the Reno Gazette-Journal found that dual-agency short sales with a prearranged cash buyer accounted for more than 10 percent of Northern Nevada’s 2,096 single-family home short sales last year. He looked me up in February to get my thoughts on short-sale flipping, and then in his story he lays out two offenders:
http://pages.rgj.com/specialreports/soldshort/index.html
Here is an excerpt:
Krch Realty, which triple dipped commissions on more than half of its dual-agency short sales with cash buyers last year, did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
Marshall Realty accounted for nearly a third of such short sales in 2013. Broker-owner Marshall Carrasco defended his company’s transactions and referred further questions to his lawyer, who wrote to the Reno Gazette-Journal to “proceed with caution” on any article about Carrasco.
“Mr. Carrasco and Marshall Realty have represented many sellers in short sale transactions,” attorney James M. Walsh wrote. “As noted, full disclosure is made to the short sale sellers of the nature of the transaction. Mr. Carrasco, on occasion, presents these listings to individuals or entities that he knows are interested in purchasing short sale properties.”
Investor Jeremy Page of Harcourts NV1 Realty, a key player in the area’s real estate investment scene, stressed that all his short sale deals were done within the scope of the law. Page says his short sale purchases not only took distressed houses out of the market, they pumped more than $20 million back into the Northern Nevada economy in 2013 in the form of payments to suppliers and contractors who worked on his properties, as well as real estate agent commissions.
Real estate experts say such short sales come at the expense of the average homeowners, who do not fully understand how real estate transactions work, making them easy targets. It’s a problem that’s not limited to Nevada but is seen in other states as well where agents bend the rules for profit, said Jim Klinge, broker for California-based Klinge Realty.
“Typically, the homeowners don’t even know what they signed when these sharks get into their living rooms,” Klinge said. “I have had people call me asking if they have been taken advantage of, and in every case the answer is yes, but they never asked questions.”
The practice is especially a concern in Nevada, which saw the steepest decline in home values at the peak of the U.S. housing crisis. In recent years, the FBI identified the Silver State as a prime target for short sale fraud due to its high percentage of distressed properties.
Klinge called the lax environment surrounding short sales laughable.
“Nothing is done by anybody to stop this outright defrauding of banks, servicers and investors,” Klinge said. “There is no law enforcement or industry watchdogs, so it runs unabated. When other agents see people get away with it and make 5 percent or 6 percent commissions, then the amateurs give themselves permission to do it, too. It is going to take a district attorney vigorously pursuing this until we see perp walks nightly” for it to stop.
http://pages.rgj.com/specialreports/soldshort/index.html
This stuff happened in every major city in America over the last 2-4 years, and thankfully it’s mostly over. Thank you Jason for a great investigative report!
Jason answers reader questions here:
http://www.rgj.com/story/news/2014/04/21/short-sale-flipping-reporter-answers-reader-questions/7983239/
Their Facebook entry here with 25+ comments and 57 likes:
by Jim the Realtor | Apr 17, 2014 | Foreclosures/REOs, No-Foreclosure as Banking Policy, Short Sales, Short Selling |
From RealtyTrac:
http://www.realtytrac.com/content/foreclosure-market-report/q1-2014-home-equity-and-underwater-report-8037
“The relatively high percentage of foreclosures with equity is surprising to many because it would seem homeowners with equity could easily avoid foreclosure by leveraging that equity by refinancing or with an equity sale of the home,” Blomquist noted.
No surprise here.
With no pressure from anyone to foreclose on non-payers, mortgage servicers can be picky about who gets foreclosed. It makes sense to foreclose where you can make a profit, and let the still-underwater folks ride the gravy train for another year or two.
Deadbeats don’t need to panic, it’s still quiet around SD County:
by Jim the Realtor | Mar 5, 2014 | Fraud, Jim's Take on the Market, Scams, Short Sales, Short Selling |
Hat tip to Booty Juice! From calcoastnews.com:
Timothy William Barnes, 37, pleaded guilty Monday to committing bank fraud. Barnes, a San Francisco resident, owned and operated Apex Properties Real Estate Brokerage in San Luis Obispo. Barnes is accused of orchestrating a property-flipping scheme in San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Pismo Beach and other Central Coast cities that netted him more than $500,000 in profits between January 2010 and September 2012.
Barnes understated the value of homes in documents he submitted to banks that he was asking to approve short sales. He then sold the houses at higher prices. Often Barnes concealed higher offers he had already received and simultaneously negotiated the short sale and resale of the houses.
Short sales can occur when the value of a property drops below the amount of money owed on the mortgage. In that instance, a bank can agree to a short sale, in which it accepts less than the total owed on the loan.
The FBI and the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Inspector General investigated the Barnes’s property-flipping scheme. FBI agents raided his downtown San Luis Obispo office in September 2012.
Barnes is scheduled for sentencing on June 16. He faces a maximum of 30 years in federal prison.
http://calcoastnews.com/2014/03/former-slo-broker-charged-federal-bank-fraud/
by Jim the Realtor | Mar 5, 2014 | Foreclosures/REOs, REO Inventory, Shadow Inventory, Short Sales, Short Selling
After seeing Bernanke holding the smoking gun on Monday (where he said that he told banks to not disrupt the economy with their REOs), did you give up hope getting a deal on a distressed sale?
If not, this might push you closer to believing.
Here is the mix of NSDCC detached listings this year:
REOs: 1
Short-sales: 10
Non-distressed: 825
REO listing agents, flippers, and short-sale scammers have to be scrambling. Keep your head down!
by Jim the Realtor | Jan 10, 2014 | Short Sales, Short Selling
Can we make the case that short sales are the precursor to foreclosures?
Those underwater probably won’t sell unless pressure is being applied through the foreclsoure process. The ‘waterfall’ of banker events starts with a loan-mod attempt, and if that doesn’t work, then a try at short selling before getting foreclosed.
Here are the counts of SD County short-sale listings that have hit the MLS between Jan 1-9 (there will be a few added to this year’s number):
2011: 395
2012: 337
2013: 148
2014: 38
It doesn’t look like the foreclosure machine is back in business yet. Many thought that the dropoff was due to banks having to re-tool due to the newly passed CA Homeowners Bill of Rights causing the 148 last year.
The decline has been steady on the graph below. It’s hard to believe that the defaulters just started making their payments all of a sudden:
