Lists, Need More Lists… (Your 3-11 Foreclosure Lists Have Arrived)
March 11, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
On the heels of today’s federal reserve announcement
that they’re injecting $200 billion into the economy in hopes reviving the ailing markets, here are your latest East Bay foreclosure lists.
Download All the East Bay Foreclosure / REO Lists at Once (.zip file)
Entire Alameda County Single Family Foreclosure / REO List
Northern Alameda Residential Foreclosure / REO List
Southern Alameda Residential Foreclosure / REO List
Eastern Alameda Residential Foreclosure / REO List
Entire Contra Costa County Residential Foreclosure / REO List
Western Contra Costa Residential Foreclosure / REO List
Eastern Contra Costa Residential Foreclosure / REO List
Alameda Residential Income Foreclosure / REO List
Contra Costa Income Property Foreclosure / REO List
Oh yeah, while your at it, don’t forget to check out our active REO listings here. & the older lists archived over here
photo credit to Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
East Bay Housing Market Stats: Another REO Surprise!
February 27, 2008 by Glen Bell · View Comments
As a follow-up to last month’s REO surprise, “that one out of every five listings in the SF Bay Area is REO, Bank Owned Properties,” we asked ourselves another question.
What is really influencing housing inventory and pricing in the SF Bay Area?
We’ve always heard that new construction has been the main culprit with overbuilding leading to a glut of houses for sale. All that new housing located along highway 4, Antioch, Brentwood, Pittsburg, Oakley seems to have led the way. After all, those areas are seeing between a 15 to 25% drop from last year’s prices. (Median prices compared on a year to year basis for January).
So we ran some numbers again using DQ News and EBRD MLS services to see which has the greatest influence over listings and sales on a city by city basis. Numbers were pulled as of January 31, 2008.
SURPRISED again!
Well, with all of the subprime fallout, foreclosures, and REO news rolling around in the news, maybe it really isn’t such a surprise.
The following list seems to put it in perspective.
Glen’s East Bay housing numbers
Reasons may vary, and differ depending on location. However, it is apparent that REOs, Bank Owned Properties, are now, the major influence on housing inventory and sales in the SF Bay Area.
Banks are the competition in a big way for sellers. Banks think differently about selling. Banks are becoming more aggressive in selling their properties. Not much in show or presentation, simply priced below the competition.
In many of our conversations this week, we’ve been hearing that activity has picked up. The word seems to be that “investors” are looking for bargains in the marketplace.
We have to agree that we are seeing that with our own REO listings. So we have to ask ourselves the next big question, will investors be leading the way?
Maybe they’re smart enough to realize that timing a real estate market bottom is next to impossible. Maybe with low interest rates, lots of choices, and not many other buyers out there, this just may be the right time to pick up a bargain.
You Can't Make This Stuff Up (File #020408)
February 4, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
While out in the field this morning, Glen saw this sign in a house’s front yard.
Cool, right? Lots of people own rental property and are looking for renters to fill their empty units…
The only problem is that it was in the front yard in one of our listings and I’m pretty sure that the bank wouldn’t go behind our back to rent a house that they already have on the market.
While I commend the entrepreneurial nature of some folks, the fact remains that you can’t rent things you don’t own. Trust me, we’ve looked into it, the cash on cash ROI is just too good to ignore.
If This Stimulus Package Goes Through…
January 25, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
…expect a big pickup in Bay Area real estate activity.
Besides its core purpose of providing tax refunds, the tentative package – which still has several hurdles to clear – essentially rewrites the definition of “jumbo” loan, raising the cap from its current $417,000 to as high as $729,750 in high-cost areas for one year.
The proposal would allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy loans up to 125 percent of an area’s median home value – up to $729,750 – well above their current $417,000 limit. While the new limit would vary based upon how expensive an area is, almost all of the Bay Area would automatically merit the $729,750 cap by virtue of having medians above $600,000.
Fannie and Freddie are government-sponsored entities that inject liquidity into the mortgage market by purchasing loans and then either keeping them or packaging them into securities sold to investors – with a guarantee in case they default.
Ever since the credit crunch hit last summer, banks have been skittish about writing mortgages that don’t qualify for Fannie/Freddie backing. That’s why jumbos got so expensive relative to conforming loans, and jumbo borrowers needed to have good income, a big down payment and a stellar credit score.
Now what’s the catch, you say?
2. The new limits are supposed to only last for 1 year. Which means that if this passes, 2008 is going to be a mad sprint.
flickr photo credit reversezer0 tag: bay bridge (ironic eh?)
