Welcome to My Blog! If you want to Sell you House Fast, You have some to the right place!

I am an average home buyer just like you who also runs a real estate investment company in North County San Diego, ND Real Estate Solutions. This blog is a helpful resource for those who want to sell their home for any reason. If you are in foreclosure, behind in payments, facing bankruptcy, moving quickly, paying two mortgage payment or have a home that needs significant repairs, you have come to the right place. Browse the useful links, read the archived posts to get the latest on real estate news, tips on how to sell your house and sign up for my free e-course on how to sell your house quickly for top dollar. This course covers every phase of the home selling process. It helps you determine if selling with a Realtor is right for you. It discusses how to choose the best Realtor or how to work with an investor and much more. If you would like to receive an instant offer, visit me on the web at www.SDHomeSaver.com. Best of luck and I wish you all the best.

What a Buyer Wants

In this market many sellers must be scratching their heads and wondering, "What does a buyer want?"

In the simplest terms, they want value. Value is made up of many variables and the home's price has the most weight. After that could be location or schools, or some other quality about the house that fits the buyers lifestyle. In a seller's market, buyers are willing to pay top dollar because they know they will get the value out of the home as the price continues to rise. In this market though, buyers know the home prices are falling and want to get the house as cheap as they can.

Because price weighs so heavily in the equation, it can easily solve most issues. As sellers in this market, you must be prepared to lower the price and be honest about the feedback you are getting from your marketing and open houses. Here are some good rules-of-thumb to follow:
- If you're getting showings and offers, your list price is about right.

- If you're getting showings and no offers, you're 5% to 10% too high.

- If you're getting no showings, your list price is at least 10% too high.

Be careful not to fall into these mental traps, the market is changing...

A. "I'm not in a hurry"

B. "I'll wait for the right buyer" or

C. "I'm not going to give it away",

Your 'days on market' are killing your chances of selling for top dollar. Buyers figure that if you've been on the market for 30 or more days, all the other buyers before them must have passed on yours for a reason - the price ain't right.

If you have tried to sell your home and your listing has expired, call me. I can make an offer on your home in less that 48 hours and will be able to buy it from from for cash or lease it from you.

If you would like to receive an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. Remember, I don't list homes, I buy them. I work hard to understand your unique situation and create an offer that meets your needs, and solves your situation. If you would like to understand more of your options on how best to sell your home, sign up for my free e-course. It offers excellent advice on how to pick the best realtor, sell your house as a FSBO, or how best to work with an investor to sell your house. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.

Freddie Mac Pulls Back

Here is an excellent article that discusses the effect foreclosures, sub-prime lending, and falling real estate prices are having on Federal lending guidelines. For those of you thinking about selling your home, there are a couple of implications:
1. In a short time it will likely be more difficult to to find qualified buyers. The days of 100% financing are quickly coming to a close. When you receive offers, make sure the buyers are qualified and can make a decent down payment.
2. Because buyers will likely find it harder to qualify, the pool of potential buyers will certainly shrink as well. It may be harder to find buyers and buyers will certainly be pushing for the lowest price because they can only qualify for the low end of your price range.

Bottom line, be sure to price your home right and be willing to sacrifice some money in the purchase price for a buyer who is willing to commit more money upfront and is a strong candidate to receive the needed financing.

During the housing boom that ended in 2005, money was poured into home loans that let people buy homes with little down or without verifying their incomes. Now, lenders, financiers and buyers of mortgages are pulling back.

In a sign of that wariness, Freddie Mac, one of the largest buyers of mortgages, said yesterday that it would tighten lending standards and stop buying certain kinds of risky home loans made to borrowers with weak, or subprime, credit records.

The move comes as default rates are rising, smaller lenders are starting to fail and investors are shunning bonds backed by mortgages.

The pullback will be most severely felt by minority and poor home buyers and owners, who will face trouble in refinancing adjustable rate loans that they can no longer afford. Those looking to buy homes with a small down payment or none could also be forced to pay higher interest rates and may not be able simply to declare their income without providing documentation like tax returns and paycheck stubs.

“Lenders and originators are being significantly penalized for the loose standards that we saw last year,” said Brian J. Carlin, head of fixed-income trading at JPMorgan Private Bank. “And they are going to take that out on current borrowers.”

Financiers and buyers of mortgages are more concerned about the risks of their own investments. Though some skeptics and critics had been concerned about subprime mortgages for several years, the mortgages only recently began falling out of favor on Wall Street.

The tipping points have been weakness in home prices and rising default rates among mortgages written as recently as the first half of 2006. In certain kinds of loans, the default rates six months after mortgages were issued are two or three times higher than defaults at the same stage among loans written in 2005.

Indeed, concerns about the deterioration of the subprime market have weighed on financial stocks. Those concerns persisted yesterday amid a sharp sell-off in stock markets around the world.

Although large forces in the mortgage market, Freddie Mac and its larger sister, Fannie Mae — both created by Congress — have played a small and diminishing role in the subprime business as large Wall Street institutions and hedge funds have become more active.

The mortgage agencies do not buy such loans directly from the companies that write them, as they do with prime loans. Instead, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy bonds backed by subprime loans.

Even as the market was growing in recent years, the agencies were pulling back; they bought $119.8 billion of subprime bonds in 2006, down from $169.4 billion in 2005 and $175.6 billion in 2004, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication.

But Freddie’s announcement is confirmation to other investors in mortgages that a segment of the market that was once Wall Street’s darling finds itself in the doghouse.

“Freddie is giving its stamp of approval to what the market has already done,” said Dwight Jaffee, a real estate finance professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “Already consumers were going to be finding these loans harder to get.”

In another sign of problems in the sector, the Corporation">Fremont General Corporation, a large provider of subprime mortgages through brokers and lenders, postponed filing earnings for the fourth quarter and for 2006.

Yesterday’s move by Freddie Mac comes at a time when the Democratic-controlled Congress is taking up bills to restrict what critics call “predatory lending” and measures intended to limit Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which have been under scrutiny in recent years because of accounting problems. The agencies were created to make it cheaper for Americans to buy homes, by buying mortgages and packaging them into tradable bonds; together, they buy one in five home mortgages issued nationally.

Freddie’s move was praised by Democratic leaders in Congress and housing advocacy groups. The groups have criticized lenders, saying they take advantage of unsophisticated home buyers by giving them loans that are more costly and onerous than they could qualify for. But the Mortgage Bankers Association of America questioned the decision, saying it would hurt minority and other underserved home buyers.

In a statement released yesterday, Fannie Mae said subprime loans represented just 2.2 percent of its business and it would not change its approach to the market until its regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, hands down guidance on mortgages.

Richard F. Syron, Freddie’s chairman and chief executive, noted that the agencies played a small part in the subprime market, with his agency holding about $184 billion of subprime securities in its portfolio.

Still, he added, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae would be called upon to play a bigger role as more lenders and investors pull out of the market in the coming months. He also rebutted the idea that the agency’s move would hurt borrowers.

