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Distressed Inventory Report 10-24-09

Hello everyone. There is a new addition to the Distressed Inventory Report. By Popular demand I have added West Bellevue (98004) and South Bellevue (98006). Also the website is going to be expanded to be a Bellevue website as opposed just specializing in East Bellevue. Seems folks from the other neighborhoods would like to get the Stats for their markets. There is no historical record for these two new zip codes but as the weeks go by you will see the trend lines developing. However if you want to get an idea of a market’s overall direction without historical data look at the ratio of NTS/Foreclosure (NTS/FO). In general markets that have a large amount of distrssed inventroy will see many more NTS (Notice of Trustee Sale) than foreclosed homes. If you look at the East Bellevue historic numbers you see that on August 8th you have 90 homes total with an NTS/FO Ratio of 4.625. This means for every foreclosed home there was 4.625 NTS homes. Intuitively you can imply the amount of foreclosed homes rise because not all NTS homes will be successfully short sold or have their loans successfully renegotiated. Conversly as the ratio falls it means there is less potential NTS invetory which will be converted to a foreclosed bank owned home. If you look at the West Bellevue ratio of 1.0645 you can see that this is almost even because for every bank owned home there is only one short sale home. If you look at the West Bellevue numbers on the surface with 5 new foreclosed homes you would think wow what a big jump in bank owned inventory which is true. However what is really happening is that the overall distressed inventory is working down since there is a dwindling amount of NTS inventory to supply the foreclosure pipeline. From this I would make the argument that this market is actually in recovery with those borrowers or lenders throwing in the towel and taking the home back to dispose of it. The key factor is the overall distressed inventory not just the foreclosed homes. Home foreclosure is the cumulnation of an extended process for a borrower under extreme financial pressure. These foreclosures you see now reflect economic conditions put in place over a year ago. The NTS reflect borrower circumstances from about six months ago. In most markets the largest downward pressure on prices is not put on by the bank owned homes but the short sale homes. These borrowers are at the height of their economic distress and their main emphasis is to get a deal at any price to show a lender.

I will have more commentary on this week’s report a little later in the week but the interesting numbers for me were in East Bellevue on the listed MLS inventory which took a big jump. Looks like some of this short sale and foreclosed properties are finally coming to the market.

Click on the link for the spreadsheet. It is getting pretty large and I have added grid lines and color coding to help.
Bellevue Foreclosure Report 10-24-09

Tags: 98004, 98005, 98006, 98007, 98008, Distressed, East Bellevue, South Bellevue, Weekly
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Weekly Scorecard 10-19-09

The inventory after a BIG drop three weeks ago to 234 is slowly creeping back up. This week there are 245 homes listed for sale up 8 homes from the week’s previous 237. There were a large number of sold homes this week, 10 in total. They ranged in price from $370,000 to $1,800,000. There was one bank owned and one short sale. I took out the one sale at $1,800,000 which was a waterfront and the averages for the 9 homes was a sales price of $531,667 and average per sq. ft. sales price of $232. Closer to the prevaling $220 per s. ft. number than last weeks. However there were only 3 pending sales. In additon the average per sq. ft. sales price of the pending sales was only $210 per sq. ft. prices ranged from $395,000 to $700,000. This is the same trend as last week a large number of sold homes and a lesser number of pending homes. Looks like values have peaked and are going to settle back down to $220 per sq. ft.

Overall this time of year sees decliging sales volumes however I suspect the spike in prices has also slowed down sales. The buyers I am talking to are very price sensitive and have the position they will wait it out to get the buy they want. It appears that we are headed into a “trading range” where prices fluctuate betwwen $220 and $240 per sq. ft. The big driver on pricing will be if the amount of distressed inventory increases. The amount distressed inventory the more downward pressure on pricing.

Tags: inventory, pending, Scorecard, sold, Weekly
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Distressed Inventroy Report 10-17-09

The news this week is the overall uptick in distressed inventory that appeared last week has accelerated. This week There were 80 homes that could be categorized as distressed inventory which is either a foreclosed home and is bank owned or a home with a Notice of Trustee Sale (NTS). Two weeks ago this number bottomed at 73. The peak number was on August 15th at 91. As everyone knows in the news homes sales volume have been up but prices have been down. If you take a look at the Altos graphs on the home page you have seen prices moving up and in the monthly numbers we saw the per sq.ft. prices move up in East Bellevue to $250 per sq. ft. However what I have noticed on the street level is that it appears sales volumes are starting to drop. It appears the buyer does not want to play at higher prices.

