Foreclosure Trustee Services / 888.925.3938

U.S. Home Prices up in 2nd Quarter

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:41:24 +0000

A quarterly index of national home prices in the second quarter showed improvement from both its first quarter and year-ago figures, according to the latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller National Home Price Indices reportreleased today.

The indices, which are based on repeat sales of single-family homes over time, have a base value of 100, with levels above 100 representing the percentage of home-value appreciation since January 2000.

The U.S National Home Price Index rose 3.6 percent year-over-year in the second quarter to 138.03, and rose 4.4 percent from the first quarter of this year.

Meanwhile, the monthly 20-City Composite Home Price Index rose 4.2 percent in June, to 147.97, compared to June 2009. That follows a 4.6 percent year-over-year increase in May.

“After 16 consecutive months of improvement in their annual rates of return, June’s figures were the first to moderate from their prior month’s pace, pointing to a possible deceleration in home-price returns,” the report said.

Fifteen of the 20 metropolitan statistical areas covered by the index saw their home prices rise year-over-year. The index’s month-to-month gain was more modest: 1 percent.

“While the numbers are upbeat, other more recent data on home sales and mortgages point to fewer gains ahead,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, in a statement.

“The worry starts when you remember that the homebuyers’ tax credit has expired, foreclosures are still at high levels, and July data on home sales and starts were very, very weak. The inventory of unsold homes and months’ supply data were particularly troubling. If this relative weakness in demand continues, it will likely filter through to home prices in coming months.”

The 20-city composite was down 28.4 percent in June from its peak in June and July 2006.

“Even with concerns about near-term developments, we recognize that the housing market is in better shape than this time last year,” Blitzer said.

“Further, California’s cities have moved from some of the hardest hit to three of the four leading cities based on year-over-year gains. Among the other hard-hit cities, the news is also a bit encouraging — Las Vegas, however, remains among the weaker cities.”

Of the five metro areas that experienced declines in the past year, Las Vegas fell the most in June: -5.2 percent, to 101.77. The other metro areas to see drops were Charlotte, N.C. (-2.7 percent, to 117.24); Seattle (-1.8 percent, to 146.83); Tampa, Fla. (-1.6 percent, to 138.58); and Chicago (-0.1 percent, to 124.9).

San Francisco, San Diego and Minneapolis experienced double-digit year-over-year gains: 14.3 percent, 11.2 percent and 10.7 percent, respectively. San Diego, in particular, posted its 14 straight month of gains, the report said. The index for Los Angeles also rose substantially in June, up 9.2 percent.

Pasadena Wright House Still for Sale

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 01:27:49 +0000

A historic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home in Pasadena, Calif., could be dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere, says the real estate agent listing the property.

La Miniatura, one of four textile-block homes designed by Wright, has been on the market for more than two years and reduced in price by more than $2 million, but no one in the United States has offered to purchase it, the Los Angeles Times said Monday.

Los Angeles-based listing agent Crosby Doe said he is talking to an international art dealer with Japanese clients who might be interested in buying it. Asking price: $4.99 million.

“With my position in the preservation community, I will probably be crucified for saying this,” Doe said. “But we have to consider all options. We moved the London Bridge to the Colorado River. Why couldn’t we move this house to Japan?”

Only four of the homes were built, all of them in Southern California. Another, known as the Ennis House, remains unsold after more than a year. It was listed for $15 million; in an effort to sell it the price was cut in half, the newspaper said.

Even with their multimillion-dollar price tags, some wonder why they haven’t sold.

“There’s still a lot of money in this city. It’s hard to believe that someone isn’t stepping forward to support these houses,” said Ken Breisch, who oversees another of the textile-block homes the architect designed. Harriet Freeman gave that house, which bears her name, to the University of Southern California in 1986.

Senate Bill Not a Sure Thing for Homeowners in Foreclosure

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 23:47:59 +0000

A state legislative effort to save homeowners from foreclosure that once seemed to enjoy broad support is close to failing in the wake of an intense banking industry lobbying effort in Sacramento.