Changing the Conversation Over @ Trulia Voices
January 17, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
If you look on the right sidebar, you’ll see that I’m a ‘Local Ambassador’ for the SF based Real Estate search site Trulia. Basically this means that every now and then, I take some time to answer questions from home buyers and sellers on Trulia Voices.
I used to really enjoy doing it, but over the past few months not so much.
First, agent to agent talk started increasing and taking over a forum that was supposed to focus on RE professionals answering questions posed by consumers. While this diluted the purpose of the forum, I wasn’t too worried that it would completely change the dynamics of the forum for the worse.
One thing that DID start to bug me, and many agent contributers that I talk to, was that I didn’t feel like I was getting anything in return from taking the time to give well thought out answers and that many of the professionals were giving shoddy, spammy answers.
Although I haven’t heard directly that someone wanted to work with me after reading my voices answers, I believe that my answers are contributing to my professional online reputation and they’ve also given us a voucher for a free months worth of featured placements for our listings in return for participating. (which I’ve still got to get around to using). For these reasons, I’ve decided to give them a pass on the ROI thing for the time being.
My real gripe with Voices in it’s current form, is with the pervasiveness of the anti-REALTOR sentiment and overall vibe of the forum. More often than not, I’ve left the place feeling dirty and used and that’s not going to work for me if I’m going to continue contributing to Voices. I’m not sure how to deal with this problem, and I know that the Trulians are probably actively searching for ways to fix it, but it’s not going to go away without them taking some sort of action.
Today, Trulia decided to cordon off an area for agents to speak to other agents directly, and called it Agent2Agent. This should help define the conversation a bit and also means that agents no longer will be acting outside the guidelines by engaging each other instead of the consumer.
Greg thinks this means that they’re gunning for ActiveRain. I’m not so sure about that and agree with Dustin that they’re doing this to segregate the conversation, which I think that it will help do.
Hopefully the changes that they announced today will mark the start of the turnaround and hope that more changes are in store.
I’d love to start to visiting again without feeling like I have to take a shower afterwards.
Follow Me at twitter.com/andykaufman (2008-01-16)
January 16, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
- It’s absurd that I can’t clone an expired listing. I know that they’re trying to stop people from gaming the system, but c’mon. #
- New Mastersounds: Live at Quixote’s on 2007-06-01 getting me through the afternoon – http://urltea.com/2iyf #
- Tracking a new metric: % of REOs / Active Listings #foreclosures #housing # Read more
Reactions to Today's Bank of America/Countrywide Acquisition News
January 11, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Big waves continue to ripple across the mortgage & real estate industries, as people begin to digest the news that Bank of America agreed to buy Countrywide for $4.1 Billion in Stock.
I know what you’re thinking… $4 MORE billion after basically throwing $2billion down the drain a few short months ago. Don’t worry, they have a plan. They’re getting a little help from us taxpayers.
Huh?
That’s because Bank of America, which is solidly profitable, will be able to use some of Countrywide’s losses to offset its own taxable income. The tax break could total about half a billion dollars over the first five years, according to an estimate by tax guru Robert Willens, who left Lehman Brothers Friday after a 20-year run and will be in business as Robert Willens LLC starting next week.
Awesome, eh? At least the people responsible for creating this mess will pay dearly, right?
Think again, Countrywide CEO Anthony Mozilo is going to walk with a severance totaling $110 million and change.
Matthew at Blown Mortgage has a thorough analysis that I’d recommend checking out. As an REO agent, I found these points were of particular interest
The real question we all want to know is how bad is Countrywide’s loan servicing portfolio? Rumors creeping out on The Street is that Countrywide has a very serious REO problem they are not reporting as of yet.
In California alone, Countrywide’s REOs have risen from 2,361 to 4,051 – a whopping 72% increase in just seven months. What are these numbers gonna look like in 1-2 years? Any math geeks want to extrapolate that one?
Well, at least I know of a good team of REO listing agents. Memo to Bank of Countrywide America: check the contact info in the top right corner.
Continuing on…
Over on BloodHound Blog, Brian Brady argues Why Bank of America is the WRONG Buyer
BA is buying problems with this CFC acquisition. The CFC sales force will not mesh well with the button-downed arrogance the BA crew exhibits. My prediction? CFC originators flee the newly-formed entity in droves during 2008. Mortgage brokers will reject the new entity because of their lousy customer service.
Who’s perfectly positioned to benefit from this exodus? Why, Wells Fargo, of course.
Wells Fargo, the mortgage lender disguised as a federally-chartered bank.