“You have to come back to the question: Do you want someone that is in a difficult situation now to get themselves into an even more difficult situation later on because they have postponed a day of reckoning?” Mr. Syron said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Freddie will put its new, stricter standards into effect for loans written on Sept. 1 and after. The impact will be greatest on adjustable rate mortgages that have a low fixed rate for the first two or three years but that adjust to higher rates after that. Under the new guidelines, borrowers will have to qualify as if the higher rates were already in effect.

It will also “strongly recommend” that lenders collect borrowers’ taxes and insurance payments and put them in escrow for borrowers, a common practice in prime lending but one that is not uniformly followed in the subprime world.

But the Mortgage Bankers Association criticized the move, specifically Freddie’s decision not to buy bonds backed by adjustable rate mortgages if borrowers do not make enough money to make payments at the highest possible rate under the loans. Lenders will often make such loans based on borrowers’ ability to pay the low initial payments.

Kurt P. Pfotenhauer, a senior vice president with the mortgage bankers’ group, said most borrowers refinance their loans before they adjust to higher, variable rates. He also noted that though defaults were rising, only 13.5 percent of subprime borrowers were either behind on payments or in foreclosure.

“Put another way, 86.5 percent of people who have subprime ARMs are paying on time,” he said.

The Federal Reserve reported yesterday that 2.11 percent of residential loans held by banks were delinquent at the end of 2006, the highest that figure has been since 2002.

Still, other industry officials say the debate over Freddie’s new, tighter standards will most likely be moot by the time they take effect, because bankers and brokers are already well on their way to tightening the money flowing into the housing market.

First Franklin, one of the nation’s largest subprime lenders and a subsidiary of Merrill Lynch & Company, recently told mortgage brokers it does business with that it was raising the minimum credit scores for borrowers who wanted to finance 100 percent of a home’s purchase price.

All first-time home buyers will be required to put down at least 5 percent of the purchase price, or verify their income with tax documents.

Community HousingWorks, a counseling service in San Diego, has seen an influx of borrowers who are in default on adjustable rate loans that had a fixed interest rate for the first two years of the loan’s life.

Gabriel del Rio, homeownership director at the counseling service, said many of the people are stuck in a tough place because weak credit scores make it hard for them to get another loan and the falling value of homes in the area has made it harder to sell properties bought in recent years. The price of single-family homes fell 4.5 percent in San Diego in the fourth quarter, according to the National Association of Realtors.

“We are getting about one call a day, and that started in the last quarter of last year,” Mr. del Rio said. “Before then it was literally nothing. We got one or two calls a year.”

Robert Moulton, who owns a mortgage brokerage firm on Long Island, said the industry’s greatest failing was not fully anticipating or preparing for the troubles of the housing market, especially the drop in home prices in some areas. Too many people believed that home prices would not or could not fall.

Adjustable rate loans made sense as long as home prices were rising; borrowers could sell their properties for more than they bought them or refinance using their rising equity.

“When these subprime loans were written, I honestly don’t think anyone from the borrowers to the bank anticipated a collapse in real estate values,” he said.






If you would like to receive an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. Remember, I don't list homes, I buy them. I work hard to understand your unique situation and create an offer that meets your needs, and solves your situation. If you would like to understand more of your options on how best to sell your home, sign up for my free e-course. It offers excellent advice on how to pick the best realtor, sell your house as a FSBO, or how best to work with an investor to sell your house. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.

San Diego Foreclosure Rates and 100% Financing

Here is a short clip from an excellent blog maintained by Ben Jones in Arizona. The article details the decline in San Diego Real Estate and the effect sub-prime and $0 down loans had on the real estate boom and the growing number of foreclosures resulting from those loans.


The interesting thing to keep in mind is what will the effect be on lending and people able to get no money down loans. I was talking with a loan broker today and discussing how I, as a Real Estate investor, could help them. As we talked, I brought up Lease Option or Rent to Own programs. He thought that those had gone away but he remembered them being quite common in the 1980's and 1990's. Well my guess is that they will be coming back as lenders will have to conform to more strict lending guidelines and fewer borrows will qualify. If you don't understand rent to own programs, they are an excellent way to buy and sell your house. For the buyer, they offer great flexibility in the sense that you can try out a home before you buy it. What if you don't like the neighbors, or think the traffic noise is too loud? In most cases, you are stuck! I know that I wished I would have known that I was moving next to a very nosey neighbor before I moved in. They also are excellent ways of repairing your credit and making it easier for a lender to qualify you for a loan. If you are recovering from a divorce, a lay-off, or some other unfortunate event and have a good paying job, making one year's worth of payments goes a long way to help you qualify. For the Seller, it offers instant debt relief, in some cases increased cash flow and at the very least, someone else is paying off your mortgage for some time. That is not a bad deal at all. If you would like to learn more about Lease Options from the buyers and sellers perspective, sign up for my free e-course or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com.

Now for the article...To read the entire post, click on the title of this post.

The Voice of San Diego reports from California. “The number of San Diego County homes in some level of foreclosure activity reached 1,150 last month, according to RealtyTrac. That’s up 20 percent from January 2006 and up more than 240 percent from the first month of 2005. But even as the market has slowed, the popularity of risky loans has spread. New data for San Diego County reveals that 67 percent of loans made in the first 11 months of 2006 were interest-only or negatively amortized.”

“Of that 67 percent, 30 percent were negative-amortization loans, a threefold increase since January 2004 and 30-fold jump since January 2003, according to FirstAmerican Loan Performance.”

“Last week, a San Diego-based subprime lender, Accredited Home Lenders, joined the ranks of companies vowing to tighten standards after reports of significant losses last quarter. Rick Sharga of RealtyTrac said he’s noticed the link between the lenders’ stricter regulations and the rate of foreclosure activity. ‘I think the two go hand-in-hand,’ Sharga said.”

“Now, home values have stopped appreciating and pricing in some areas has leveled or even declined. Last month, the median sale price for a home in San Diego County was 5.6 percent lower, nearly $30,000, than the $500,000 price logged in January 2006, according to DataQuick.”

“In a report published in December, the Center for Responsible Lending stated that the default rate for subprime loans made between 1998 and 2001 was 3.2 percent in San Diego County. But for the nearly 5,000 such loans originating in 2006, the center predicts that 21.4 percent are headed for default.”

“‘There are some fundamental flaws in the underwriting process that are coming back to haunt lenders,’ the centers’ Paul Leonard said. ‘The lenders seemed to count on appreciation rather than the people’s actual income.’”

If you would like to receive an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. Remember, I don't list homes, I buy them. I work hard to understand your unique situation and create an offer that meets your needs, and solves your situation. If you would like to understand more of your options on how best to sell your home, sign up for my free e-course. It offers excellent advice on how to pick the best realtor, sell your house as a FSBO, or how best to work with an investor to sell your house. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.



Luxury Home Prices Slip in San Diego

Latest indication of the Real Estate market slowing in the San Diego area...


By Dan Levy

Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Luxury home prices in California, the nation's most expensive real estate market, fell for the first time in two years as potential buyers waited for prices to fall and fewer sellers received multiple offers, according to a survey by San Francisco-based First Republic Bank.

