Greg & Kary @108 & 109:

With regards to reconveyances… actually they are pretty quick. Just plug in the recording number into the county system and any associated documents tied to the DOT will show: recon’s, substi. of trustee, assignments etc…

It’s quick for each DOT, but when you’re talking 1004 sales and each property perhaps having four DOTs since the selling owner bought, that woudln’t be quick.

and I don’t believe that most foreclosures involve the MLS so the 10% number is comparable only to the 12.3% zillow reported as short sales. That is pretty close.

Yep, you can probably guess correctly most of the time if a home is going to be a short sale, but unless the owner provides you with a recent mortgage statement, it’s tough to know. Obviously, the other way is to have a payoff statement ordered via escrow or the owner.

With regards to reconveyances… actually they are pretty quick. Just plug in the recording number into the county system and any associated documents tied to the DOT will show: recon’s, substi. of trustee, assignments etc…

Reconveyances that are not done according to RESPA can hold up sales and refi’s (AND THEY ARE) because 1) companies have gone belly up 2) a change in servicers creates long delays or 3) private DOT’s are NEVER reconveyed because the parties don’t know that it has to be done to clear title. We’ve actually done courtesy reconveyances for agents who’s sellers have old DOT’s showing on title creating problems (like if the original note holder is long dead and it was never released).

Come work in escrow. Fun fun fun.

By deejayoh @ 103:

So if 26.2% of the volume in the past year was “distressed”, and I would bet that figure is higher more recently than it was at the beginning of the period.

Over in the forums Ira graciously pulled out some numbers (from yesterday? the day before?) about how many listings had the new “short sale” or “REO” tags in the MLS database. Roughly 10% of the single family houses listed in King County had those designations (980 out of ca. 9800)–which is quite a bit lower than that 26% number.

Wonder if that’s a sign of things to come going forward…Though as I recall Ira thought that this was an undercount since the tags are relatively new and may not be applied to all relevant listings.

I believe Deejayoh was referring to the percentage of transactions, not listings as Ira pulled up.

So if 26.2% of the volume in the past year was “distressed”, and I would bet that figure is higher more recently than it was at the beginning of the period.

Over in the forums Ira graciously pulled out some numbers (from yesterday? the day before?) about how many listings had the new “short sale” or “REO” tags in the MLS database. Roughly 10% of the single family houses listed in King County had those designations (980 out of ca. 9800)–which is quite a bit lower than that 26% number.

Wonder if that’s a sign of things to come going forward…Though as I recall Ira thought that this was an undercount since the tags are relatively new and may not be applied to all relevant listings.

This would mainly be an issue where people have refinanced a lot.

Not to mention, that some of the mortgages that appear on sources like Realist and others who offer reports have old dead mortgages on them. In my mind, they would have to have a title company or someone on staff to verify encumberances.

Also reverse mortgages appear for the full amount. For instance, I just had an estate sale that showed the mortgage at 250k when they really owed under 100k. On the surface, this house looked like it would be short.

They
would have to have sophisticated systems to have any kind of accuracy from county records. Maybe they do!?

About the only way they’d know current balances for certain would be if there was a recorded Notice of Trustee’s sale.

Also, I’d exclude from short sales properties where the owner has the funds to pay off the bank. There’s no way they could know that either.

Finally, they wouldn’t know closing costs.

Approximate Median and Mean:

All properties 360 and 458

Short Sales 329 and 418

Bank Owned 235 and 282 (Great marketing guys!)

All properties exc. SS and BO 365 and 466

Data from NWMLS sources and not guaranteed. It also fluctuates a lot from day to day, and the indicated short sales and bank owned are probably only a fraction of the real number at this point in time given the new rule is only a few days old.

Are you suggesting they are just making it up?

Seattle-area home values in the first quarter were down 14.5 percent from a year earlier, to $311,022, for a total decline of 19.0 percent from the 2007 peak, Zillow reported. It said 13.9 percent of transactions over the past 12 months were foreclosures and 12.3 percent of sales were short sales, where lenders agree to accept less than the mortgage balance because a home is worth less than the amount owed

So if 26.2% of the volume in the past year was “distressed”, and I would bet that figure is higher more recently than it was at the beginning of the period.

Based on that assumption I’d hazard a guess that in March/April ~20% of the pendings are short sales. So what portion of those will really close?

If it something I have learnt by watching the market the last years it is that there is no need to for a month or two advanced notice of market conditions, especially if the notice isn’t reliable. You are much better served to look at closed sales and Case Shiller than to base any decisions or plans on pendings or median sale prices. Kary, the reason that there is no discussion about the median price is that it’s really not that interresting outside the agent community. So what if a few more expensive or cheaper homes sells one month. It says nothing about what people care about the value and price direction of homes. If half the homes that sells are above $300k or $400k isn’t interresting to me. If it moves to say to $100k or $800k it is more interresting. Case Shiller on the other hand is always interresting.

iIheard the following on the radio yesterday from a large news outlet. “Prices in North Seattle shot up with 53% between March and April and 35% on the Eastside.” talk about horrible repoting. I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. Real estate reporting is a total mess, Seatle Bubble excluded of course.

