Signs of the Apocalypse in Santa Cruz
April 07, 2008
For many years, I’ve had the idea that one day I would write a book. My dad is a professional author - check out his latest book about psychic Annette Martin, Gift of the White Light. I plan to write a book that’s a cross between Catcher in the Rye and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The project is some ways away from getting off the ground (decades, maybe) but I already have the first sentence picked out. It’s catchy. Ready? Here goes.
It was looking grim.
Did it grab you? I know, you’re hooked. Speaking of looking grim, here are some signs of the apocalypse.
[From Record numbers won’t pay property tax bill - Santa Cruz Sentinel]
A near record number of homeowners likely won’t pay property taxes by the April 10 deadline, another sign of just how tight things have become.
Yep yep. The chickens are making themselves right at home, roosting all over the darn place. It’s no sweat not to pay your property tax. Santa Cruz county won’t auction off your home for like five years, so what’s the rush? The interest rate is only 10%, and what are you paying to CapitalOne? Only thing is, I hear that you if you want to work out a deed in lieu of foreclosure with your lender, they won’t work with you if you have unpaid property tax. So there you go, keep them property taxes paid, people!
So that’s one sign. There are others. It seems that one of the greatest occupations ever is under attack here in the Golden State. Yes, of course, I’m talking about real estate agents. There has been a precipitous drop of new blood coming into a industry that is clearly hemorrhaging:
[From Number of real estate agents starts to shrink]
Just 1,324 people took the real estate salesperson exam in January, down from 8,765 a year earlier and 14,397 two years ago, according to the Department of Real Estate.
There are other signs, too. But now I see we are fast approaching 9 AM here on the Left Coast and really I need to get cracking. It’s Monday morning, and despite the fact that the writing is clearly on the wall and the apocalypse is nigh, life goes on.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 8:42am
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Another Massive Real Estate Auction
March 27, 2008
If you’ve been reading my blog recently, you may recall that a month ago I went up to San Mateo to check out the big Home Auction put on by REDC. It was a good time had by all, even if I didn’t manage to stick around until they actually auctioned off the Santa Cruz properties.
If you missed it last time, fear not - it’s baaack! Check out the properties that are being auctioned off this time:
Santa Cruz County Properties at the REDC Auction
There are a couple of cabins up in the San Lorenzo Valley (one of which is a complete wreck), and the rest of them are in Watsonville. They rope you in with the starting bid, but in reality, most of these (especially the desirable ones) will go for a much higher price - closer to market price (whatever that is).
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 7:30am
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Notes from the Foreclosure Auction
February 24, 2008
So yesterday I took several hours out of my busy schedule to go to the foreclosure auction up in San Mateo, at the event center. I’d turned my brother on to the foreclosure auction some weeks ago, and he’d actually taken the time to drive around to quite a few of the properties on offer, to verify their condition, at least visually. I was going because I wanted to see how much the six properties in Santa Cruz county would go for.
I went with my wife, and we got to the San Mateo Event Center around 11 AM. The auction was already in full swing, and they had several halls packed with potential buyers and lookie-loos. There were thousands of people there. All of the properties were numbered, and that day they started with number 627 (the auction ran for multiple days). The properties my brother had been interested in (mostly in San Jose, Daly City, South San Francisco) had mostly been auctioned off in the first couple of hours. All of them had sold a fair bit over his maximum bid price.
Of course, his bid price was set at the maximum price he could pay and be cash-flow neutral on the properties were he to rent them out. It’s a tall order to get a property that cheaply in California, where you can put just 10% down and get it to be at least cash-flow neutral. Really, this was a retail auction. I don’t think there were a lot of professional investors there. There may have been a few flippers out there, but most of the excitement seemed to come from nicer homes in the nicer Bay Area neighborhoods, and people were looking to get into the market for a bit less than full retail value.
Yeah, the death of the Bay Area Home Market is pretty exaggerated. There is still a lot of demand for real estate out there. It didn’t look to like the Bay Area homes were selling all that cheaply - especially not considering that the buyer has to pay a 5% commission on top of the auction price. Really, the prices seemed to be about the same as the MLS/REO price (I think all of these properties were previously for sale on the MLS as bank-owned real estate).
It’s hard to generalize, but I’d say that most properties went for at least twice the opening bid. The more desirable properties sometimes went for as much as three times the auction price. Factoring in that five percent add-on, and I’m not convinced that the average buyer was really saving all that much money going the auction route.
Unfortunately, I didn’t stick around til they made it to property number 789 - the first one in Santa Cruz county. We calculated that it wouldn’t be before 7 PM that they would get to that property. Maybe a lot of other people ended up losing patience and wouldn’t have been around towards the end of the auction, and could have picked up some of these Santa Cruz properties for a song. I’m going to make a note on my calendar to check the sale price of these properties in six weeks or so, to see what they actually ended up selling for. I’m really curious to know.
I took some video of the California Foreclosure Auction - if you’re curious, check it out!
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 3:22pm
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A Sign of the Times - Foreclosure Auctions
January 22, 2008
Yesterday I was out and about, checking on some listings down in Watsonville. I drive into one condo complex that has been especially hard hit by foreclosures and short sales - there are over a dozen units for sale in a complex that probably doesn’t have more than 75 units in it. Right as I drove up the main road, what should my wondering eyes should appear, but this sign, nailed to the garage door of the unit:
Wow. That is something you definitely don’t see every day. It’s a sign of the times, that’s for sure. This unit had previously been on the market for some months, listed as an REO. When it first went on the market, it had an OK price, but the lender/owner (your good friend and mine, Countrywide) did not cut prices quickly enough to keep it competitive in the market, and now it’s on the auction block.
Well, being the Internet-savvy Realtor that I am, when I got back to my office I hopped on the web site, to see what the scoop was. It seems that this auction company is holding a huge auction on February 23. They are auctioning off six properties in Santa Cruz county, and hundreds more from other parts of northern California. Here’s a link that shows what they’re selling in Santa Cruz County:
US Home Auctions - Santa Cruz County
There are a number of details (that’s where the devil lives!), of course - but they are all explained on the web site, just hunt around. Some details are that you need a $5,000 cashier’s check to bid, and you must bring your checkbook because you will need to put down a 5% cash deposit.
I was talking to a colleague of mine about this at our Tuesday office meeting, and he said he knew about this because he saw a similar such sign posted on one of the other properties they are auctioning off. He said he had been to one of these auctions previously, when one of these very same properties did sell, but the deal must have fallen apart, because here it is back at auction again. He also said that the winning bid was about 4 times higher than the opening bid.
It certainly is an exciting time to be in Real Estate!
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 1:22pm
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