The average price of a luxury home fell to $2.9 million in San Francisco, $2.35 million in Los Angeles and $2.15 million in San Diego, First Republic said. The bank's survey covers hundreds of homes in places such as Atherton, Los Gatos, Orinda and Tiburon in Northern California and Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Malibu, Del Mar and La Jolla in Southern California.

Fourth-quarter prices for a basket of high-end homes tracked by the bank's own index fell 1.5 percent in the San Francisco area and 1.3 percent in the San Diego area. That's the first quarterly drop in those cities since 2004, First Republic said. In the Los Angeles area, prices declined 0.8 percent, the first drop since 2002.

What has your experience been in selling luxury homes in the San Diego area?

To read the full article, click on the title of this post.

If you would like to receive an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. Remember, I don't list homes, I buy them. I work hard to understand your unique situation and create an offer that meets your needs, and solves your situation. If you would like to understand more of your options on how best to sell your home, sign up for my free e-course. It offers excellent advice on how to pick the best realtor, sell your house as a FSBO, or how best to work with an investor to sell your house. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.



Who is your Open House Really Helping?

In a continuing of series of posts looking at whose interest a Realtor really serves, this post briefly touches on open houses and who is really best served by them, you the seller or the listing agent.

The below portion is an excerpt from an article on MSN. Here the Realtor clearly explains why she holds open houses - TO MEET NEW CLIENTS, NOT SELL YOUR HOUSE! Again, if you are going to sell your home, think carefully about how you will sell it and sign up for my free e-course to help save you from a lot of mistakes and head aches.

Los Angeles real estate agent Liz Johnson loves open houses, but not because they move her properties. The real reason Johnson holds them is because they bring her more business. Prospective home buyers walk through and ask what other listings she has. "They've always been better for agents than sellers," she says.

The proliferation of Internet listings and other online real estate information is quickly making open houses more of an option, rather than a requirement for selling a home. In 1995, just 2% of home buyers used the Internet to look for a home, according to the National Association of Realtors. Last year, 77% of home buyers shopped online.

Indeed, only 2% to 4% of Johnson's listings sell from open houses. "It's not a necessity," she says.

If the prospect of dealing with Realtors that you don't know if you can trust or not and you just need to sell your house quickly, then you may want to visit my website. If you would like to receive an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. Remember, I don't list homes, I buy them. I work hard to understand your unique situation and create an offer that meets your needs, and solves your situation. If you would like to understand more of your options on how best to sell your home, sign up for my free e-course. It offers excellent advice on how to pick the best realtor, sell your house as a FSBO, or how best to work with an investor to sell your house. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.

Does a Realtor Really Represent Your Interests?

The following was actually a comment from another blog I was reading and. It made me think about some of the many concerns a seller should have when they consider hiring a listing agent. The issue here is understanding whose interests the Realtor is really representing.

Our listing agent screwed up the multiple offers situation when we put our house on market in summer of 2005. We received two offers within a week, one buyer offered lower price but with half million cash down payment and a 30-day escrow, the other buyer offered higher price but with very low down payment and asked for 60-day escrow. Our agent persuaded to go with the higher offer even though we preferred the lower offer with 30-day escrow. It turned out our listing agent is a good friend of the buy agent he favored. Unfortunately escrow fell through, and due to the long escrow period we agreed to, we missed the peak selling season. When we listed the house again in September, it took multiple price reductions to finally find another buyer in early 2006.

I had a slightly different experience when I bought my first home. My wife and I were tired of renting and we decided we were ready to buy. We were inexperienced and went with a Realtor we really didn't interview. My wife did her own searching and found a probate sale home and we decided to make an offer. To make a long story short, because the seller was motivated, our Realtor was bidding on the property at the same time we were! She would submit low ball offers and then encourage us to submit high-end bids. Her ruse was finally uncovered when she accidentally faxed us a counter offer that was hers. We contacted the listing agent and she told us what she thought was happening. You need to be careful and ask your Realtor tough questions.

Keep an eye out for other articles that talk about how to interview Realtors and how to make the best choice. You can also sign up for my free e-course that talks about this topic and many others. Selling your house with a Realtor is only one way to sell your home. If you decide to take that route, that's great, but don't think the work is done for you. As this blog shows, choosing the wrong Realtor can spell disaster.


If you would like to receive an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. Remember, I don't list homes, I buy them. I work hard to understand your unique situation and create an offer that meets your needs, and solves your situation. If you would like to understand more of your options on how best to sell your home, sign up for my free e-course. It offers excellent advice on how to pick the best realtor, sell your house as a FSBO, or how best to work with an investor to sell your house. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.

No Down, AS Foreclosures Rise..The Economy will Likely Suffer

This short video clip explores the connection between so many home owners who purchased their home with little or nothing down and financed the purchase with sub-prime loans. The bottom line is that these homeowners are far more likely to default on their loan. Because they can't pay their mortgage, the assumption is that they likely won't really be able to buy other goods and services which will further hamper the economy. This is only the effect that the home owner has, it does not include the effect the banks, losing all this money in defaulted loans, will have.

The other lesson here is that housing decline is not likely to end any time soon. The ripple effect of the defaulted loans should last at least as long as the housing market downturn of the 1990's if not longer.

If you are thinking about selling your home and want to sell quickly and still get the most out of this market, do your research, understand your options, price it right, and sign up for my free e-course. If you want to sell even faster, visit my website http://SDHomeSaver.com and click on the instant cash offer link.

Good luck and I look forward to hearing from you.

How to Auction Your House

This is an option that many homeowners don't consider and it is a good one. If you watched the earlier video where the Realtor did a silent auction and compare it to this seller who conducted the auction differently.
To find out more helpful tips and what mistakes to avoid, sign up for my free e course. We discuss auctions and how best to use them to sell your house fast. No Realtors, no commissions, just some marketing know-how and a little preparation. Go ahead, sign up, what have you got to lose!

Real estate tips - interviewing listing agents w/ Jim Klinge

This is a very helpful video from a Realtor in Carlsbad who works all throughout San Diego. he has many helpful tips on how to choose a listing agent.

If you like these tips and want more helpful tips, sign up for my free e-course to have the latest tips and techniques to help you sell your home fast.

Short Sale

So many home owners are in this situation and you should not feel alone if you are facing the same situation. Notice in this situation how the bank may not accept the lower offer on the house and the bank may still force the home owner to pay taxes on the difference of what is owed and the sale price.
If you are behind on your payments, you have a couple of options. Obviously someone willing to pay at least what you owe and cover the closing costs would be nice, but that is likely not reality, it certainly isn't for these home owners. An additional option that you may want to consider is allowing an investor to take over your payments for a period of time, then split the equity in the sale of the home. This may sound outrageous to some, but there are many benefits to the seller. It "stops the bleeding" of the monthly mortgage payments. It allows an investor to improve the home and make the needed upgrades for the house to be more desirable.

To find out more about how these selling solutions work, sign up for my free e-course. In I will show you how I, as an investor, structure deals to help the home owner. What I look for and what I need to assume the risk of the home. You will be well prepared to talk with an investor and understand what he realistically can do. You will know how to avoid scams and protect yourself.