In the weeks previous the robust market conditions were taking the NTS inventory off of the shelf quicker than it was coming to the market while the number of new foreclosures was actually increasing. However it appears the slowing sales is not taking the inventory off of the shelf as quickly. Even the listed distressed MLS inventory has taken a jump. Looks like the inventory will build until the prices come back down to the $220 per sq. ft. level and sales volumes will probably increase then to absorb the inventory. This market appears extremely price sensitive with the buyer only willing to play at a certain level.

Click on the link for the spreadsheet.
East Bellevue Foreclosure Report 10-17-09

Tags: bank owned, Distressed Inventory, foreclossure, inventory, NTS, Weekly
Discussion: 2 Comments

Weekly Scorecard 10-12-09

Well it appears the overall inventory level is stabilizing at a lower level. This week it was 237 versus 234 last week. The big news over the last three months was the drop in inventory from approximately 300 homes down to about 240 homes. This is a 20% drop. This drop occured in mainly in the last month. This week there was 9 homes sold with an average per sq. ft. sales price of $237 per sq. ft. The number of homes closed is above average and the per sq. ft. sales price is above the $220 per sq. ft. the number seemed to be stuck at. There appeared to be no short sales or bank owned properties which is probably why we see per sq. ft. sales prices molving up. The average sales price was above $500,000 this week at $586,767.

However this week there was only three pending sales. The per sq. ft. pending sale price was $241 per sq. ft. and the average pending home sale list price was $529,665. Looks like as prices try to head up the volumes go down. In this group of sale there also appeared to be no bank owned or short sales. If the distressed inventory remains stable looks like a tug of war between buyers and sellers; as sellers want higher prices but the buyers want the prices that prevailed with more distressed inventory in the market.

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Distressed Inventory Report 10-10-09

A slight uptick in distressed inventory. Overall the number of distressed homes has increased to 75 from 73. The number of Notice of Trustee Sale remained steady but the number of new foreclosed homes jumped by two homes to 29. Sales did not offset the new sales. I appears we will be oscillating around the 75 number for the next few months. We have have had a burst of sales the last three months and it feel that will be leveling out. Particularly if you review the September numbers and see they have jumped to over $250 per sq. ft. this should slow down sales but the inventory has also declined substantially.

Looks like we are reaching a point where the market is trying to climb higher but the market has a pretty steep wall to climb given the economic conditions and there may be some resistance to the increasing pricing. If the distressed inventory starts building again you will probably see the per sq. ft. sales price trending back to the $200 per sq. ft. level. Click on the link for the spreadsheet.

East Bellevue Foreclosure Report 10-10-09

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Weekly Scorecard 10-5-09

The big news is that the inventory in East Bellevue continues to drop. It is now at 234 homes it hasn’t been this low in years. Traditionally this has been a 300 home market. It appears that a lot of sellers are taking their home off of the market because they are not able to get their desired price and will probably try again next year. In the past this trend was offset by increasing amounts of distressed inventory filling the void but as we have seen in the “Distressed Inventory Report” those numbers are headed down. Now distressed inventory comprises less than 5% of the market in November of 2008 it was almost 30% of the market.

A whopping 15 homes sold this week and of those 4 were waterfront homes. Only one was a bank owned home. The average per sq. ft. sales price was pretty low at $212 per sq. ft. The week before we saw a bonce off of the prevailing $220 per sq. ft. but that did not happen this week. The number of pendings was also larger than usual at 10 so it appears inventory continues to move out the door. There were two new construction sales and the average per sq. ft. sales price was $285 per sq. ft. We will see what the closed prices are but it appears that in the next month the average per sq. ft. sales price should continue to move up given the trend of the pendings.

Falling inventories is the big news. At some time with less distressed inventory and falling overall inventories there should be some upward pressure on pricing. The Altos graphs show pricing recovery for all zip codes except 98008. For some reason this zip code has had the most distressed inventory and also continues to experience some downward pressure on pricing.

Tags: inventory, pendings, sales, Scorecard, weeklly
Discussion: 1 Comment