June sales and price report

For release:
July 14, 2011
June California home sales, median price post increase, C.A.R. reports
LOS ANGELES (July 14) – California home sales edged up in June, and the median price rose to its highest level since December 2010, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (C.A.R.) reported today.
Closed escrow sales of existing, single-family detached homes in California rose 1.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted 477,710 units in June, according to information collected by C.A.R. from more than 90 local REALTOR® associations and MLSs statewide.  June home sales were down 3.6 percent from the 495,780 units sold in June 2010.  The statewide sales figure represents what would be the total number of homes sold during 2011 if sales maintained the June pace throughout the year.  It is adjusted to account for seasonal factors that typically influence home sales.
“As the housing market tries to gain a more solid footing, the decrease in conforming loan limits that is scheduled for later this year could adversely affect the market,” said C.A.R. President Beth L. Peerce.  “Potential buyers – especially trade-up buyers – who are looking for a home in the $500,000 to $1 million price range will, no doubt, face higher mortgage rates, larger down payment requirements, and stricter underwriting standards.  “Would-be buyers on the fence need to act well before Sept. 30, when the conforming loan limit is set to be lowered, to avoid a higher cost of homeownership.”
The statewide median price of an existing, single-family detached home sold in California rose 1.0 percent in June to $295,300 from a revised $292,420 in May.  June’s median price was down 5.9 percent from the $313,890 recorded in June 2010.
“Looking across the state, a number of areas are showing signs of strength, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, primarily because of the strong performing tech industry,” said C.A.R. Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young.  “Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, and Santa Clara counties all posted solid sales and price gains from May levels.”
Other highlights of C.A.R.’s resale housing report for June 2011 include:

• The Unsold Inventory Index for existing, single-family detached homes was 5.0 months in June, down from 5.5 months in May, but up compared with June 2010’s 4.6-month supply. The index indicates the number of months needed to deplete the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate.
• Thirty-year fixed-mortgage interest rates averaged 4.51 percent during June 2011, down from 4.74 percent in June 2010, according to Freddie Mac. Adjustable-mortgage interest rates averaged 3.0 percent in June 2011, compared with 3.86 percent in June 2010.
• The median number of days it took to sell a single-family home was 50.3 days in June 2011, compared with 41.5 days for the same period a year ago.
• View Unsold Inventory by price point. 

Note:  The County MLS median price and sales data in the tables are generated from a survey of more than 90 associations of REALTORS® throughout the state, and represent statistics of existing single-family detached homes only.  County sales data are not adjusted to account for seasonal factors that can influence home sales.  Movements in sales prices should not be interpreted as changes in the cost of a standard home.  Median prices can be influenced by changes in cost, as well as changes in the characteristics and the size of homes sold.  Due to the low sales volume in some areas, median price changes in June may exhibit unusual fluctuation.
Leading the way...® in California real estate for more than 100 years, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® (www.car.org) is one of the largest state trade organizations in the United States, with more than 160,000 members dedicated to the advancement of professionalism in real estate. C.A.R. is headquartered in Los Angeles.
# # #
     June 2011 County Sales And Price Activity - Existing Single-Family Detached Homes