If you are even thinking of having to sell your house and need to sell your house fast, sign up for the e course. If your house is vacant or the payments are just too much for you to pay, contact me at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com or click on the instant cash offer the helpful links. I look forward to hearing from you.

Option A.R.M. Loans

If you have an Option ARM loan and it has recently adjusted or you are worried become it is about to, you know all about this video. If you in an Option ARM loan and don't understand what the loan is, please watch this video! If you see your Option period is coming to a close, and you are not sure what to do, please conact me at sdhomesaver@gmail.com. If you live in North County or San Diego County and need to sell or refinance, please call me; I can help.

Hard to Sell

This video from YouTube shows one home owner who is in the same position that many sellers find themselves in. He needs to sell his house fast, but has had to continually lower his price to find a buyer. He has made several costly mistakes along the way, choosing the wrong Realtor, pricing the house incorrectly, not staging the home, and the list goes on. To avoid these costly mistakes, sign up for my e course that helps you understand your options and proceed confidently with whatever you choose. Don't let this be you.

House Doesn't have any Foot TrafficWhy Not Try Auctioning Your House

The video from YouTube describes one Realtors approach to trying to get more foot traffic in her listing. She used a silent auction. While it did increase the foot traffic, it did not sell the house. Auctioning your home is an excellent way to sell your house quickly, but she made a few mistakes in her execution. She should have held a public auction and increased the bidding fever. To find out how to use auctions effectively, sign up for my free e-course and learn how to set up your own auction or find a local auction company that handles everything.

Mortgage Rates on the Way Back Up

Saving your home may mean refinancing it to get cash out. Mortgage rates are slightly increasing and may increase even more. The article below shows how interest rates are rising slowly. This is critical to understanding how you can still sell your house quickly despite interest rates rising. Sign up for my free e-course and learn how "Owner Financing" will push your listing to the top of all Buyers' list.

Freddie Mac reported that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages rose to 6.3 percent this week from 6.28 percent last week. Last week had been the first decline in rates since early December.

Rates on 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages edged up to 6.03 percent from 6.02 percent. Five-year, adjustable-rate mortgages rose to 6.01 percent from 5.99 percent. One-year ARMs rose to 5.52 percent from 5.49 percent.

The mortgage rates do not include add-on fees known as points. Thirty-year and 15-year mortgages each carried a nationwide average fee of 0.4 point. Five-year mortgages carried an average fee of 0.5 point, while one-year mortgages carried a fee of 0.6 point.


If you would like to receive an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. Remember, I don't list homes, I buy them. I work hard to understand your unique situation and create an offer that meets your needs, and solves your situation. If you would like to understand more of your options on how best to sell your home, sign up for my free e-course. It offers excellent advice on how to pick the best realtor, sell your house as a FSBO, or how best to work with an investor to sell your house. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.

How Does San Diego County Compare to Other Southern CA Counties

DataQuick recently released their homes sales statistics. The following link takes you to an excellent analysis of the DataQuick numbers and shows how San Diego County compares to other counties in Southern California.

The bottom line, San Diego has slowed and will likely continue to slow.

http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/2007/02/dataquick.html

If you would like to receive an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. Remember, I don't list homes, I buy them. I work hard to understand your unique situation and create an offer that meets your needs, and solves your situation. If you would like to understand more of your options on how best to sell your home, sign up for my free e-course. It offers excellent advice on how to pick the best realtor, sell your house as a FSBO, or how best to work with an investor to sell your house. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.

Hard luck for housing

The below article describes how housing prices compare to previous years in San Diego County. They are not promising and homes prices have slipped to 2004 levels. One of the important things to keep in mind is the optimism at the end of the article. The California Association of Realtors (CAR) continues to say that the bottom has been hit and 2007 will be better, but historical precedent clearly tells us that the market will get much worse. If you decide to sell with a Realtor, price your house right!

If you would like to receive an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. Remember, I don't list homes, I buy them. I work hard to understand your unique situation and create an offer that meets your needs, and solves your situation. If you would like to understand more of your options on how best to sell your home, sign up for my free e-course. It offers excellent advice on how to pick the best realtor, sell your house as a FSBO, or how best to work with an investor to sell your house. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.


Countywide price median at its lowest point since July 2004

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

February 15, 2007




San Diego County housing prices slid a bit further last month, returning to mid-2004 levels, as buyers pressed for more concessions from builders and discounts from sellers.

The overall median price stood at $472,000, down 5.6 percent from a year ago and $23,000, or 4.6 percent, less than in December, DataQuick Information Systems reported yesterday. The last time the median was that low was in July 2004, when it was $470,000. The market reached its all-time peak of $517,500 in November 2005.

Single-family resale homes, the biggest part of the market, shed $20,000 from the January 2006 level of $560,000, but the latest median of $540,000 was unchanged from December.

Similarly, the resale condominium median was unchanged at $380,000 from December to January. It was 3.6 percent below the year-ago level of $394,000.

It was in the new-housing sector that the biggest price fluctuations occurred. The median for newly built houses, condos and condo conversions was $395,000, down 8.8 percent from the $433,000 median one year ago and a dip of 14 percent from the December median of $460,000.

Tim Sullivan, a San Diego-based real estate analyst, said what's at work in the new-housing category is a buildup of completed, unsold inventory – finished homes sitting empty in subdivisions and condo projects.

“Inventory (of unsold homes) is the bugaboo everyone is focused on,” Sullivan said.

Sharon Hanley, who publishes a weekly bulletin on local new-home sales, reported that the inventory of unsold homes stood at 5,095 at the end of January – a 36-week supply – with 871 detached and 4,224 attached homes available. At the same time five years ago, the inventory was 2,378 homes.

To reduce the backlog last year, many builders began offering incentives, such as upgrades, discounts and special financing.

Tom Archbold, vice president for sales and marketing at San Diego-based Hallmark Communities, said the company's just-opened, 22-unit Vineyard project in San Marcos offers $30,000 in incentives on single-family homes built on small lots. Prices range from $459,000 to $554,000. Three of the first seven homes released were sold over the weekend.

Archbold said the incentives, usually taken in the form of interest-rate buy-downs, may not last much longer.

“It's not going to get any better than this,” he said.

Hallmark President Mike Hall said last year's sluggish new-home market prompted him to delay his next project, Dixie Village in Oceanside, by several months. Grading is now scheduled to start in April, with sales beginning in June.

“There was a lot of inventory on the market, and that caused prices to soften,” Hall said. “We have enough lots to build on right now, so we're holding them back.”

Tony Pauker, who heads Olson Co.'s San Diego division, said his sales staff detects a slight change in mood among visitors to the company's projects.

“Traffic isn't up terribly in terms of gross traffic, but of those, the true buyers are actively looking in the market,” Pauker said.

To adjust to the slower pace of sales, Olson plans no new openings this year, Pauker said.

DataQuick reported that San Diego's home sales in January totaled 2,772, 4.3 percent below year-ago levels.

The January sales pace marked the 31st straight month of year-over-year declines, but it was the smallest drop since August 2005 and sharply contrasted with the 18.1 percent year-over-year decline registered in December.

The figures were derived from a revised methodology adopted by DataQuick that includes about 10 percent more transactions than previously considered. The way regional median prices are calculated also was altered slightly.