Over on Mashable, Paul Glazowski take a different angle and explains how the news will affect the big tech ad networks
The figures comprising Countrywide’s contributions to the coffers of the abovementioned ad networks (Microsoft, Yahoo!, and, yes, Google) over the past few seasons are fairly impressive. According to a Nielsen/Netratings assessment for the month of August, Countrywide spent $34.77 million on online advertising. Several months later, the company, still on its fateful decline, was then found to have increased spending considerably. In November, Nielsen showed it to deliver a total of $57.6m in its marketing efforts on the Web.
& to lighten things up Paul Kedrosky cracks a funny, saying that
…why should I have more confidence that Ken Lewis and BofA have timed this infusion better than their last one? After all, since their $2-billion for 16% deal months ago the stock has fallen 50%. Let’s just say that as far as bottom-spotters go I put more faith in Sir Mixalot than I do in BofA’s Lewis & Co.
Ba dum bum ching!
graphic via The Mess That Greenspan Made
Quit Hiding Behind that Computer & Cross the Digital Divide
January 8, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
I love online social networking.
In fact, a good portion of my online life in 2007 seemed to revolve around social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, among others With a bit of effort on my part, I’ve managed to build a quite sizable network of ‘friends’ within these sites fairly quickly.
Now, having a big online network is cool & all, but I’ve found that the real connection happens when you bridge the digital divide and make contact in person, in “meatspace“.
Last night, I attended a MeetUp group for East Bay entrepreneurs & small business owners.
How did I end up there, you ask?
Well… while doing some poking around a couple of weeks ago on MeetUp.com, I came across the East Bay entrepreneurs & small business owners group, and decided that since we share a bunch of common interests, I’d join up.
Quickly after doing so, I noticed that Patrick Schwerdtfeger, the group’s organizer was trying to put together a mastermind event, where group members could break off into small groups and brainstorm ways that we can help each other build our businesses.
I thought, “Hey, I’ve got a small business & I know a thing or two about internet marketing. This is something that I’d definitely like to check out.”
The only problem was that Patrick was looking for a venue to hold the event.
Hey! I work in a cool office and we have plenty of space. Let’s host the event at our office.
So I contacted Patrick, and after determining that there was no chance that the Green Bay Packers would be playing on that day (gotta have priorities), we committed to holding the event at our office on January 19th (more on that tomorrow)
Fast forward to last night.
Since our mastermind event is coming up, I thought it would be a good idea to actually attend a MeetUp to check this group out.
So after work, I went to my first East Bay Entrepreneur and Small Business Meetup and it turned out to be a dynamite group. I met a bunch of people, saw some great presentations and left feeling quite inspired.
So there you have it. If you’re looking to build and strengthen your network, I encourage you to check out the online tools available to us.
Just make sure to take it that extra step and connect in the real world as well.
Who knows what it will lead to?
flickr photo credits: (tag:idea, Tiago Daniel) (tag:digital divide, palmetshofer) Thanks for using a Creative Commons license!
Are Zillow, Trulia, Yahoo! & Google Ready to Adopt RETS?
January 3, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Yesterday, in an open letter to the heavyweights of real estate tech, newly-elected chair of the Real Estate Standards Organization, Michael Wurzer called on them to join together with the real estate community in supporting the Real Estate Transaction Standard (”RETS”).
In response to his letter, he got commitments from all 4 to meet during the upcoming Inman Real Estate Connect Conference in NYC.
Over the past year or two, managing & distributing listing data has become a huge pain in the butt, and by adopting a single standard for listing data, brokers will be able to
- Enter their listings only once.
- Send their listings to just the sites they want, easily.
- Not have to pay someone to manage a bunch of data feeds.
- Make sure their listings are updated right away when something changes.
- Not get calls or e-mails on listings that are already sold or expired.
- Get calls or e-mails on listings as soon as the data is entered.
Sounds good, eh? Sure does to me.
In a follow up post today, Wurzer asked, Do Brokers Care About RETS? I commented that I’m fairly certain that they would, if they knew about it; unfortunately most brokers have NO IDEA what it is and how it can benefit them.
That’s why I decided to get involved and joined the RETS Marketing workgroup.
I’m sure you’ll be hearing more from me as I get more involved, but I think the reaction to yesterday’s post is a step in the right direction and I’m looking forward to getting involved.
(h/t to David Harris for this tweet)
My Choice for Unchained Melodies: Go To Sleep & Wake Up
December 16, 2007 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Over at BloodhoundBlog, Greg Swann has been posting videos of theme song suggestions for the upcoming BloodhoundBlog Unchained conference that they’re putting on in Pnoenix in May.
Here’s a couple of passionate songs & performances that I think would be great choices and ones that I’d like to throw into the mix.
The first one is “Go To Sleep” by Radiohead
and then it’s time to a “Wake Up” by The Arcade Fire
T-minus 5 more months!
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