East Bay Bank Owned Foreclosure / REO Lists: NFL Divisional Playoffs Edition
January 13, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
So another Sunday has arrived, and along with that comes another fresh set of active East Bay Bank Owned Foreclosure /REO listings. (REO Wikipedia)
In the past we’ve only publishing lists for Western Alameda & Contra Costa Counties, but this week we’ve added both Southern Alameda County &, Eastern Alameda & Contra Costa residential lists.
Sorry, no quick stats today. My notebook’s power supply konked out and I’m doing my best to get this to you right now via my old desktop & it’s running S L O W.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who downloaded the lists and checked them out. Although we had less total downloads, the volume of phone calls & emails continue to rise.
For this we thank you!
Remember that this is a community project. We welcome your suggestions to help us improve our services and hope that you’ll contact us when you want to talk to someone who’s actively working in the REO trenches.
Once again, I’ll also be posting the lists in the ‘relatively static’ Foreclosures / REOs section of the site, so if you miss a week and want to find an older one, look in there.
Same deal.. If you see something that strikes your fancy and you want more info, want to write some offers, or just want to talk about how we can do some business together, just call or email us (my info is on the top right corner) Cool?
So without further ado, here’s this week’s lists…
Download All the East Bay Foreclosure / REO Lists at Once (.zip file)
Northern Alameda Residential Foreclosure / REO List
Northern Alameda Residential Income Foreclosure / REO List
Western Contra Costa Residential Foreclosure / REO List
Western Contra Costa Income Property Foreclosure / REO List
Eastern Alameda & Contra Costa Residential Foreclosure / REO List
Oh yeah, while your at it, don’t forget to check out our REO listings here.
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
Follow Me at twitter.com/andykaufman (2008-01-09)
January 9, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
- @candylynn , @AgentSolutions – no need to be jealous, we’re having an UnInman bash over here on twitter. @beckymccray brought the e-booze! #
- Offer accepted our listing in El Sobrante! Just got another wave of work assigned to us. Going to have to skip the new media meetup. oh well #
- @daltonsbriefs – i’m not sure about the whole deal, but it has a pretty decent online forum. haven’t been there in a while though. # Read more
The First East Bay Foreclosure Lists of 2008
January 6, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Another Sunday means another fresh set of active East Bay Bank Owned/REO lists.
Right now we’re only publishing lists for Western Alameda & Contra Costa Counties, but if there’s demand, I think that Norm might be up to the task.
A few quick facts from last week’s download stats:
* 319 total downloads of the various lists. That’s up 93% from last week!
* 77 people downloaded the entire package of lists.
* The ratio of d/l for SFR/Income property lists were 3.8/1
* The Alameda County Income Property lists were d/l’ed 6 times more than the Contra Costa Income Property lists.
Thanks to everyone who downloaded the lists and checked them out. The phone calls and emails that have started to roll in assure us that our readers/community members/business partners are finding value in the lists and your kind words and future earned business are what totally makes our effort worth while.
As much as you rely on us, we rely on you to help us improve our services. Thanks to a couple suggestions that we received last week, we’re going to be rolling out a couple of new features in the near future that we’re super excited about, so stay tuned.
Once again, I’ll also be posting the lists in the ‘relatively static’ Foreclosures / REOs section of the site, so if you miss a week and want to find an older one, look in there.
Same deal.. If you see something that strikes your fancy and you want more info, want to write some offers, or just want to talk about how we can do some business together, just call or email us (my info is on the top right corner) Cool?
So without further ado, here’s this week’s lists…
Download All the Lists at Once (.zip file)
Alameda County Residential Income REO List
West Contra Costa County SFR REO List
West Contra Costa County Residential Income REO List
Oh yeah, while your at it, don’t forget to check out our REO listings here.
photo credit: me!;)
The Last Set of Foreclosure/REO Lists for 2007
December 30, 2007 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Hot off the e-presses, here comes this week’s lists of active Bank Owned/REO listings in Western Alameda & Western Contra Costa counties.
A couple quick facts from last week’s download stats.
- 165 total downloads of the various lists
- 35 people downloaded the entire package of lists.
- The ratio of d/l for SFR/Income property lists were 3.3/1
- The Alameda County lists are 5.78 times more popular than the Contra Costa lists.
I have to admit that I was a bit surprised at the volume of downloads, especially since it happened in what’s usually the slowest week of the year for real estate. Looking forward, we’d love to build on that number and *gasp* get our first phone call/email as a result of posting them.
I’ll also be posting the lists in the relatively static Foreclosures / REOs section of the site, so if you miss a week and want to find an older one, look in there.