On a month-over-month basis, January had 27.5 percent fewer sales than December, but it was the smallest January pullback from December sales levels in five years. January almost always sees fewer sales than December because so many builders and consumers want to close escrow for tax reasons before the end of the year.

By other measurements, the housing market is not necessarily recovering rapidly from the 2006 downturn. The number of active listings this week on the Sandicor multiple listing service stood at about 16,700, higher than 16,300 last month and 14,200 a year ago, but lower than the cycle's peak of nearly 23,000 in August. The average time it took to sell a resale house last month was 81 days, compared with 69 days a year ago.

Even if slower than a year ago, San Diego's sales pace was much healthier than in other Southern California counties, DataQuick reported. There were 18,128 sales in Southern California last month, down 17.2 percent from January 2006. Riverside County was off 34.2 percent, followed by San Bernardino County, down 28.5 percent, and Orange County, down 16.3 percent. Los Angeles was off 6.9 percent.

As for the resale market, David Cabot, president of the San Diego Association of Realtors and a top executive with Prudential California Realty, said agents in his company and around the county were more optimistic about the coming year.

“I believe the bottom has been hit and should level out and should be going up a little bit,” Cabot said. “I don't know if that is accurate; we'll have to wait until June to see.”

It wasn't just real estate agents who were seeing an end to the downturn. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke before Congress yesterday about the “drag from housing” diminishing, while his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, told a Canadian audience that the “worst is behind us.”

Downturn in housing sends Accredited's revenue south

The below article describes the secondary effects the slowing housing market has on lenders. If you need to sell your home or may be losing your home to foreclosure, you need to be careful if you are considering refinancing your equity to get cash and take care of bills and other debts. In many cases, it is better to sell the home and get a portion of the equity and no longer have to worry about the house, then it is to refinance and still have to worry about making house payments.

If you would like to receive an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. Remember, I don't list homes, I buy them. I work hard to understand your unique situation and create an offer that meets your needs, and solves your situation. If you would like to understand more of your options on how best to sell your home, sign up for my free e-course. It offers excellent advice on how to pick the best realtor, sell your house as a FSBO, or how best to work with an investor to sell your house. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

February 15, 2007

San Diego's Accredited Home Lenders posted a hefty fourth-quarter loss yesterday as the housing downturn continued to take a toll on lenders who specialize in mortgages for borrowers with blemished credit.

Accredited, the nation's 11th-largest subprime lender, lost $37.8 million for the quarter, or $1.49 per share. That compared with a $43.2 million profit a year earlier.

Revenue dropped 60 percent for the quarter to $59 million as the company boosted credit standards for borrowers and consequently lost business to competitors.

For the year, the company reported net income of $57.7 million, or $2.48 a share, down from $155 million, or $7.37 a share, in 2005.

This reversal of fortune is not limited to Accredited. The entire subprime industry has been trampled as more borrowers default on their loans and investors who buy mortgages become wary of purchasing subprime loans.

Last year, at least three subprime lenders collapsed into bankruptcy reorganization. Others have slashed their work forces. Last week, European banking giant HSBC, a big player in the U.S. subprime market, warned that it needs to set aside nearly $10.6 billion to cover loans that it expects won't be repaid. New Century Financial of Irvine, the nation's second-largest subprime lender, also warned investors that its loan portfolio was losing value as more borrowers missed payments.

Accredited has responded to the industry downturn by tightening standards for borrowers and boosting reserves for bad loans. Investors who purchase these loans in the secondary market require originators to buy them back if borrowers default.

“We have been making adjustments to the products we offer as well as processes and underwriting discipline,” said Joseph Lydon, Accredited's president and chief operating officer, in a conference call with analysts. “We recognize the market we're in, and we believe credit quality has to be the No. 1 priority.”

The question for the housing industry is whether the troubles in subprime lending will spill over into more conventional mortgages.

If they do, lenders could tighten credit standards for borrowers – requiring larger down payments, better credit scores or more income to qualify for loans.

And that could hurt not only first-time buyers but also people who recently purchased homes using hybrid adjustable rate mortgages with the idea of refinancing.

Hybrid ARMS offer a low teaser interest rate for a certain time – usually two or five years. Then the loans reset into full-fledged adjustable mortgages. The result often is a significant jump in monthly payments for borrowers.

Nationwide, between $1.1 trillion and $1.5 trillion in hybrid adjustable mortgages are scheduled to reset this year, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

With little or no price appreciation in the past year, it may prove difficult for these borrowers to refinance out of their hybrid loans if lenders boost credit standards.

For now, however, the problems in the mortgage business have been limited to the riskiest borrowers in the subprime industry, according to analysts.

“I don't foresee it spreading throughout the mortgage sector or the consumer credit sector as a whole,” said Robert Napoli, an analyst with Piper Jaffray who follows Accredited.

During the housing boom, scores of lenders entered the niche business of making loans to borrowers with tarnished credit. The increased competition for loans led to easy credit.

“There are only so many people in that market, said Lou Galuppo, director of residential real estate at the University of San Diego's Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate. “The only way to enlarge the market is to drop the (credit) score.”

Today, more borrowers are missing payments on their loans or going into foreclosure. Defaults in California reached their highest levels in eight years during the fourth quarter, according to the DataQuick Information Services research firm. Lenders sent out notices of missed payments to 37,273 of the state's homeowners, a 145 percent increase from a year earlier.

It is unclear just how many of these homeowners are subprime borrowers. But the nonpartisan Center for Responsible Lending in Washington, D.C., issued a study in January that one in five subprime loans made in the past two years will end in foreclosure.

Richard Eckert of Roth Capital Partners of Newport Beach said Accredited's management has understood that the loose credit standards would not last. So while it relented and made loans to compete and keep its brokers from jumping to other lenders, the company is perhaps better prepared to deal with the current slump than other firms, he said.

Lydon, Accredited's president, said the company is hoping to see market improvement in the second half of the year as more companies abandon the subprime business.

“I just don't think there's a whole lot of room for anyone in the business to continue to book bad loans,” he said. “The buyers of the loans are putting them back fairly quickly” if they default.

Realtors Fired Unexpectedly..

The below article came from the North County Times and is yet another indication of the declining housing market in San Diego. I wonder what happen to all of the listings the real estate office had? I would hate to have been one of those unfortunate home owners!

If you would like to receive an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. Remember, I don't list homes, I buy them. I work hard to understand your unique situation and create an offer that meets your needs, and solves your situation. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.

Hanson Realty shut down


ESCONDIDO ---- At least 40 real-estate agents and employees at Hanson Realty, the city's oldest major residential and commercial real-estate company, were let go without warning today, local real-estate professionals said.

They action was taken by McMillin Realty, a division of the Corky McMillin Companies based in San Diego, that purchased Hanson in 2001, from owner Paul Van Elderen.

Dallas Woodring, a veteran broker at Hanson, said that employees were stunned this morning at a staff meeting when told by McMillin officials that they were to be released, that the office locks would be changed immediately, the furniture would be moved out today and the phones shut off.


"They just stabbed us in the heart," Woodring said.

