Bellevue Real Estate » NTS

Distressed Inventory Report 2-12-11

George Thurtle — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:59:40 +0000

The numbers are still on the rise. In looking at the new inventory coming on there are more houses this week. Previously it was lower end condos. The number of listed short sales in South Bellevue took a jump this week and overall some of the new bank inventory is making it into the MLS. However the pricing on the new bank inventory seems pretty aggresive. If you have the time, patience and stand a lot of frustration your best opportunity still appears to be aged short sales.

The spreadsheet is here: Bellevue Foreclosure Report 2-12-11

Distressed Inventory Report

George Thurtle — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 15:11:00 +0000

It looks that the servicers are starting to get more active. The numbers are up for foreclosures and NTS. This is the firt “spike” that I have seen. The last weeks since the first of the year the numbers had been treading water going up or down a little bit. This week definetly is the first big uptick. Since the first of the year I had been hearing from the a couple of the trustee servicers; these are the guys who actually do the sale; were saying that there was more volume coming down the pipeline. The issue was a lot of foreclosures were being deferred because of the new Washington State law which requires the lenders to show a good faith effort to contact the borrower and make a good faith effort to seek an alternative to foreclosure. This requirement has added a 30 days to the process. It now takes a minimum time of 220 to foreclose after the initial default. Many situations are stretching to a year or more after the initial defalut. A property that has had its Notice of Trustee Sale posted has already been through the process since the sale date had already been set.

What is interesting is that a survey of most of the inventory shows that a great majority of the foreclosures are at the lower end of the price range no matter what the area. There is very little new construction since maost of that inventory left has been foreclosed and sold and there is no replacement inventory being built. In vestors looking for rentals or someone looking who is willing to put some effort into fixing up a bank owned or short sale property looks like they will have some opportunity.

The spreadsheet is here: Bellevue Foreclosure Report 4-3-10

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

Distressed Inventory Report 12-12-09

George Thurtle — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:09:48 +0000

There is a definite trend developing. It is not dramatic but gradually creeping. The number of distressed properties overall continues to rise and the NTS/Foreclosure ratio is inching back up after declining for three months. The only MLS area whose NTS/Foreclosure ratio that is still under 1.00 is West Bellevue but it is also gradually creeping up. There is not enough momentum in the swings to tell if this is seasonal because sales are slowing down. It also appears that some of the sellers are getting more aggressive on pricing. Some of the per sq. ft. numbers for the asking price for relatively generic homes appear to be above the traditional averages for the last three months. As has been discussed before this market is extremely price sensitive and has shown no sort of support for any sort of price increases. The seller needs to keep in mind demand is very weak in this market and to some extent discretionary depending on the value presented.

Click the link for the spreadsheet. Bellevue Foreclosure Report 12-12-09

Distressed Inventory Report 12-5-09

George Thurtle — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:31:08 +0000

The numbers are showing a definite up-tick in the amount of foreclosed inventories and the NTS/Foreclosed homes. East Bellevue as usual has some odd numbers. The amount of distressed homes rose to a high of 106 but the NTS/Foreclosed ratio fell to 1.00. However the overall amount of distressed homes is rising. West Bellevue held steady with 69 distressed homes and the NTS/Foreclosed ratio stayed the same at .91667. South Bellevue saw both its number of distressed homes rise to 52 and the NTS/Foreclosure ratio also rose to 1.26. This is the first market in the last week to have more homes being NTS than foreclosed. As has been discussed before, this means potentially a rising number of foreclosed inventory overall as the system is being feed with a larger number of homes which have their notice of Trustee Sale (NTS). Theoretically as long as there are more homes with a NTS than foreclosed homes the number of bank owned homes will continue rising. If there are less NTS homes than foreclosed homes eventually the number of foreclosed homes will decline. The other factor is the rate of sales. Sales volumes are declining, probably for seasonal reasons while the number of foreclosed homes and NTS homes being brought to the market is slightly rising. In East Bellevue in August of this year there were 10 new homes that went NTS; however the market was absorbing inventory and the next week the amount of homes that were NTS actually declined to 65. Effectively this was a drop of 10 homes which sold. This indicated a high volume of sales. If you look at the Altos research market activity index this trend is confirmed because the index was in a full upward trend. Now you can see the market activity index falling, indicating falling sales volumes which is why I think we are seeing the results that are occurring now. The most interesting trend however is that overall inventories are declining while the number of distressed homes overall is rising. In my opinion this indicates that pricing and market conditions have not improved enough to bring the “discretionary” sellers to the market. Barring a new round of layoffs locally it looks like overall there will be fewer homes to select from in the spring. In another blog post I will discuss where I think the last round of layoffs will occur that need to be absorbed locally in 2010.

As we discussed earlier there is a buying opportunity in the near term with rising bank inventories overall, even if they aren’t listed. Banks need to sell even if it doesn’t seem like it when you make your offer. Again the Altos numbers confirm this near term trend as you can see values peaked in October and have been in a decline since. Given a near term slow down in sales volume and bank inventories this could keep values at a lower level for the next couple of months, however overall the decreased inventories will put a floor on prices so seeing a situation that happened last year with small sales volume and ballooning inventory and as a result plummeting values doesn’t look like it is in the cards. However there is nothing to drive prices up. The theories of Option Arm time bombs and readjustments causing another large down leg will help to keep values low but if the inventories remain low these homes will be absorbed by the market in the next two years.

What is interesting in this cycle is how quick employers were to cut jobs and how the lenders were totally unprepared to handle the wave of foreclosures. Employers can’t keep cutting jobs forever, especially if the global market keeps growing. However there is nothing driving up wages and salaries and there are large disincentives for employers to hire given the legislation proposed in congress. Looks like we are going to get drug along a sharp rocky bottom.

Here is the link to the spreadsheet. Bellevue Foreclosure Report 12-5-09

Distressed Inventory Report 11-21-09

George Thurtle — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:16:44 +0000

The distressed inventory is still treading water with no real break out trend other than it appears the swimmer is starting to get tired. East Bellevue this week saw its overall inventory rise by one home to an all time of 100 homes which can be categorized as distressed. However its NTS/Foreclosure ratio fell to is lowest level of 1.0. As I have said before this trend has to break one way or the other and so far it is just prolonging itself with no clear direction. West Bellevue is stuck at the same numbers as last week. No clear direction there. South Bellevue was the only that broke a little bit to the downward side and had a clear direction this week. Its inventory and NTS/foreclosure ratio were both up. The move was slight with the overall inventory up by only two homes and the NTS/Foreclosure ratio bumped up from .91 to 1.00. For a clear downward trend to emerge that ratio needs to go over 1.00 which indicates more preforeclosure NTS inventory entering the system which will ultimately increase the number of bank owned homes. Like the economy overall no clear trends just a real muddle.

The XL chart is on the link below.

Bellevue Foreclosure Report 11-21-09

Distressed Inventroy Report 10-17-09

George Thurtle — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:44:50 +0000

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