Glancing through this morning’s Wall Street Journal, a major article with a sub-title ‘Boomerang’ Home Seekers Become Eligible for Mortgages and Hit Market Again, caught my attention.

I’ve known that if a homeowner does a short sale, and keeps all their other finances current, they could qualify for new financing in as little as 2 – 3 years. But even those who had their home foreclosed, the FHA is willing to consider providing the guarantee necessary for financing that new loan.

The WSJ quotes the president of the mortgage arm of the large home builder Hovnanian as saying “The industry is saying, ‘Pay your dues and then get back into the market'”. This photo is from the WSJ article and references the Martinez family who lost their CA home in foreclosure in 2007 but just closed escrow on their new home.

Leslie and I personally haven’t worked with a buyer from that situation yet, but for all our prior short sellers, we encourage them with that future goal!

Spent the afternoon starting layout of the elevator and epoxying 2 joints at the end corners of the elevator. I’d previously laminated several pieces and now I’m ready to “bring it all together”.

I’m building the elevator over a full size set of blueprints – the plastic protects the drawing underneath. Click on the image for a larger image.

There are 5 of us guys in our Experimental Aircraft Association hangar, each building a different type of airplane, and sometimes there’s more talk than work – especially on a beautiful, warm (hot in the hangar!) Sunday afternoon.

One of the guys asked, “How’s the real estate business?”

“Terrible” I replied – catching him a bit off guard. I explained the lack of inventory is driving the market place into a frenzy right now.

“But that’s good for you, right?” he asked.

I explained that a grocery store makes its money by how many times it can move (sell) that can of corn sitting on the shelf. If it only sells the can once a year, that’s not good. But if it can sell that can of corn many times a year, that’s good. That’s like the real business – if we don’t have inventory to sell, that’s not good. And the market place is all gummed up right now, but that’s another story for another day.

Here’s a shot of what the inside of our hangar looks like. Geoff’s building a sheet metal airplane called an RV-9, a very fast cross country airplane. My work space is in the back, under the light. I’ve got 2 finished wings (the lower wings) hanging in the rafters and 2 wings in a cradle (the upper wings).

Once I’ve finished the elevator, I’ve got to build the small “wing” that’s over the fuselage that connects the 2 upper wings together. In olden days (1930s), that’s where the gas tank was. If I want longer range, I too could put a gas tank up there. We’ll see!

Listed below are the September results for the sold prices of homes, the number of homes sold and number of homes in escrow – a future indicator of homes sold.

Also included – 3rd quarter data charts for the bigger trend picture.

This data is taken from the Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo MLS.

To see the detailed charts for Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo, please see the links below.

The percentage of single family homes that were distressed sales in the month of September are:

Ventura – 37%      Oxnard – 47%     Camarillo – 34%

Sold prices – Single family homes in Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo:

• 12 month graph
• Quarterly graph ending Q3

Sold prices – Condos in Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo:

• 12 month graph
• Quarterly graph ending Q3

Numbers sold – Single family homes in Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo:

• 12 month graph
• Quarterly graph ending Q3

Detailed data for single family homes sold in:

• Ventura
• Oxnard
• Camarillo

Detailed data for condos sold in:

• Ventura
• Oxnard
• Camarillo

Detailed monthly data for pendings (in escrow) – single family homes and condos:

• Ventura
• Oxnard
• Camarillo

All data is taken from the Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo MLS.

Leslie just listed this beautiful home in Oxnard close to St. John’s hospital and had an open house yesterday – crazy number of people came through.

It’s now 24 hours later and Leslie has 14 offers – all over asking price. A Realtor called this morning who didn’t make the open house and asked if she could show the home (no lockbox) and I said “No”…

I laughed and said “That wasn’t nice of me was it”! I told her about all the activity and she understood. Why? There’s very limited inventory now – too many buyers (and investors) and not enough homes for sale, especially in the under $400k market.

It’s discouraging for home buyers (vice investors) and a roller coaster ride of emotions as they submit offer after offer that aren’t accepted. But I encourage them to stay in the game because the market place always changes and their time will come and they’ll end up with that perfect home.