June-11	Median Price of Existing Single-Family Homes							Sales
State/Region/County	Jun-11	May-11		Jun-10		MTM% Chg	YTY% Chg	MTM% Chg	YTY% Chg
CA SFH (SAAR)	$295,300	$292,420	r	$313,890	r	1.0%	-5.9%	1.2%	-3.6%
CA Condo/Townhomes	$236,190	$234,640	r	$260,870	r	0.7%	-9.5%	7.0%	-7.3%
Los Angeles Metropolitan Area	$276,230	$276,680	r	$292,700		-0.2%	-5.6%	6.5%	-8.5%
Inland Empire	$172,800	$172,110		$185,130	r	0.4%	-6.7%	9.9%	-4.4%
S.F. Bay Area	$539,880	$512,420		$553,360	r	5.4%	-2.4%	15.3%	-0.2%
S.F. Bay Area
Alameda	$485,870	$465,550		$519,280		4.4%	-6.4%	15.2%	-5.0%
Contra-Costa (Central County)	$658,700	$602,860		$658,420		9.3%	0.0%	11.6%	8.5%
Marin	$843,080	$807,140		$840,690		4.5%	0.3%	25.0%	-0.9%
Napa	$350,000	$377,270		$390,320		-7.2%	-10.3%	-7.6%	-10.7%
San Francisco	$695,910	$641,670		$740,690		8.5%	-6.0%	8.8%	0.7%
San Mateo	$750,000	$810,000		$793,000		-7.4%	-5.4%	12.9%	5.0%
Santa Clara	$635,000	$600,000		$633,000		5.8%	0.3%	15.1%	0.8%
Solano	$189,790	$191,850		$212,830		-1.1%	-10.8%	17.8%	-6.2%
Sonoma	$327,430	$353,750		$366,390		-7.4%	-10.6%	28.3%	1.8%
Southern California
Los Angeles	$301,300	$271,540	r	$313,420	r	11.0%	-3.9%	2.4%	-11.6%
Orange County	$534,680	$544,700		$566,090	r	-1.8%	-5.5%	7.6%	-12.8%
Riverside County	$202,910	$200,000		$214,330	r	1.5%	-5.3%	9.2%	-1.7%
San Bernardino	$129,570	$127,380		$141,900	r	1.7%	-8.7%	11.3%	-8.8%
San Diego	$377,550	$382,300		$397,910		-1.2%	-5.1%	7.3%	-3.0%
Ventura	$443,290	$425,000		$450,930		4.3%	-1.7%	11.1%	-0.6%
Central Coast
Monterey	$287,500	$251,000		$274,000		14.5%	4.9%	4.5%	-16.5%
San Luis Obispo	$364,750	$381,450		$445,000	r	-4.4%	-18.0%	12.2%	12.2%
Santa Barbara	$421,430	$426,320		$475,000	r	-1.1%	-11.3%	1.5%	1.5%
Santa Cruz	$540,000	$437,500		$507,500		23.4%	6.4%	21.9%	9.2%
Central Valley
Fresno	$138,040	$140,840		$161,180		-2.0%	-14.4%	16.2%	1.6%
Kern (Bakersfield)	$139,900	$135,000	r	$135,000		3.6%	3.6%	-1.3%	-14.2%
Kings County	$154,000	$137,690		$175,000		11.8%	-12.0%	12.0%	20.0%
Madera	$122,000	$116,670	r	$135,550		4.6%	-10.0%	-2.4%	-51.2%
Merced	$114,210	$111,850	r	$119,130	r	2.1%	-4.1%	-6.5%	-29.1%
Placer County	$266,560	$258,120		$286,630		3.3%	-7.0%	1.5%	-4.4%
Sacramento	$165,850	$168,200		$196,220		-1.4%	-15.5%	4.8%	-2.5%
San Benito	$249,000	$280,000		$315,000		-11.1%	-21.0%	-23.7%	-26.2%
Tulare	$121,520	$117,970		$140,890		3.0%	-13.7%	-5.6%	12.2%
Other Counties in California
Amador	$152,500	$171,250	r	$188,000		-10.9%	-18.9%	-4.9%	21.9%
Butte County	$221,050	$222,620		$230,360		-0.7%	-4.0%	19.0%	-12.3%
Humboldt	$243,750	$250,000		$242,860		-2.5%	0.4%	53.4%	1.1%
Lake County	$85,620	$105,560		$146,430	r	-18.9%	-41.5%	2.5%	-16.5%
Tuolumne	$166,000	$181,430		$202,940		-8.5%	-18.2%	22.6%	20.4%
Mendocino	$181,430	$281,250		$257,140		-35.5%	-29.4%	18.2%	8.3%
Shasta	$156,840	$151,110		$190,330		3.8%	-17.6%	7.6%	19.6%
Siskiyou County	$140,000	$85,000		$170,000		64.7%	-17.6%	7.1%	-30.2%
Tehama	$87,500	$117,500		$140,000		-25.5%	-37.5%	7.1%	-2.2%

