Realtors for Ventura | Oxnard | Camarillo

Wow – I just started noticing that Realtors are starting to INCREASE some price points on listings that have already been on the market a bit.

See those 11 price increased listings?

This screen shot comes from the MLS desktop and it reflects the very tight inventory and almost frenetic activity of buyers, multiple offers, over asking price offers, all cash offers and other crazy stuff going on out there right now.

I’ve been mulling over with Leslie and trying to figure out what the election will do to our housing sector (President and Congress), the “fiscal cliff” issue, the end of the Bush era tax cuts (the Mortgage Debt Relief bill for short sellers) issue, the new regulatory rules of this summer’s national lender agreement with the government – the list goes on and on.

Who says life is boring…?

There’s no doubt foreclosure activity in the commercial marketplace has slowed down, often times by following the “extend and pretend” rule. However, these recent examples give insight into how much lenders are willing to discount their loss at an auction.

This office building at 145 Park Lane, Moorpark, built in 2008, at one point was on the market for $5.8M. But the $2.5M loan ballooned up to a published minimum bid of $3.7M.

However, what we frequently see is that on the day of the auction, the lender will drop their minimum bid to a substantially lower opening bid to perhaps entice a 3rd party buyer . In this case, it was just over $2.5M but the property has now been listed by the bank at a (hoped for) $2.9M price point.

This 39,000 square foot office building, built in 1985, is just across the street from The Oaks shopping mall in Thousand Oaks. It had an assessed value in 2010 of $8.3M and a loan of $5.6M made in 2004 when the building was acquired.

The published minimum bid was $6.3M. But the “amount paid” on the Trustee Deed shows an amount of $4.1M, a number of just over $105 per square foot. You can’t buy the land and build an office building for that price today.

However, it requires exceptional patience to buy a property like this at auction because frequently the auction is delayed because of bankruptcy, or other negotiations taking place in the background. Also, not many investors on the day of an 11 AM auction can run to the bank and get that kind of money in a cashiers check (but an investor earlier this year did just that and bought the mini-storage facility at the corner of Eastman and Rose in Oxnard).

Finally, this very nice industrial building at 360 Cortez, Camarillo, had a published minimum bid of $1.2M but dropped the opening bid to just over $700k. It was listed and recently bought by an investment company at $710k.

If you are looking for commercial property as an investor or user, give me a call. I follow financially distressed commercial real estate in Ventura County.

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.