Foreclsure News - from Santa Cruz and Beyond
April 15, 2008
I drive my wife crazy with my singing - and not in a Marvin Gaye kind of way. One thing I like to sing to her to wake her from slumber is Good Morning - my rendition is especially horrible and all I really know is the chorus part. But hey, I still think it’s better than a nasty alarm buzzer. And it is also better than getting woken up by the morning news, especially in these dark days.
You may have heard this one on the drive in to work, or perhaps they were bantering about it on NBC’s Today Show or something:
[From Bloomberg.com: Worldwide]
U.S. foreclosure filings jumped 57 percent and bank repossessions more than doubled in March from a year earlier as adjustable mortgages increased and more owners gave up their homes to lenders.
Yeah, good stuff. That’s what you want to hear as you write out your next mortgage payment check!
Of course, you know the famous saying - all real estate is local. What’s happening in Peoria isn’t really all that germane to what’s happening in bucolic Santa Cruz. So what is going on in Bucolic Santa Cruz? Read on:
[From Median home price drops to $650,000 - Santa Cruz Sentinel]
The switch pushed the median price of a single-family home down in March to $650,000 from $682,500 in February — but not as low as $599,000 in January, when 33 percent of homes sold for less than $500,000. The median is the mid-spending point of what sold during the month.
Only 75 homes sold in March, the fewest number of sales for a month in 11 years, an indication of buyer reluctance despite lower list prices. The previous low — 143 sales — was set last March.
That’s an interesting article, and it has more sales data from the aforementioned Gary Ganges, who I talked about briefly in my blog entry from yesterday. According to the article:
Ganges doesn’t specifically track REOs but he found 12 of the 28 homes sold in Watsonville in January, February and March were bank-owned.
Only 12 of 28? Hmm, that seems a little low to me. I do specifically track REOs, all the time, because that’s where the best bargains are to be had, and I’m always looking to find my clients the best deal possible. I just did a search, and I looked at all closed sales since the beginning of the year (up til now, mid April). I included Watsonville and the outlying areas (but not north Monterey county), and counted houses, condos, and multi-residential properties (actually, I don’t think any multi-res sold in that time period). My findings?
There were 35 sales of such properties since the beginning of the year. Of those, two were short sales, and twenty-two (22!) were bank-owned REO real estate. Actually, I’m surprised the number isn’t a bit higher. It should be noted that a few of the others that sold were in the city of Watsonville’s affordable housing program, and there was one Measure J property.
Sigh. Welp, I’m off to my office meeting. Keep up the good work everyone!
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 7:54am
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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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Researching Santa Cruz Neighborhoods On-Line
April 05, 2008
Many (most?) of the visitors to my web site are folks who don’t actually live in Santa Cruz. Some of them have been to the area once or twice, some of them vacation regularly here. Some of them have children who are going to attend UC Santa Cruz, and some are considering Santa Cruz as a place to spend their retirement years. Whatever draws them here, a common interest is to research the various cities and the neighborhoods that make up Santa Cruz County.
Fortunately, there are a lot of tools these days for checking out Santa Cruz on-line. Although the only way to truly get to know a neighborhood is to come and spend some time in it, if that’s not very practical for you, there are alternatives.
Yelp.com: this is a very cool site. This is a site full of user-generated content about the various things to see and do in any area, including Santa Cruz. It has categories like Arts & Entertainment, Health and Medical, Nightlife, etc. I suggest you type in an address in an area you’re interested in and start here.
Flickr Map: You know about Flickr.com, right? They also have a handy map tool, so you can search for photos tagged as being taken from a certain area, like for example Santa Cruz. If you want to see what an area looks like, this is a great way to do it.
Yahoo Neighborhoods: Yahoo has a pretty interesting neighborhoods tool, which is closely coupled to their real estate section. It gives an overview of a city: population, demographics, weather, jobs, education, etc. It also gives you information on schools, restaurants, and shopping. It doesn’t actually break down various neighborhoods, alas.
Ask City: Venerable ask.com keeps trying to stay relevant, and has a bit of success with it’s Ask City tool. The Ask City tool is pretty cool - you can draw a shape on a map of a given area and ask to find businesses, events, movies, etc. that fall just in that area - good for researching neighborhoods.
Trulia.com: Trulia is far from venerable - they’re one of the new kids on the block. However, they put together a pretty impressive offering. They do focus mostly on real estate, but they have information on schools, for example. They also have an interesting housing price heat map for Santa Cruz county.
Google Maps: Google Maps is a fantastic tool, and they have now built into it a system for reviewing the businesses and other points of interest that you can find on the map. Also worth checking out, perhaps, is the Google Directory. Also, searching Google Images for Santa Cruz can yield some interesting information.
YouTube: This doesn’t really tell you much about neighborhoods, but you might find some interesting nuggets here, as always!
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 7:33am
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Santa Cruz is Better than Salinas
March 24, 2008
The title of this blog entry may sound outrageous to some, but I expect that most folks in Santa Cruz would greet it with a shrug, perhaps a roll of the eyes. “Well, of course Santa Cruz is better than Salinas.” Like, what could be more obvious?
Well, now the people at no less an authority than Forbes Magazine, have weighed in on the subject. It seems Forbes magazine published a list of the 200 “Best Places for Businesses and Careers.”
Salinas came in dead last at 200 while Santa Cruz was not too far ahead, ranking 187.
So there we go, it’s official. Santa Cruz is better than Salinas, but according to Forbes, Santa Cruz can take scant consolation, as we are pretty down near the bottom of the list. The full list can be viewed here:
Forbes Magazine 2008 Best Places for Businesses and Careers
It seems that California just isn’t a good place for business or a career, despite the fact that California is the largest and most dynamic economy in the United States, and in in January 2007 (some ways into the slide of the dollar), California was ranked the eighth largest economy in the world.
The highest ranked city in California on the Forbes List? Santa Ana, California - at Number 94.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 7:40am
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My 15 Minutes of Fame
March 18, 2008
Who was it who said everyone gets 15 minutes of fame? I think I’ve just had mine.
[From Agent: Foreclosures mean opportunities - Santa Cruz Sentinel]
Frey, 37, works at Thunderbird Real Estate in Capitola. Last month, he invited a reporter to join him as he checked on two newly foreclosed properties in the Las Lomas area, just over the Monterey County line.
Yeah, that’s pretty cool alright. An article about me, in the Sentinel. Next stop, 60 Minutes.
Posted by SantaCruzBroker at 11:52pm
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