June-11	Unsold Inventory Index					Median Time on Market
State/Region/County	Jun-11	May-11		Jun-10		Jun-11	May-11		Jun-10
CA SFH (SAAR)	5.0	5.5	r	4.6	r	50.3	51.9	r	41.5	r
CA Condo/Townhomes	5.2	6.0	r	5.2	r	57.4	57.9	r	47.5	r
Greater Los Angeles Area	5.4	6.0		4.4		54.4	55.6		39.2
Inland Empire	4.6	5.2		4.0	r	47.3	51.5		34.2	r
S.F. Bay Area	4.3	5.0		4.4	r	49.9	51.9		48.8	r
S.F. Bay Area
Alameda	4.0	4.8		3.7		65.3	69.4		68.6
Contra-Costa (Central County)	4.3	4.9		4.5		77.4	78.3		72.5
Marin	5.1	6.5		5.7		52.5	55.4		56.3
Napa	7.8	7.3		7.8		57.7	57.4		63.1
San Francisco	4.8	5.2		5.3		45.5	47.0		43.1
San Mateo	3.7	4.1		4.1		26.0	24.6		25.7
Santa Clara	3.3	3.9		3.7		24.5	26.0		23.2
Solano	4.5	5.5		3.7		48.3	53.6		47.3
Sonoma	5.9	7.4		5.7		62.9	65.1		62.5
Southern California
Los Angeles	5.4	6.0	r	4.6		52.7	51.9		40.4	r
Orange County	6.6	7.1		6.1		75.0	70.1		64.2	r
Riverside County	4.3	4.9		3.8		53.4	57.8		44.6
San Bernardino	4.9	5.5		4.3		46.6	50.4		31.1
San Diego	6.4	6.8		6.1		50.7	49.7		41.5
Ventura	6.6	7.5		4.4		62.2	77.6		55.8
Central Coast
Monterey	5.5	5.6		5.1		32.3	39.8		26.4
San Luis Obispo	6.2	6.8		7.6		59.7	59.6		49.9
Santa Barbara	6.9	7.0		6.9	r	56.3	99.8		63.2	r
Santa Cruz	5.4	6.8		6.5		41.0	39.1		29.4
Central Valley
Fresno	5.0	4.8		N/A		39.7	39.6		32.1
Kern (Bakersfield)	4.3	4.0	r	3.4		NA	NA		NA
Kings County	4.7	5.3		4.9		45.5	37.0		34.1
Madera	4.7	4.9	r	6.5		57.1	44.2	r	36.8
Merced	4.2	4.1	r	3.1		40.9	32.9	r	23.8
Placer County	NA	N/A		N/A		NA	NA		NA
Sacramento	2.4	2.5		2.5		35.1	40.9		28.7
San Benito	5.8	4.2		3.9		47.3	33.9		29.5
Tulare	5.0	4.6		5.7		34.3	39.9		25.5
Other Counties in California
Amador	8.2	8.0	r	12.6		55.2	46.7	r	121.0
Butte County	6.7	8.2		6.0		45.5	50.3		45.1
Humboldt	8.0	12.2		8.3		46.4	47.6		35.5
Lake County	7.5	7.7		6.3		92.0	88.7		82.8
Tuolumne	8.9	10.7		12.5		47.0	78.7		79.9
Mendocino	10.5	12.6		13.1		63.1	93.4		80.3
Shasta	5.5	6.1		8.2		41.2	44.4		45.9
Siskiyou County	N/A	N/A		N/A		NA	NA		NA
Tehama	7.4	7.9		7.3		50.8	52.8		44.2

