Bellevue Real Estate » Distressed Inventory

Distressed Inventory Report 8-12-10

George Thurtle — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 16:03:58 +0000

The news this week is that distressed inventory appears to be peaking or else the lenders are on vacation and not processing the new defaults. We will know more by the end of September when they return from vacation. This is not a joke as the case loads are so high that work cycles are as important as market cycles. However looking at the big picture unemployment has stabilized so theoretically at some point in time the foreclosure cycle needs to stabilize but as has been discussed earlier there are two factors. The first is how long some owners can keep going on their reserves and what happens with the new wave of ARM resets that appear to be coming in 2011. Usually we have a quicker upturn and those folks living on reserves manage to hang on long enough so that as the economy comes out of the recession they begin earning enough again to cover their expenses. This may be the self employed or small business owners who are particularly sensitive to market cycles and also have had the added burden of their banks not providing interim funding and are forced to drain reserves to pay down debt. The other class is the unemployed who mange to find new jobs as the economy cycles back up. With an effective 1% growth rate the market is not helping these people out and they are slowly draining what resources they have.

Like a nuclear blast you can say the lucky ones were the ones who were incinerated in the initial blast. These would have been the sub prime borrowers who have been foreclosed in 2007 and 2008 and have written off their debt and are renting and building their resources. The unlucky ones are those who lived and are slowly dying from radiation poisoning and are struggling to hang on and hope they can last long enough until the effects of the blast are behind them.

Part of the good news regarding the dissipating the effects of the blast are that in the spreadsheet you will see the Notice of Trustee Sales is falling. The reason are potentially two fold. The first is that the house goes to foreclosure and is now a bank owned home. The other is that it has been sold in a short sale. Keep and eye for an increase of the bank owned homes as this will be an indicator if the market is absorbing the NTS homes through either a short sale or foreclosure.

The spreadsheet is here: Bellevue Foreclosure Report 8-14-10

Distressed Inventory Report 7-31-10

George Thurtle — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 15:33:51 +0000

The overall rate of the distressed inventory increase appears to be slowing. The number of bank owned homes are down a little and in East Bellevue there actually was a small overall decline in distressed inventory.

The Notice of Trustee Sales (NTS) keep rising and in zip code 98008 there were 5 notices alone. Most of the foreclosure and short sale activity is in condominiums. There are a couple of high end properties but overall those have declined.

The bulk of the opportunity in distressed properties appear to be in homes under $500,000.

The spreadsheet is here: Bellevue Foreclosure Report 7-31-10

Distressed Inventory Report 7-17-10

George Thurtle — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 01:03:20 +0000

The numbers keep climbing. The foreclosures are basically holding steady but the Notie of Trustee Sale keeps rising. Not at the same rate as the last few weeks but the trend is up and shows no sign of turning around although the upward rate has slowed down. Again the gap between the listed inventory and the actual inventory is very large. Altough sale volumes remain steady increasing inventory, especially distressed inventory will keep downward pressure on prices.

The spreadsheet is here: Bellevue Foreclosure Report 7-17-10

Distressed Inventory Report July 3, 2010

George Thurtle — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 02:06:28 +0000

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

Distressed Inventory Report 6-26-10

George Thurtle — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:20:17 +0000

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

Distressed Inventory Report 4-17-10

George Thurtle — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 14:45:44 +0000

Last week there was a spike in distressed inventories but this week it looks like they have pulled back a little. There were a couple of more short sales in West Bellevue but overall things look even or trending down. What is interesting this week was the NTS/Foreclosure ratio. This week all ratios took a bigger drop down to one. This is usually a sign of “topping” which is interesting after last week’s spike. Usually a spike like the one seen last week will have a trend up for two or three more weeks but it is strange to have such a blip up with no follow through momentum. In addition it looks like there has been a reduction of some of the short sale inventory with the drop in the NTS/Foreclosure ratio. Let’s see what the next couple of weeks have in store.

Here is the spreadsheet: Bellevue Foreclosure Report 4-17-10

Distressed Inventory Report 3-27-10

George Thurtle — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:59:56 +0000

Treading water and churning a little bit. 98005 saw a jump with four new NTS occuring this week. There havn’t been jumps like this since last summer. However overall East Bellevue and West Bellevue was up a little bit but South Bellevue was down two homes overall. Need to see the trends over the next couple of weeks to se if this a plateau or a base.

Here is the spreadsheet: Bellevue Foreclosure Report 3-27-10

Distressed Inventory Report 3-20-10

George Thurtle — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:12:58 +0000

The character of things changed a little bit this week. Overall the amount of distressed inventory is down slightly with the amount of foreclosed homes being down overall. However the notice of trustee sales is up in certain areas: 98008, 98004 and 98006. Also the amount of listed distressed inventory continues to rise both foreclosed and short sale. This is good news to get this inventory on the market. Presently it looks like the sale of homes is about even with those coming on. Looks like the passengers on the boat are able to bail water about as fast as it is coming in.

Here is the apreadsheet: Bellevue Foreclosure Report 3-20-10

Distressed Inventory Report 2-27-10

George Thurtle — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:00:36 +0000

The big news this week is that the distressed inventory has seen a decline. The number of homes with notice of trustee sale (NTS) took a siginificant decline in all areas of Bellevue. The number of foreclosed homes held steady. It appears that more homes are being sold at auction and that more short sells are successful. South Bellevue (SB) saw the amount of homes with NTS decline from 31 to 24. All areas saw a decline in its NTS homes.

The amount of listed inventory remains steady. We will see if this trend continues but overall , in my opinion, this market is very muddled with declining inventories and soft demand There are very few bank owned new homes. This inventory is pretty well cleaned out with only three bank homes being listed now in the Bellevue area. There are few with a notice of trustee sale but not very many. Last November and December saw most of this inventory being cleaned out. Anyone who wants to know about these homes please email.

Here is the spreadsheet: Bellevue Foreclosure Report 2-27-10

Distressed Inventory Report 2-6-10

George Thurtle — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:21:28 +0000

The beat goes on. This week distressed inventories rose in all areas. The hardest hit area was East Bellevue (EB). It is up to 132 homes from 123 last week and its NTS/Foreclosure ratio is approaching 1.5. The middle class keeps getting hammered. WB has a small increase from 51 to 53 and SB was up four homes from 55 to 59.

The story this week is that the lenders seem to be real slow getting the inventory to the market. In EB where there are 53 bank owned homes there are only six homes listed. On the January 9th report there was the same 53 foreclosed homes but 13 bank owned homes were listed in the MLS.

Overall if you look at the spreadsheet the bank owned inventory has stayed steady. The homes that are NTS are climbing for the because the lenders had a back log of homes to put into foreclosure until they figured out how to deal with the Washington State’s new requirement that requires the lender to attempt to contact the borrower and see if there is an alternative to foreclosure.

Looks like there will be a number of bank owned homes coming to the market in the summer unless they get short sold in the meantime. The spreadsheet link is here: Bellevue Foreclosure Report 2-6-10