SB1275 would require lenders to provide homeowners with a fully considered decision on a loan modification prior to starting foreclosure.

The bill addresses what some say has become a far too common phenomenon for homeowners who are delinquent on their mortgages: While negotiating a loan modification, their lender forecloses. The proposed rules would allow the homeowner to sue if that occurs.

The federal government imposed similar rules on June 1 for banks participating in its main foreclosure reduction plan, but did not provide for legal action and uses no formal enforcement mechanism, according to SB1275’s sponsors.

The banking industry has opposed the state bill, arguing that lawsuits could be brought against lenders for technical violations and could delay the foreclosure process even if owners were ineligible for a modification. Banking representatives also have said that federal rules have evolved and could change again, potentially making SB1275 outdated and creating a conflict.

The bill’s author, state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, said his legislation was born of the belief that lenders will continue to mistreat borrowers and handle foreclosures incompetently unless they are forced to change.

“Banks are not being held accountable,” Leno said in an interview Thursday. “The result has been devastating to homeowners and neighborhoods, and cities and counties, which have lost tax revenue. … The banks caused this entire mess; they brought the world down.”

Representatives from the California Bankers Association were not available Thursday. In June, a spokeswoman told The Chronicle that the association was “extremely opposed to any sort of private right of action.”

The state Senate passed SB1275 on June 3 and all three Assembly committees that reviewed the bill also approved it. But when it surfaced for a full Assembly vote on Tuesday, it did not get enough votes, losing 38-27, with 14 Democrats abstaining and some voting no, according to Leno.

The Assembly granted the bill a reconsideration vote that must occur before the end of business Tuesday, when the legislative session is scheduled to end, Leno said. He noted that the vote was expected to run along party lines and that his office and others were trying to persuade Democrats to get off the sidelines, or if they went against the bill, to change their votes.

“The banks are in full force to kill this bill, which is really intended to prevent avoidable foreclosures and letting lenders know that there are consequences to not doing their job properly.

High End Homes Sometimes a Tough Sell

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 04:49:26 +0000

LOS ANGELES — Southern California’s home-sale listings are beginning to resemble an index to the country’s most famous mid-20th-century architects, with more marquee properties languishing on the market as the well-heeled become increasingly reluctant to buy.

Homes by the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler that once sold briskly to architectural aficionados for stratospheric prices are now selling at a loss — if at all.

“Those days of easy money and money-is-no-object artwork kinds of prices are gone,” said architect and real estate agent Brian Linder, who has a listing for a 1937 condo unit by Austrian emigre designer Richard Neutra that’s had its price cut to $675,000 after hitting the market in May for $815,000.

It’s a big change from just a few years ago, when the housing-finance bubble that inflated property values throughout the country earlier in the decade showed itself even more prominently among architecturally significant homes. Those homes often sold for many times what their less notable neighbors fetched.

Pierre Koenig’s late 1960s Case Study House No. 21, for example, sold in December 2006 after barely a week on the market for $3.2 million, or around $2,400 a square foot. That compares to an average of $500 to $600 per square foot for neighboring homes at the time, Linder said.

But the prices of many of these pedigreed homes hasn’t yet come down to the level where buyers would be willing to make a purchase.

A 1949 home built in the foothills of the Verdugo Mountains outside Los Angeles by John Lautner, best known for the octagonal Chemosphere that looms over the Hollywood Hills, has been on the market for about two years.

The asking price for the airy redwood-and-glass structure, called the Schaffer Residence, debuted at around $2 million, but has since been cut to about $1.5 million.

In the trendy Silver Lake neighborhood, the Austrian-born Schindler’s sparse, concrete How House hit the market in September 2008 at around $5 million. Its last listing was at $1.9 million.

Meanwhile, in the hills overlooking the neighborhood of Los Feliz, Wright’s Ennis house, which has been featured in such movies as “Blade Runner,” and “House on Haunted Hill,” has had its price reduced from $15 million last summer to about $7.5, and it still hasn’t found a buyer.