Woodring said that the abrupt move was not the result of the downturn in the real-estate market, but rather a long-festering difference of corporate culture between Hanson and McMillin.

McMillin blamed the closure on the declining housing market.

Hanson was planning to celebrate its 50th anniversary this summer.

San Diego County Median Home Price Analysis

The below post was taken from Dennis Kaiser's Blog, San Deigo's Real Estate Library, (http://www.realestatelibrary.com/blog/2007/02/median-home-price-ticks-up.html). He is an excellent Realtor and if you choose to sell your house with a Realtor, you would be well served to contact him.

If listing your house with a Realtor does not meet your needs and you would like to receive an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. Remember, I don't list homes, I buy them. I work hard to understand your unique situation and create an offer that meets your needs, and solves your situation. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.


The median price for re-sale single-family homes in San Diego County started the year with a gain of 0.9%. Year-over-year, the median price was off 4.1%. This is the seventh month in a row year-over-year prices have declined. The median price is now 6.4% below the high of $598,000 reached in November 2005.


Home sales fell 27.5% from December. Year-over-year, sales were down 10.6%. January had the least amount of sales since we've been keeping track: January 1998. We expect sales to pick up as the spring and summer selling seasons arrive.

The median price for condos rose 1.7% to $357,000, month-over-month, off 7.8% compared to last January. The median price is now 8.9% below the high of $392,000 set in November 2005. On a positive note, condo sales were up 3.4% year-over-year. This is the first time condo sales have been higher than the year before since June 2005.

The sales price to list price for single-family homes fell 0.6 of a point to 94.4%. The ratio for condos dropped 0.6 of a point to 94.6%.

Days on market rose six to 79 days. This is the highest it has been since we've been keeping records: January 1998.

My advice? For buyers, there's plenty of inventory. Some sellers are willing to make deals, witness the sales price to list price ratio of 94.4% compared to the average since January 1998 of 96.3%. To find a seller willing to negotiate, you have to make offers.

For sellers, three words: price it right.

The real estate market is very hard to generalize. It is a market made up of many micro markets. For complete information on a particular neighborhood or for an evaluation of your home's worth, call me.

San Diego Home Prices Dip Again

More news on housing statistics in the San Diego real estate market. Before you decide to list with a Realtor, be careful of falling victim to their optimism in how much your house will sell for. If you want find out more about how to determine the listing price for you home, sign up for my free e-course that gives practical advice on how to sell your house, determine the list price, and how to effectively market your house for a quick sale.

If you would like to receive an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. Remember, I don't list homes, I buy them. I work hard to understand your unique situation and create an offer that meets your needs, and solves your situation. Best of luck and I look forward to hearing from you.

NBCSanDiego.com

POSTED: 1:42 pm PST February 14, 2007

San Diego home prices are bucking a trend in many other areas of Southern California.The median price of a home in a six-county swath of Southern California rose 5 percent in January compared to the same month last year, but prices fell or were flat in three of the counties, a real estate research firm said Wednesday.In San Diego County, the median home price, however, fell 5.6 percent -- down to $472,000 -- while in Ventura County, it plunged 6.5 percent to $565,000. Orange County's median home price remained flat at $600,000.San Diego County has seen prices fall on an annual basis since June, while home prices in Ventura County have been down year-over-year since September.The median price of a home in the counties of Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, San Diego, San Bernardino and Riverside hit $485,000, compared to a revised $462,000 in the same period last year, according to DataQuick Information Systems.The median price for the region fell 1 percent from December's revised median of $490,000, the firm said.Los Angeles County saw the biggest median home price boost -- a 6.1 percent jump to $520,000.The inland counties of San Bernardino and Riverside also posted median home price gains.The median price in San Bernardino County last month was $370,000. In Riverside County, the median price was $415,000.Home sales in the region remained weaker than in recent years last month, falling to a nine-year low for the month of January, DataQuick said.The number of new and used houses and condos sold in the region fell to 18,128, a 17.2 percent decline from January 2006.Sales fell 25.1 percent from December.The typical mortgage payment that buyers in the region took on in January was $2,263, up $133 from the same month last year.

Housing Bubble Blogs on the Rise

If you are in a position to sell your house and have looked at the slumping San Diego real estate market, your search has brought you to the right spot. This blog, like many others below, are tracking the San Diego housing market and giving you the potential seller honest, straight forward, unbiased advice on your options and the state of your local real estate market. The article below interviews many bloggers who write about the housing bubble in San Diego and offer a counter perspective on San Diego real estate.

If you are not sure if you should sell your house by yourself, list it with a Realtor, or sell to an investor, sign up for my free e-course. It discusses all of these options in detail and offers excellent advice on how to proceed with any of these options. If you would like to have an offer made on your home check out www.SDHomeSaver.com and receive and instant offer or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you...

Meet the Bubble Bloggers: Patrick Killelea of Patrick.net

Part 2: Patrick.net is among bubble blog leaders
Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Inman News


Editor's note: Talk of a real estate bubble, brewing for many years, has spawned an assortment of real estate blogs devoted to bubble talk and statistical analyses. These bubble sites offer a counterpoint to industry data and mainstream media coverage, and have gained a following among consumers and industry analysts alike. Several "bubble bloggers" -- some named and some choosing to remain anonymous -- have shared their views with Inman News. (Read the intro to this series, "The rise of real estate bubble blogs.")

Name: Patrick Killelea

Occupation: Engineer/programmer


Blog site: http://patrick.net/wp/

Audience: About 5,000 readers per day

Q: What makes you a real estate bubble believer, a bubble debunker, or bubble neutral?

A: Owners and real estate businesses have a large vested interest in downplaying the bubble, no matter how real. Most renters are neutral, since they would probably rent anyway and don't really win or lose regardless of what happens to owners. But there is a small contingent of renters-by-choice who are adamant bubble believers and have made a big bet on it by renting. I'm one of them.

Q: How do you define a housing bubble?

A: Easy: when the monthly loss in interest, property tax, insurance and maintenance is larger than the monthly loss from renting, there is a housing bubble. Historically, it has been cheaper to own. That's how landlords can make a profit (duh). That's no longer the case in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since it's not only cheaper to rent now, but a whopping two to three times cheaper to rent the exact same thing than to own it, we clearly have the mother of all bubbles on our hands.

Q: How does this definition fit (or not fit) the national housing market? Which regional or local housing markets have exhibited the most bubble characteristics?

A: The national housing market does seem bubbly, but I don't know national average rents compared to owning. In the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, it's clearly an extreme bubble. Other bubbly places now deflating are Boston, New York, Florida, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Places with no bubble are generally those away from the coasts, where house-price inflation did not really take hold.

Q: Which bubbles burst? Which ones have deflated? Which ones are inflating? Which are about to pop?

A: I would say Boston has certainly burst now, but may continue to decline for years. New York, not so much yet. Florida is bursting, as are Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Diego. The San Francisco Bay Area has declined only a little over the last year, but I think prices will continue downward for five years or more. Remember that prices fell for 14 years straight in Japan. So much for "real estate always goes up." I don't think there are any areas that are still inflating, especially now that there is a lot of attention in Washington focused on lending standards. The Bay Area is at very high risk for major declines. There was no reason for prices to double, so there is no reason they cannot fall right back down. Population actually declined, jobs went away, salaries went down and yet prices went up -- excellent illustration of a bubble.

