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Weekly Scorecard 7-5-10

A week of contrast. Some of the highest closed sale numbers and some of the lowest pending sale numbers. The general accepted wisdom is that the expiration of the Federal Tax credits were the reason and in part I am sure this is true. However areas such as West Bellevue which is not tax credit dependent had 11 closed sales of which two were waterfront homes. One over $3,000,000 and the other over $4,000,000. But the number of pending sales this week for West Bellevue was “0″. This probably is the best example of the contrast. East Bellevue saw 21 closed sales this week. This was the last week you could close home sales and receive the tax credit. There was a last minute extension to allow sales which were written by April 30th to close by the end of August but in general the public perceived June 30th as the cut off date. As a result I think a number of these sales were driven by the tax credit expiration. In the same week there were only four new pending sales. The interesting issue with two of those pending sales is they were new construction presales. Also in area 500 there were new construction presales also. It appears the new construction inventory is depleting and that new homes are only being built on a presale basis due to financing and risk considerations by the builders.

Overall the character of the inventory of the market is changing with most of the new inventory sold out and some of the better resales having been sold. It appears the inventory is splitting between the really lousy bank stuff and better maintained homes. However the sellers of the better maintained homes which are not short sales or distressed property may pull their houses off of the market later in the fall as they find there is no pricing power. There will be a post on the changing character of the inventory and the market in the coming few months.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 7-5-10

Tags: Bellevue Homes, East Bellevue, inventoru, pending, pending sales, sold, South Bellevue, West Bellevue
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Distressed Inventory Report July 3, 2010

The numbers keep rising. Not as dramatic as last week but definetly the trend continues to see the amount of distressed inventory increasing especially the Notice of Trustee sales. It looks like the lenders have geared up and made the decision to start foreclosing. The most notable trend not showing in the numbers is the average price of the homes having their Notice of Trustee sale. In the last couple of years the homes being foreclosed were mainly at the lower end of the market. Now this week there are a number of homes over$1,000,000.

The other interesting thing to view in the numbers is that while there is a ballooning inventory of distressed inventory the amount of listed foreclosed bank owned homes is an all time low. However in about 90 days this inventory should start making its way through the system. What has happened now is that the last wave of inventory was cleaned out given the robust sales in the spring. Banks are having problems coping with the volumes and it will take some time to bring inventory to the market.

The spreadsheet is here: Bellevue Foreclosure Report 7-3-10

Tags: Bellevue Homes, Distressed Inventory, foreclosure, notice of trustee sale
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Weekly Scorecard 6-28-10

What a week. Inventories were up again to an all time high but the sales volume was off the chart. west Bellevue had over 15 closed sales. This is an extrodinary number with the averages being 2 to 3. However the pending sales were still about half of the sold homes. Again west Bellevue was a study in extremes with only 2 pending sales versus 15 closed. The other most notable point regarding the West Bellevue sales was he average price with two waterfront homes over $4,000,000 closing. The other areas had the same trend but not as extreme with closed sales running 2 to 1 over pending sales. Howvever prices were flat if you look at the per sq. ft. prices. I think that is the story of this market with good news being offset by trends such as increasing inventories and decelining pending sales keeping prices flat. The muddle still keeps going.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 6-28-10

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Distressed Inventory Report 6-26-10

The Notice of Trustee Sales (NTS) keep climbing. This week saw the largest increase in distressed inventory so far. It looks like the lenders are moving more aggresively to foreclose. The main charaterstic of the increases this week is that they occured on individual single family homes not on builder projects as occured on the big increase in inventory previously. In the past week there were 12 new NTS in the 98008 zip code and in the 98004 there were 8 homes this week. The 98004 zip code had been fairly resistant to distressed inventory but saw 8 new NTS this week alone. This is a huge increase.

The spreadsheet is here: Bellevue Foreclosure Report 6-26-10

Tags: Distressed Inventory, foreclosure, notice of trustee sale
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Weekly Scorecard 6-21-10

The same trends continue. It looks like the listed inventory has peaked and it is holding steady. Over the last couple of months listed inventory increased about 20% in all MLS areas but now looks to be leveling off. In addition the same descrepancy between the sold homes and pending sales is evident with sold homes out numbering the pending sales by approximately 2 to 1. The common wisdom is that this is due to the expiration of the first time home buyer tax credit but also I think some of this is seasonal as we have had our usual spring burst of sales and traditionally we see sales volumes go down in the summer. However at some point in time the pending sales and the sold homes need to come into sync. It is getting pretty late for these last burst of sales to come through from the tax credit incentives. Usually most sales close a maximum of 60 days and the last date to qualify for the tax credit was April 30th and the sale needed to be closed by June 30th so the July numbers should be a better indications of the underlying fundamentals of the market.

The spreadsheet is here: Weekly scorecard 6-21-10

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Distressed Inventory Report 6-19-10

The numbers held steady this week with very little change. After the increases of the last couple of months there may be signs of the distressed inventory leveling off. There is some market activity as you can see on the spreeadsheet as there were new NTS in each area but apparently there was an offsetting amount of inventory being removed from the market.

The one thing though is that if you look at the spreadsheet is the MLS listed bank inventory is at an all time low. There has always been a big gap between the bank owned homes on the public record and the actual homes listed in the MLS and this trend appears to continuing even more dramatically. If anyone has any ideas or explanations for this please give us your perspective for this. I have mine which is the bank servicers are overwhelmed and the banks refuse to staff up to handle these homes because of the negative impact to their bottom line but I think there is more going on; so if anyone has any insights please let us know.

The spreadsheet is here: Bellevue Foreclosure Report 6-19-10

Tags: Bellevue Homes, Foreclosed, Notice of trusteee sale
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