The 1924 home’s current owner, the nonprofit Ennis House Foundation, began seeking a buyer for the home in the Mayan-ruins-inspired “textile block” style after spending some $6.5 million to fix damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Another of Wright’s Mayan-influenced homes, the Millard House in Pasadena, has had its price cut from nearly $8 million to around $5 million during the two years it’s been for sale.

Its current owners, who bought the home about 12 years ago, even entertained a proposal by an art dealer whose Japanese client considered buying the home, dismantling it block-by-textile-block and shipping it to Japan.

“We have a priceless treasure at a bargain price and it’s not as well understood at home probably as it is around the world,” said the home’s listing agent, Crosby Doe.

High-priced homes by brand-name architects don’t seem to be selling any better in other parts of the country.

Wright’s 60-year-old concrete-and-mahogaony Fawcett House, on 80 acres of farmland in California’s northwest San Joaquin Valley, went on the market nearly two years ago at $2.8 million.

Real estate agent Zack Anawalt said his firm, which recently took over the home’s sale, plans to relist it next week at about $2 million.

And in the Highland Park suburb of Chicago, the modernist glass-and-steel box-shaped home best known as the launching point of a character’s father’s Ferrari in 1986’s “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” has languished on the market for more than a year.

The house, built in 1953 by Mies van der Rohe-protege A. James Speyer, was first listed for $2.3 million in May 2009. Last month, its price was cut to about $1.7 million.

James Ebert, a property appraiser who specializes in architecturally significant homes, said prices would have to come down even more in order to attract buyers for these homes, many of which are in disrepair and require expensive maintenance to keep their historic integrities intact.

“When the economy was in better shape, people were willing to spend a little extra for a work of art,” he said. “In the recession we’re in now, that architectural, creative edge tends to dissipate and buyers become more concerned for basic shelter.”

Doe, meanwhile, attributed some of the difficulty selling these homes to a post-meltdown change in the rules governing property appraisals, under which appraisers must be chosen at random.

Since appraisers can’t be selected based on their architectural backgrounds, many ignore homes’ design pedigrees in their valuations and compare them to less notable surrounding homes based only on quotidian aspects like floor space and kitchen amenities.

Consequently, those appraisals come in lower than in the past, which discourages banks from offering loans large enough to cover asking prices.

“It’s the same thing as taking a Picasso and a paint-by-numbers and saying they’re the same,” he said.

Wigglers — Woodland Hills Criminal Defense Attorney — Agoura Hills Family Lawyer — Auto Repair Long Beach — Rancho Palos Verdes Glass — Auto Repair Simi Valley Bakersfield Apartments for Rent — Dog Walker Los Angeles — Auto Repair Lynnwood — Malibu Glass — Thousand Oaks Glass — Malibu Windows and Doors — Auto Repair Lynnwood — Auto Repair Long Beach — Ventura Family Law — Everett Divorce Attorney — Bat Removal — Thousand Oaks Blinds — Everett Divorce Attorney — Stone Sealer — Foreclosure Trustee Services — Wedding Gift Heirlooms — Cleaning Services Seattle

Home Buying Advice Available

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 23:53:11 +0000

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 26 /PRNewswire/ — In a new initiative to help California home buyers avoid the pitfalls and pratfalls of over-aggressive sales techniques that led to the recent housing crisis, RealEstateExpress.com announced the California SmartBuyer™ Program today, with a guarantee of success.

In this easy-to-use online training course by America’s Favorite Real Estate School™, potential homebuyers in Californialearn exactly how the real estate game is played, from the perspective of the licensed real estate agent. The course curriculum is modeled after the same training licensed agents are required to take in California, so the course promise that “you will know as much or more than the listing agent” is not hyperbole. In fact, the California Department of Real Estate has approved this course as a pre-requisite to being licensed.

As Jeff Reynolds, Chief Operating Officer of the nationwide school explained, “After the real estate crash of 2008, Californiahome buyers today are looking for ways to be educated before entering into a contract to purchase a new home, so they won’t be tricked into believing hyper-inflated values or over-inflated promises. With the advent of public MLS sites like Zillow andTrulia, finding homes is no longer the exclusive right of licensed agents. Knowing what to do after you find the home is the trick. The SmartBuyer training program teaches them the rest of the equation, so they can buy right, buy smart, and even get some cash back at closing.”