Q: Are there any common traits among the bubble markets?

A: Yes, in general the bubble markets are more affluent and on the coasts. The feeling was that it must be safe to buy on the coasts because they are wealthier, but the reality is that buyers were not looking at very simple predictor ratios, like percentage of vacant houses, the ratio of salaries to house prices, the fraction of ARM (adjustable-rate mortgage) loans that are about to adjust dramatically upward and so on. Even though the populations in these areas should know better, they are running purely on gut feeling and not on the numbers. The numbers are now overpowering gut feeling. Foreclosures are rising exponentially.

Q: What is your best evidence for or against a housing bubble?

A: I can rent a million-dollar house for a little over 2 percent per year, but I cannot borrow $1 million in cash for 2 percent. It would cost more like 6 percent to rent (i.e., borrow) $1 million in cash. This proves that buyers are overpaying for houses by about a factor of three in the Bay Area. And this does not even consider the property taxes, insurance, maintenance and broker fees.

Q: Is it possible to accurately identify the existence of a bubble before it is gone? Explain.

A: Of course. When prices are extremely high by every measure ever used, it's a bubble. Price to salary ratio, price taking inflation into account, price compared to renting, etc., (are) all very high.

Q: How are bubbles born and how do they die?

A: Low interest rates have a nonlinear effect. That is, when interest rates go down from 5 percent to 4 percent, prices increase 20 percent (one-fifth). When rates go down from 4 percent to 3 percent, prices increase 25 percent. When interest rates hit zero, anyone can borrow an infinite amount of money. Once these crazy loans affect the market prices, the bubble takes on momentum and prices rise for a while just because everyone expects them to keep rising. And then interest rates go up and it all runs in reverse.

Q: Why do people get so fired up about the concept of a housing bubble?

A: There is huge psychological tension around the massive amounts of money involved. Buyers want to believe they did the right thing and will believe it no matter what the numbers in front of their eyes are. Renters-by-choice also want to believe they did the right thing, but most renters don't give a hoot about the whole affair.

Q: Will there ever be an explanation for bubbles that we can all agree upon?

A: Sure, my explanation is correct. We should all agree on it.

Q: Will there ever be a time when the discussion about bubbles goes away? Is this just a passing fancy?

A: When all the local bubbles deflate, the discussion will go away. The reason the discussions happen is because there is cognitive dissonance between wanting to believe there is no bubble and knowing for a fact that there is.

Q: What has motivated you to participate in the bubble discussion and what have you learned?

A: The sheer irrationality of the loans and relentless spin on the part of Realtors motivated me to write the things I could not find in the mainstream press.

How To Price Your Home For a Quick Sale

So your neighbor’s home sold above list price, in a less than a week early in 2006 - in today’s market no way....

.... that’s because California has moved in the direction of a buyer’s market, so buyers now have more properties to pick and choose from. In fact many sellers can expect to wait as long as seven or more months on the market, according to the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS.

Before you go and put your house up for sale, you need to carefully consider pricing your home properly. Here’s how to do it:

Take a step back:
The new owners don’t care how much you paid for the home, or how long it’s been in the family. Your home’s value is decided by how much a capable buyer is willing to fork out for it. Your emotional attachment to the home should not factor into the process of determining the price.

Research:
Prepare a comparative market analyses (CMA) of properties similar to yours that recently sold in your neighborhood, as well as homes that failed to sell and their listing prices. Title Companies such as First American Title can help with this, you don't need a Realtor to do it. You can go to sites such zillow.com or trulia.com to see at what prices similar homes are currently listed. You can get an extremely comprehensive market analysis of sales trends in all of San Diego county by going to San Diego County Market Analysis.

Emphasize all the Assets:
Does your home have a view? Have you done any remodeling since you bought it? Is it in a good school district? How far from the ocean is it? All these assets will boost your listing price. Keep in mind buyers are choosier these days and can afford to be in this market.

Be Creative in what you offer:
In a buyer's market you have to be able to meet the needs of the buyer. Many times this will include financing or qualifying for financing. If you have even as little as 10% equity in your home, offering owner financing can significantly improve your listing over the many others that are listed. Sign up for my free e-course to learn all about Owner Financing and how to use it to your advantage.

Preparing Your House for Show:
The house must be clean, think minimalistic. People want the space to be open and free of clutter. Also, you must get rid of your own personal photos. Buyers need to imagine themselves in the house, and your photos are a distraction to that. For more helpful hints sign up for my free e-course. You will learn how to stage and prepare your house for a quick sale.

If the prospect of selling your house and dealing with the hassle of open houses, disappointing offers and fickle buyers seems like too much trouble, visit my website www.SDHomeSaver.com for an instant offer on your house or email me directly at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com.


Think Twice Before You Refinance to Save Your Home

The below article discusses the pitfall that many homeowners find themselves in as ARM loans begin to adjust and they can't afford the payments. People used to think that ARM loans were not a problem because home prices would continue to rise and they could sell if they had to. That is no longer the case. Two lessons for homeowners here:
1. If you are in a ARM loan and are beginning to realize you can't afford your payments, refinancing what little equity you might have could spell disaster and severely limit your options. Review your loan's terms and understand what your payment will be after the loan adjusts.

2. If you are already behind on your payments, saving your credit is of primary concern. Selling your home may be a difficult decision, but consider your alternatives. Losing your home and your credit would severely limit your ability to buy another home quickly. Be careful when thinking about refinancing as a way to save your house.

If you have questions about your particular situation or want an instant offer on your house, go to
www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me direct at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com.

Press release from: Thehomebuyingcenter.com
Published date: 02-13-2007 11:50 AM - CET

( EMAILWIRE.COM, February 12, 2007 ) SACRAMENTO, CALIF — During the past several years in housing markets on the East and West coasts many people purchased homes that were more expensive than they could afford because they believed that they could always sell their house for a profit if their financial situation worsened. Unfortunately, for thousands of these homeowners these plans are not working out as expected.

For many people an adjustable rate mortgage was the only way they could secure a low enough monthly payment, in the short term, to afford a home. Skyrocketing home prices created a boomtown mentality and first-time homebuyers felt that if they did not get into the market they might never be able to do so. According to experts such as Patrick McGilvray, J.D., President of http://wwwTheHomeBuyingCenter.com “the chickens are beginning to come home to roost and many people who borrowed money to buy homes are suffering from payment shock as their monthly payments jump significantly. Furthermore, people who want to sell their house fast cannot do so because the residential real estate market has slowed considerably.”

Mr. McGilvray is referring to what happens when an adjustable rate mortgage’s intial low interest rate period expires and the loan readjusts. Many policy experts and government officials are calling now for an analysis of a borrower’s ability to pay their mortgage when it readjusts, not just during the initial period.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, 12.5 percent of riskier mortgages were delinquent in the fall of 2006 and that almost 1 million homeowners across the country lost their homes to foreclosure or missed their monthly payments from July to September.

