Archive for the 'California Articles' Category

Foreclosed home auction sales and other foreclosure auction sales in the Sacramento region in June jumped by 17 percent, based on real estate records in the counties of Sacramento, Yuba, El Dorado, Placer, Sutter and Yolo.

Foreclosed home auction inventories have been growing in the Sacramento region because of current economic difficulties that are also afflicting other places in California. California has been struggling to balance its budget for several years because of the large number of services the state is supporting. Currently, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, state officials and lawmakers are trying to find ways to remedy the budget deficit.

In June, nearly 1,400 foreclosed home auction units and other foreclosure units were sold, equivalent to one foreclosure unit out of every 1,024 households in the region.

During the same month, a total of 2,694 default notices and 1,673 trustee sale notices were filed in the region.

Compared to other regions in California, the Sacramento region is 12th in a list of regions based on foreclosure sales.

The counties with the biggest foreclosure sales were Merced, Yuba, Stanislaus, Riverside and San Joaquin.

Across California, housing units continue to enter foreclosed home auction inventories. Foreclosure sales rose by nearly 25 percent from the previous month of May. The only positive news item from this foreclosure data is that the foreclosure increase is lower than increases in the previous months of April and May. The rates of increases in the previous two months exceeded 30 percent.

Compared to foreclosure sales in June 2008, foreclosure sales this June were lower by around 8 percent.

Residential real estate analysts in California expect foreclosures to continue to increase despite foreclosure prevention initiatives in the state.

In June, the number of default notices increased by nearly 12 percent to nearly 46,000, the second-highest monthly figure on record. The number of defaults in June also represented a 10-percent increase from June 2008.

Recently, California lawmakers passed the California Foreclosure Prevention Act, requiring lenders to give homeowners 3 months to remedy their default problem before foreclosure proceedings are started. However, banks which have launched state-approved loan modification initiatives are exempted from the 3-month foreclosure moratorium regulation. Because of state efforts, bank foreclosure filings dropped, with some lenders such as Bank of America slowing down their foreclosure actions by more than 40 percent.

Nevertheless, despite federal and state foreclosure prevention efforts in California, foreclosed home auction inventories are expected to grow because of lingering economic difficulties.

The city council of Scotts Valley in California has voted to start REO property proceedings to collect over $250,000 unpaid property taxes owed by the real estate development firm, Title II.

Title II has been working on the project to construct a Target store at a land located at the south entrance of the city. Aside from unpaid property taxes, the land also incurred interest assessments on bonds that financed the improvements. The land is part of the project district of Gateway South.

The city plans to recover the money through REO property proceedings. However, the city is not expected to recover the money anytime soon. According to Scotts Valley attorney Kirsten Powell, even if the city’s compliant filing will not be contested by Title II, the foreclosure process is time consuming.

The city plans to file the foreclosure complaint in court, after which Title II will be given 3 days to make a response. The foreclosure process starts only after the court ruled that Title II is in default.

The foreclosure proceeding filed by Scotts Valley against Title II is the second time that the city has made an attempt to repossess the same parcel of land. The first time, the proceeding was aborted when the owner of the property filed a bankruptcy.

Powell recalled that over the years, Scotts Valley made several attempts to start REO property proceeding on other parcels due to unpaid small debts. However, the debts were paid before foreclosure occurred.

Powell explained that Title II has other unpaid taxes attached on the property. But Scotts Valley, being the lead agency in the repossession proceeding, is the top priority for payment, she added.

Meanwhile, Scotts Valley manager Steve Ando said that selling the land at foreclosure auctions would not jeopardize the Target project. He said that the new owner of the property has the right to push through with the project or any appropriate development plan.

City work on the environmental impact assessment for the planned 145 square feet Target store is still ongoing. The fees for that specific work were already paid by Title II. According to industry experts, Target or any developer could buy the land and continue the building project despite the REO property proceeding.

Prices of repo houses in the Northern California city of Vallejo have been falling because of the continued effects of the recession, according to a study by the Business Forecasting Center and another study by a group of real estate analysts.

The prices of repo houses and other existing houses have depreciated to $157,546 in June this year, a drop of 0.12 percent from May 2009.

In the last 12 months, home prices have declined by nearly 20 percent. With nearly 39,000 households in the city, a total of 3,053 units have become repo houses ready for sale.

According to university researchers, Vallejo was the first city in Northern California to get clobbered by a wave of repo houses and the resulting recession. They also predicted that Vallejo will start to recover only after several years.

The study also reported that economic recovery will be slow in the counties of Merced and Sacramento and that the fastest metro areas to recover are San Jose and San Francisco.

The researchers pointed to employment as the major block to recovery. They said that Vallejo’s employment level was the first among Northern California cities to peak in 2006, but slowly declined in the later months of 2006.

Nevertheless, Vallejo is surviving because of its strong retail sector, according to the researchers. While the retail industry got battered in many areas of the country, retail activity in Vallejo did not decline as significantly as in other cities.

Jeff Michael, director of the business forecasting center, said the recession will ultimately push job losses beyond 1 million this fall, when the recession is expected by many economists to end.

Because of California’s budget deficit, more government workers are expected to get laid off in the coming months, pushing the number of the unemployed higher. Cutbacks in public-sector employment typically follow a slowdown in private sector economic activities.

The university researchers predicted that the unemployment rate will reach its highest level at over 12 percent in the first months of 2010 and remain higher than 10 percent for at least one more year.

San Francisco was not immediately affected by the nationwide recession, according to the researchers, so they expect the city to survive the recession and avoid a double-digit unemployment rate.

In a list of the 25 metro areas with the highest foreclosure rate in the first quarter of this year, Vallejo was eighth in the list together with Fairfield because of their relatively large numbers of repo houses. San Francisco, meanwhile, was not in the list.

Distressed homeowners in California are being helped by 275 public and nonprofit organizations which have been working to reduce repossession property numbers under their umbrella association called California Reinvestment Coalition.

In California’s Southland, a region comprised by the counties of Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside, Ventura, Orange and San Bernardino, the median home price for newly-built residences, repossessed houses for sale and non-foreclosed previously-owned houses has not increased on a year over year comparison since July 2007, based on a study in California on foreclosures and foreclosure prices.

Real estate industry experts observed a new trend in auctions of properties in California’s foreclosure home list. Usually, when foreclosed properties are put on the auction block, majority of them go back to lenders. But now, investors are pushing their way into the forefront of foreclosure auctions in California.

A small town in California is fighting the country’s largest banks which allow their to deteriorate and contribute to neighborhood blight.

The emergence of several foreclosed homes due to the economic crisis has left several homes vacant for months. These repossessed houses revert to bank or lender ownership after the previous residents are evicted. This increase in such properties has flooded the market, creating a drop in home prices that are attracting investors and first-time buyers [...]