By training with the California SmartBuyer™ Program, no longer do home buyers have to blindly accept listing sheet sales pitches, open house dramas, or confusing documentation like before. SmartBuyers will be able to evaluate for themselves such critical elements of the home purchase as:

The Home Inspection, and how to see through “seller’s language”;
The Official Appraisal- and where the appraiser may have missed some details;
Comparables in the Neighborhood- and how to find the ones the best ones;
Financing Options- that only those in the industry know about;
And much more.

The SmartBuyer Training Package from RealEstateExpress.com not only educates but equips as well. Included in the package are the same textbooks and professional resources used by the typical agent in California, plus Online Practice Exams, Checklists, and much more.

About RealEstateExpress.com

American School of Real Estate Express LLC is the owner and operator of RealEstateExpress.com along with other leading training schools and online learning programs in the USA. For more information, visit www.RealEstateExpress.com.

Wigglers — Woodland Hills Criminal Defense Attorney — Agoura Hills Family Lawyer — Auto Repair Long Beach — Rancho Palos Verdes Glass — Auto Repair Simi Valley Bakersfield Apartments for Rent — Dog Walker Los Angeles — Auto Repair Lynnwood — Malibu Glass — Thousand Oaks Glass — Malibu Glass — Auto Repair Lynnwood — Auto Repair Long Beach — Ventura Family Law — Everett Divorce Attorney — Bat Removal — Thousand Oaks Blinds — Everett Divorce Attorney — Stone Sealer — Foreclosure Trustee Services — Wedding Gift Heirlooms — Cleaning Services Seattle

California Foreclosures Still Not Turning Around

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 22:16:45 +0000

General’s Office and a group of other state attorneys general and banking regulators say they’ve seen improvements in programs designed to help homeowners. But they’re concerned that foreclosures continue to outpace loan modifications, and note that most modifications increase the loan balance.

According to a report issued today by the State Foreclosure Prevention Working Group, a multi-state coalition, recent loan modifications are performing better. Modifications can include reduced interest rates and other changes to terms that result in smaller payments and, in some cases, lower outstanding balances.

“Some analysts have predicted redefault rates as high as 75 percent but today’s report paints a brighter picture of the future,” Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna said. “The newer modifications are holding up better, with fewer borrowers redefaulting.”

The report tracks loan modifications made by nine mortgage companies who were servicing 4.6 million loans as of March 2010. Banks, which are regulated by federal agencies, are not included. Compared to loans modified in 2008, borrowers whose loans were modified in 2009 were 40-50 percent less likely to be seriously delinquent six months later.

The Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of Currencyreported a similar reduction in redefault rates in their Mortgage Metrics Report for the first quarter of 2010. The agencies reported that of the 590,000 modifications made in 2009, nearly 52 percent were current at the end of the first quarter of 2010. Only 27 percent of the modifications implemented during 2008 were current.

McKenna and his office have been leading efforts to help homeowners, including cracking down on unethical lenders and fraudsters, advocating for modifications of mortgages that have become unaffordable, urging changes to bankruptcy rules, and seeking state-federal collaboration on bank regulation. The Washington Attorney General’s Office granted $920,000 of itsCountrywide/Bank of America settlement payment for local foreclosure prevention programs that provide counseling and pro bono legal services.

Wigglers — Woodland Hills Criminal Defense Attorney — Agoura Hills Family Lawyer — Auto Repair Long Beach — Rancho Palos Verdes Glass — Auto Repair Simi Valley Bakersfield Apartments for Rent — Dog Walker Los Angeles — Auto Repair Lynnwood — Malibu Glass — Thousand Oaks Glass — Malibu Glass — Auto Repair Lynnwood — Auto Repair Long Beach — Ventura Family Law — Everett Divorce Attorney — Bat Removal — Thousand Oaks Blinds — Everett Divorce Attorney — Stone Sealer — Foreclosure Trustee Services — Wedding Gift Heirlooms — Cleaning Services Seattle