*  Los Angeles Metropolitan Area is a 5-county region that includes Los Angeles County, Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, and Ventura County
*  S.F. Bay Area has been redefined to include the following counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma
*  Inland Empire includes Riverside County and San Bernardino County
Regional/County sales data and condo sales data not seasonally adjusted.
The MLS median price and sales data for detached homes are generated from a survey of more than 90 associations of REALTORS® and MLSs throughout the state, representing 90 percent of the market. County sales data are not adjusted to account for seasonal factors that can influence home sales. MLS median price and sales data for condominiums are based on a survey of more than 60 associations. The median price for both detached homes an condominiums represents closed escrows. Movements in sales prices should not be interpreted as changes in the cost of a standard home. Median prices can be influenced by changes in cost and in the characteristics and size of homes sold. Due to low sales volume in some areas, median price changes may exhibit unusual fluctuation. C.A.R.’s data has been standardized to reflect county-level statistics.

find the article at:

"http://www.car.org/newsstand/newsreleases/junesalesprice/"

Great Article about the Drop in Apartment Vacancies this year

Apartment rents increase as vacancies fall

Hui-yong Yu, Bloomberg News

Friday, July 8, 2011

Rent increases replaced landlord giveaways as U.S. apartment vacancies dropped in the second quarter to the lowest in more than three years, bolstered by rising demand on the West Coast, according to Reis Inc.
The apartment vacancy rate fell to 6 percent in the three months ended June 30 from 6.2 percent in the first quarter and 7.8 percent a year earlier, the property research firm said in a report Thursday. The second-quarter rate matched the first three months of 2008 and was the lowest since 5.7 percent at the end of 2007, the year commercial real estate prices peaked. Rents rose in all but two of the cities Reis tracks.
"The ongoing recovery and tightening vacancies continue to generate greater pricing power on the part of landlords," Ryan Severino, an economist at Reis, said in the report. "Vacancies should continue to decline while rents rise at an even faster pace than we observed in the first half."
Demand for rental apartments in the U.S. has soared as foreclosures forced people out of their homes and prospective home buyers found it harder to get mortgages. The home ownership rate in the U.S. fell to 66.4 percent in the first quarter, the lowest since 1998, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
"There's still a stigma to buying houses," said Stan Harrelson, chief executive officer of Pinnacle, a Seattle company that manages more than $17 billion of apartments and other commercial properties. "Even with job growth, people aren't ready to take that step."
Landlords had a net increase in occupied space of about 33,000 units in the second quarter, down from 45,000 units in the first quarter, Reis said.
Effective rents, or what tenants actually pay after perks such as a free month, climbed in 80 of the 82 metropolitan areas surveyed, to an average $997 a month from $974 a year earlier and $991 in the first quarter.
San Jose led rent growth last quarter, followed by New York's Westchester County and San Francisco, according to Reis.
Las Vegas, one of the cities hardest hit by the housing collapse, had an increase in effective rents for the first time since 2008, Reis said. Rents in the city were still down from a year earlier.
The national rent increases mark a reversal from early last year, when many landlords were offering gifts to attract tenants. Aspira, a 325-unit luxury apartment building in Seattle, gave away dozens of iPads and 40-inch televisions, preloaded credit cards worth $1,000 each and up to three months of free rent when it opened in January 2010. With occupancy surpassing 80 percent, such enticements are no longer needed.
"They're gone," said John Schwartz, director of the Northwest regional office for Keller CMS Inc., the Los Angeles project manager that oversaw the development of the 37- story Aspira.
San Jose led rent growth for both the second quarter and the 12 months through June 30, Reis said.
"San Jose is everyone's darling and rents are through the roof, but that will plane off" as new supply comes to market in the next 12 to 18 months, said Harrelson of Pinnacle.

Market data provided by Bloomberg News

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/08/BUUU1K7FAL.DTL

This article appeared on page D - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Sunset Park Santa Monica First Half Statistics

Single Family Residence

Great Article from the Times

July 2, 2011
Big Banks Easing Terms on Loans Deemed as Risks
By DAVID STREITFELD
As millions of Americans struggle in foreclosure with little hope of relief, big banks are going to borrowers who are not even in default and cutting their debt or easing the mortgage terms, sometimes with no questions asked.