We think that these lists contain valuable information for anyone looking to buy, or invest in East Bay REO properties. In return for posting these, we hope that if you see something that strikes your fancy and you want more info, or want to write some offers, or just want to talk about how we can do some business together, that you contact us (415-449-1609). Cool? … Cool.
So without further ado, here’s this week’s lists…
Download All the Lists at Once (.rar file)
Alameda County Residential Income REO List
West Contra Costa County SFR REO List
West Contra Costa County Residential Income REO List
Oh yeah, while your at it, don’t forget to check out our REO listings here.
This Week's Bank Owned Foreclosure Lists
December 23, 2007 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Here’s this week’s lists of active Bank Owned REO properties in Western Alameda & Western Contra Costa counties.
Like I mentioned in an earlier post, as long as there’s demand, we’ll be posting new lists here weekly. I’ll also be posting the lists in the relatively static Foreclosures / REOs section of the site, so if you miss a week and want to find an older one, look in there.
We think that these lists provide valuable information for anyone looking to buy, or invest in, East Bay REO properties. In return for doing this, we ask that if you see a property (or ten) that strikes your fancy and you want to write some offers, that you contact us (415-449-1609). Deal? … Cool.
Download All at Once (.rar file)
Alameda County Residential Income REO List
West Contra Costa County SFR REO List
West Contra Costa County Residential Income REO List
Oh yeah, while your at it, don’t forget to check out our REO listings here.
4 Ways to NOT Buy an East Bay Bank Owned Foreclosure
December 16, 2007 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Since a majority of our business is centered around East Bay foreclosures, namely Bank Owned REOs, our marketing efforts tend to bring in a variety of interesting responses. Since I’m feeling a bit snarky tonight, I thought that I’d share a few of them with you in the form of the following how-NOT-to tips.
1. The first way NOT to buy an East Bay REO is to send me a one line email with no name attached.
“I’ll offer 480″ or “I would like to offer 250,000 for this house.”
That’s it. No name. No phone #.
I’ve been getting a quite a few of these recently. While I get the feeling that most of them are just scam artists, or seminar newbies; there have to be a least be a few that simply don’t know any better. I usually just ask them politely to contact me via phone so that I can better asses their needs, but that seems to scare them away. I have played phone tag with a handful of these potential buyers to no avail and have actually talked to a few, but half of these “connections” invariably lead to #2.
2. If you sincerely would like to make an offer, you’re going to need to put it in writing. Don’t expect me to relay a verbal offer to my client (the bank) and expect them to respond. They will laugh at both you and me and tell us to put it in writing if we really want an answer.
3. The third way NOT buy a east bay REO is to ask to buy via lease option. When buying a bank owned property, this simply is not an option. The bank has no interest in keeping the property on their books for any longer than necessary and for this reason an offer asking for a lease option will get flat out rejected.
4. The fourth, and final way NOT to buy an East Bay REO is to ask me to make a verbal offer to buy the note outside of escrow and w/o title insurance so that you can avoid transfer taxes & transaction costs.
This was an actual request from an investor that says that he’s does it all the time and I’ve been trying to work out the mechanics of this transaction for the past week or so. Still, it doesn’t compute. Why would a bank do that?
I did ask my client (the bank) if they’ve ever heard of such a thing and got a rejection email resembling something from #1 in this list- “all transactions must go through escrow” Plus, if the bank foreclosed and took the property back, why is there a note in the first place? If anybody has seen something like this and could enlighten me, I’d love to hear it.
So there you have it, 4 ways to NOT buy an East Bay bank owned property. In all reality though, I’m a glass is half full kinda guy and the ultimate goal of this site is to educate potential clients so that we can put some deals together, which means that I’ll be working on a companion post entailing what you SHOULD do to buy an East Bay REO.
You’ll just have to wait a few days though. Deal?
Download a Weekly List of Active East Bay REO Listings
December 14, 2007 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
You asked for it and we’re going to give it to you. From now on, we’ll be offering a free list of active East Bay REO (Real Estate Owned) listings in excel format.
As experienced REO investors, as well as active REO listing agents, we’re constantly trying to provide the best information possible so that potential buyers can make decisions quickly and act upon then when they identify a potential deal. By offering this information as an excel spreadsheet, our readers will be able to download and sort the data as they see fit.
Searching through the data, you’ll notice that we’ve included the MLS numbers for each property. With this number, you can click on the “Search the MLS” button on the sidebar and pull up detailed property profiles for any of the listings that you’d like.
If return, we ask that if you see a property, (or ten) that strikes your fancy, you contact us (415-449-1609). Deal?
Alameda County Residential Income REO List
Equal Housing Opportunity. Equal Opportunity Employer.