Pam Canada, executive director of NeighborWorks Home Ownership Center in Sacramento, said of people like this, “The market did not save them…This was a nightmare with no happy ending.”

Ed Smith Jr., CEO of Plaza Financial Group, Inc. of San Diego, California said of the mortgage industry, “Lenders and brokers defended the creative loans, noting that they have helped hundreds of thousands of families own their own homes. The problem is that many consumers have not prepared an exit strategy.”

Further complicating the residential housing picture is the fact that almost half of the consumers in the United States think that a housing price crash will occur in their local real estate market sometime in the next three years.

This information was recently collected during a survey conducted by Experian and Gallup. Experian of Costa Mesa, California reported that the 47 percent of Americans who feel a crash is likely is up sharply from the 37 percent who felt this way in May of 2005 and the 42 percent who said the same thing in April of 2006.

Experts estimate that 90% of people who secured a mortgage loan based on ‘stated income’ in the past several years lied about their income. When a rational observer considers this in the context of a rising interest rate environment, and stagnant or falling home prices her or she must assume that we are seeing the early edges of what could be a very destructive economic hurricane.

If you have questions about your particular situation or want an instant offer on your house, go to www.SDHomeSaver.com or email me direct at SDHomeSaver@gmail.com.

More Evidence of a "Buyer's Market" in San Diego

If you are thinking of selling your home or need to sell your house fast, you must understand what kind of market it is in your area. Below are just a few of the articles written every week detailing the real estate market in San Diego and the larger trends in Southern California. Don't make the mistake so many sellers do by not understanding their competition and how buyers are currently behaving. Enjoy the news and if you have any questions or want to understand more of your options in selling your home, please visit www.SDHomeSaver.com. Remember, we don't list your house, we buy it.


Febuary 13, 2007,

The LA Times in their article "It's Their Default Position" reports, “There’s a lot of speculation about where the housing market is headed. Dave Hennigan and the company he works for, Home Center Realty, don’t have the luxury of waiting to see how the story will play out. They need to make a living now, and they’re betting that things are going to get worse. Maybe much worse.”

“The roster of agents has sunk to 52, only about half of whom are active. ‘The rest are looking for side jobs at McDonald’s,’ said Home Center President Jason Bosch. ‘It happened overnight.’”

“In this queasy market, sales are slumping. Sellers remember the boom and want more money than they can get, while buyers feel they have unlimited time to make a decision. An agent’s best prospect for a sale is someone who must act now — a homeowner told by a lender to pay up or get out.”

“The new issue of the company’s 22-page listings magazine will tout nothing but distressed and foreclosed properties: 95 of them, many nearly new, each priced at around $250,000. ‘When you throw out the words ‘foreclosure,’ ’short sale,’ ‘repo,’ the buyer thinks it’s a deal,’ said president Bosch. ‘It’s still very early, but I’m convinced that’s where the market is going.’”

“Bosch thinks the residential real estate market will soon revisit the horrible days of the mid-’90s — and then get worse. ‘I have no doubt that we are entering the next phase of an unprecedented market,’ he says. ‘One that Southern California has never seen.’”

“Sure, there’s been employment growth in the area. But much of it, Bosch argues, was related to real estate. This was a boom that fed upon itself.”

“The biggest problem, Bosch believes, was created by the lenders. They used to be cautious. Sub-prime loans changed all this. As houses got more expensive, fewer buyers qualified under the traditional guidelines, so they went sub-prime.”

“Lenders would take their word on income. They no longer needed down payments. They didn’t worry that their loans would soon reset to higher interest payments. Nobody cared too much as long as prices went up, although many people in the business knew the day of reckoning wasn’t canceled but merely postponed.”

“‘To make a living, you had to push a product you didn’t believe in,’ said Aimee Quigley, a Home Center mortgage broker. ‘It was like being a defense attorney where you know your client did it, but you have to say he didn’t.’”

“Quigley says she tried to emphasize how quickly these loans would adjust, but the message rarely got through. ‘Nine out of ten times when these loans closed, we would sit there and say, ‘How long can they hold it together?’”

“If Hennigan barely knew what a default was in September, now the business is coming to him. Lenders are calling. In Fontana, he knows what to expect. No point knocking on the door. This house, like the others, is empty. The electricity is off, the grass brown.”

“It’s a foreclosure. In December 2004, there were about 12 foreclosures a week in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. In December 2006, there were 123.”

“He doesn’t have a key, but the back door is open. The carpets are stained, the living room wall has a hole punched in it, and the bedroom doors are missing. The lender will use Hennigan’s report to set a price and then turn it over to the agent to find a buyer. A little paint, a little plaster and it will go for $500,000.”

“Hennigan doesn’t know who the owners were, why they couldn’t pay or where they went. It’s much better this way. He doesn’t have to feel sorry for anyone. Instead, he can concentrate on work. ‘People are walking away from their houses,’ he says. ‘I’m giddy because I’m going to be so busy.’”

Febuary 12, 2007
The North County Times wrote in their article, "Foreclosure Up in San Diego County", The number of San Diego County "properties in some stage of foreclosure increased by more than 50 percent in January from December, according to RealtyTrac.”

“Notices of default and foreclosures rose from 759 in December to 1,150 in January. That means that every one in 904 properties was facing foreclosure. In San Diego County, 915 property owners got notice last month that they were delinquent in paying loans against their properties, an additional 165 received a notice of foreclosure sale, and 70 had been foreclosed on and repurchased by a bank.”

“While foreclosures in Riverside County actually decreased by 30 percent, from 1,698 in December to 1,196 in January, the overall outlook is weak compared with San Diego. The most recent figures shows that troubled properties accounted for one in every 489 households.”

In the Press Enterprise , "Investors File Federal Fraud Lawsuit". “A racketeering conspiracy said to have defrauded more than 700 investors in multiple states, including California, was described last week in a federal lawsuit filed by two Rialto residents who claim to have suffered losses of more than $600,000.”

“Richard Ackerman, who represents the plaintiffs in both Riverside lawsuits, said the mortgage-fraud allegations focused on one facet of the operation, raising investment cash by borrowing against residential properties that allegedly were appraised at a much higher value than their worth.”

“The plaintiffs in the latest suit, Anna Richter and Deborah Weber, said they were persuaded by the defendants to extract all the equity from their homes, which was subsequently wired to accounts that the defendants controlled. They never received the promised returns, the suit said.”

“Richter said she borrowed $187,000 on their house in Rialto that Pacific Wealth used to help her and her husband buy three more homes. In addition, she said, Pacific Wealth opened credit cards in her name on which she borrowed $76,000 in cash. She said she invested that and another $15,000 from her 401(k) for a six-month investment that Pacific Wealth was touting in foreign currency.”

“The Richters’ finances started to crumble when in December Pacific Wealth stopped making monthly payments totaling $20,000 on the three investment properties, she said.”

“The Richters lost the funds they invested, she said, and also cannot afford the $4,400-a-month mortgage payment on the home where they and their four children live. In addition, she said, they must make $1,200-a-month payments on the credit-card borrowings. She said the family is trying to get their mortgage refinanced at a lower rate and, failing that, they may move to Texas."

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