Two of the nation’s biggest lenders, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, are quietly modifying loans for tens of thousands of borrowers who have not asked for help but whom the banks deem to be at special risk.

Rula Giosmas is one of the beneficiaries. Last year she received a letter from Chase saying it was cutting in half the amount she owed on her condominium.

Ms. Giosmas, who lives in Miami, was not in default on her $300,000 loan. She did not understand why she would receive this gift — although she wasted no time in taking it.

Banks are proactively overhauling loans for borrowers like Ms. Giosmas who have so-called pay option adjustable rate mortgages, which were popular in the wild late stages of the housing boom but which banks now view as potentially troublesome.

Before Chase shaved $150,000 off her mortgage, Ms. Giosmas owed much more on her place than it was worth. It was a fate she shared with a quarter of all homeowners with mortgages across the nation. Being underwater, as it is called, can prevent these owners from moving and taking new jobs, and places the households at greater risk of foreclosure.

“It’s a huge problem,” said the economist Sam Khater. “Reducing negative equity would spark a housing recovery.”

While many homeowners desperately need help to keep their homes and cannot get it, the borrowers getting unsolicited relief from Chase sometimes suspect a trick. Cutting loan balances, even for loans in default, is supposedly so rare that Federal Reserve economists wrote in a paper in March that “we could find no evidence that any lender was actually reducing principal” on mortgages.

“I used to say every day, ‘Why doesn’t anyone get rewarded for doing the right thing and paying their bills on time?’ ” said Ms. Giosmas, who is an acupuncturist and real estate investor. “And I got rewarded.”

Option ARM loans like Ms. Giosmas’s gave borrowers the option of skipping the principal payment and some of the interest payment for an introductory period of several years. The unpaid balances would be added to the body of the loan.

Bank of America and Chase inherited their portfolios of option ARMs when they bought troubled lenders during the housing crash.

Chase, which declined to comment on its program, got $50 billion in option ARM loans when it bought Washington Mutual in 2008. The lender, which said last fall that it had dealt with 22,000 option ARM loans with an unpaid principal balance of $8 billion, still has $33 billion of them in its portfolio.

Bank of America acquired a portfolio of 550,000 option ARMs from its purchase of Countrywide Financial in 2008. The lender said more than 200,000 had been converted to more stable mortgages.

Dan B. Frahm, a spokesman for Bank of America, said it was using every technique short of principal reduction to remake its loans, including waiving prepayment penalties, refinancing, lowering the interest rate, postponing some of the balance and extending the term.

“By proactively contacting pay option ARM customers and discussing other products with better options for long-term, affordable payments, we hope to prevent customers from reaching a point where they struggle to make their payments,” Mr. Frahm said.

Chase, Bank of America and the other big lenders are negotiating with the Obama administration and the nation’s attorneys general over foreclosures. Debt forgiveness and the moral hazard question of who deserves to be helped are among the most contentious issues.

The banks say cutting mortgage balances would be unfair to borrowers who remain current as well as impractical because so many loans are securitized into pools owned by investors. Bank of America’s chief executive, Brian T. Moynihan, told the attorneys general in April that cutting principal for current borrowers would send the wrong message to all those who have struggled to pay their bills. His counterpart at Chase, Jamie Dimon, bluntly said it was “off the table.”

Having an option ARM loan, however, apparently qualifies the borrower for special help. The loans, with their low initial payments and “teaser” interest rates, were immediately popular with buyers who could not afford or did not want to pay the soaring prices on houses. The problem was, eventually the rate would reset or the loan balance would have to be paid in full. “Nightmare Mortgages” they were called in a 2006 BusinessWeek cover piece.

Option ARMs were never quite as bad as predicted, partly because the crisis pushed down interest rates so far that the resets were relatively mild. Many owners did default on them, but others, like Ms. Giosmas, were quite happy to pay less for years than they would have under a conventional loan. She used option ARMs on her investment properties too.

“They saved me,” she said. “Why would I want to pay a lot more every month? I’d rather have it in my pocket.”

The concern the banks are showing for those who might get in trouble contrasts sharply with their efforts toward those already foreclosed. Bank of America and Chase were penalized last month by regulators for doing a poor job modifying mortgages in default.

Adam J. Levitin, a Georgetown University law professor, said these little-publicized programs were more evidence that the banks were behaving in contradictory and often maddening ways.

“Loan modifications that should be happening aren’t, while loan modifications that shouldn’t be happening are,” he said. “Homeowners of any sort, whether current or in default, would rightly be confused and angry by this.”

The homeowners getting new loans, however, are quite pleased. In effect, the banks are paying the debt these owners accrued as the housing market plunged.

Ms. Giosmas bought her two-bedroom, two-bath apartment north of downtown Miami for $359,000 in early 2006, according to real estate records. She made a large down payment, but because each month she paid less than was necessary to pay off the loan, her debt swelled to about $300,000.

Meanwhile, the value of the apartment nosedived. By the time Ms. Giosmas got the letter from Chase, the condominium was worth less than half what she paid. “I would not have defaulted,” she said. “But they don’t know that.”

The letter, which Ms. Giosmas remembers as brief and “totally vague,” said Chase was cutting her principal by $150,000 while raising her interest rate to about 5 percent. Her payments would stay roughly the same.

A few months ago, Ms. Giosmas sold the place for $170,000, making a small profit. Having a loan that her lender considered toxic, she said, “turned out to be a blessing in disguise.”

For Sale

Click below for the virtual tour

Virtual Tour

For Sale: 1BR/1BA Condo in Santa Monica, CA, $329,000

Just reduced and open Saturday February 5th from 1-4pm For Sale: 1BR/1BA Condo in Santa Monica, CA, $329,000

California Foreclosure News

Here is an important article that discusses what happened in 2010 with the foreclosure market, the temporary slowdown and the possibility of more issues in 2011.

California leads as nation sets foreclosure record
By Erick Galindo Staff Writer
Whittier Daily News
Posted:
California led the nation with 546,669 foreclosure properties as a record 2.9 million U.S. properties received foreclosure filings in 2010, according to a report released today by RealtyTrac.

The record-breaking figure comes despite a slowdown in the fourth quarter fueled by the suspension of foreclosure proceedings by several major lenders.

"Total properties receiving foreclosure filings would have easily exceeded 3 million in 2010 had it not been for the fourth quarter drop in foreclosure activity," noted James Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, an Irvine-based online database of foreclosure properties.

The drop in foreclosure activity, which included a 30-month low in December, was fueled by controversy surrounding foreclosure documentation and procedures that prompted Bank of America and many of the nation's other major lenders to temporarily halt some foreclosure proceedings.

"Even so, 2010 foreclosure activity still hit a record high for our report," Saccacio added. "And many of the foreclosure proceedings that were stopped in late 2010 - which we estimate may be as high as a quarter-million - will likely be re-started and add to the numbers in early 2011."

California foreclosures decreased nearly 14 percent from 2009 but the state retained the country's third highest foreclosure rate (4.08 percent) behind Nevada (9.42 percent) and Arizona (5.73 percent).

California, Florida, Arizona, Illinois and Michigan account for 51 percent of the nation's total foreclosure activity. Combined, the states documented nearly 1.5 million foreclosure properties.

The onslaught of foreclosures was anticipated after a similar 2009, but federal and state efforts to curb housing woes fell short, according to Peter Tatian, a senior researcher with The Urban Institute.

"I don't think banks knew the magnitude of the wave of foreclosures," he said. "Had they known how bad it would get there would have been more of an aggressive effort up front."

According to Leslie Appleton-Young, the chief Economist for the California Association of Realtors, there wasn't much that could be done to address the root cause of foreclosures - negative property values.

"Even with lower interest rates, the value of homes dropped so dramatically so quickly that borrowers would still be under water."

erick.galindo@sgvn.com

626-962-8811, ext. 2720