For agents I understand that median is of outmost interrest since it’s as close to a community salary level you can get. If median moves up the agent community income moves up.

It sort of reminds me of Aubrey’s article entitled something to the effect: “Agents Learning To Do Short Sales.” My thought was that previously it wasn’t really necessary for agents to learn that because they were a small part of the market, so only a few did. Well it’s sort of the same with the NWMLS and short sales/bank owned. Previously it wasn’t necessary to specifically identify them because they were such a small part of the market.

Tim, No question market dynamics are different. That said, I still think the pendings are a powerful to see current trends. Taking into consideration fallout, short sales, etc. , going from 400-500 in a week and increasing each subsequent week tells us the market is moving better than it was before. If you wait for closed sales only, you’re 30-45 days behind. They are the only thing that separates historians from those on the cutting edge.

As an aside, I have good agent friends in the AZ markets and Bay area markets that are reporting a spike in their markets in April.

Here is a real life example:

I had a listing that went active on 1/2/09
We went Pending STI on 2/1/09 (30 days on market)
It changed to Pending status on 2/11/09
The sale closed on 3/19/09

The official CDOM for this listing is 30 days.

There is only one field to enter a pending date and CDOM freezes at that point. There are other pending statuses, but the original pending date entered marks the separation between an active listing and a pending listing.

Good example. Sounds like the MLS must be tracking an additional date behind the scenes if they’re able to exclude the Pending – STI from the monthly data they release.

I agree with deejayoh here. This market is compressing and I believe medians will give us a false sense of what is really happening. Pop 1 or 2 of the mega high end. What does that tell us in the inventory choked 1 – 1.5 million dollar range?

Spin away! The reason that pending sales is jumping up is not that there have been a huge increase in sales its because there have been massive layoffs in the industry(less people to do the job), more scrutiny on applications(better late than never), longer lead times on obtaining financing, and yes closing pre-foreclosures and shortsales. The pipeline is thus extended causing the number of pendings to jump. Increased refi’s are further clogging the channel. It is NOT proof that the housing market is turning as the irresponsible real estate industry and their complicit press would have you believe.

Do you just make this stuff up? Financing isn’t taking significantly longer on sales. They can still close within 30 days if that’s what the parties want. Short sales and bank owned are affecting it, but that’s already been mentioned.

So what is your take on the weekly pending counts in commnet 34? These have absolutely nothing to do with pipeline.

I had a listing that went active on 1/2/09
We went Pending STI on 2/1/09 (30 days on market)
It changed to Pending status on 2/11/09
The sale closed on 3/19/09

The official CDOM for this listing is 30 days.

There is only one field to enter a pending date and CDOM freezes at that point. There are other pending statuses, but the original pending date entered marks the separation between an active listing and a pending listing.

STI was created for one reason, and that is to alert showing agents that there are still issues to be worked out on the pending before it solidifies (which also helps the seller of the property). For awhile we used Active STI, but that actually gave us false readings IMO. When a sale reaches mutual acceptance, it should go Pending, because it is.

RE: softwarengineer @ 78 – But the increased spread between mean and median shows that the higher end is recovering too.

or it just means that the pricing does not follow a normal distribution.

RE: drshort @ 85 –

There is only one pending date entered and that pending date follows the status changes.

Thanks. So If I understand you correctly, the pending data changes when we go from Pending STI or Pending BU Requested to just Pending.

There is only one pending date entered and that pending date follows the status changes.

Cary, you have to be careful looking at the high end this way. The best way to tell if the high end is recovering is to look at sales ratios. From that perspective, you’ll see that that 1 to 2.5 mil price ranges are still abysmal in areas that typically support decent ratios. However, we’re seeing occasional sales in 3 million plus. Our office just had a deal at 5 million. In the 1 – 2.5 market one has to start at approx 25% off the highs and then negotiate from there.

RE: The Tim @ 62 – RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 63 –

Cary, no worries about counting twice. There is only one Pending date field, and only one.

Tim, Yes, in my weekly report, I am very careful with my definition of pending. It goes like this:

Pending = All pending statuses with a pending date within the previous 7 day period. This is the same standard I use week in and week out, so trends will be easy to spot.

Greg,

What happens to the pending date when a property goes from “pending — STI” or “pending BU Requested” to just “pending”. Does it reset? Does it stay the same?

Take this example of a sale. Where do you count the pending? And what would the MLS data show as of 5/20? What is the “pending date” in the MLS? 4/20 or 4/27or 5/15?

4/15/2008 Listed
4/20/2008 Pending STI
4/27/2008 Pending BU Reqested
5/15/2008 Pending
6/1/2008 Closed

I’m just curious how the data is being measured.

What’s funny is that my brother said almost the same thing. His description was something along the lines of “If I was doing the cutting I would have cut my group too.” Odds are that his next job will pay a lot less. Fortunately, in his situation that is not a disaster.

To me, it is symptomatic of the ratcheting down of American incomes to what our real wealth is. As a whole, we have lived far beyond our means and we are discovering that our society is not as wealthy as we chose to believe.

Pending = All pending statuses with a pending date within the previous 7 day period. This is the same standard I use week in and week out, so trends will be easy to spot.

That makes sense. Of course it also means that the total pendings you are counting will be larger than the total pendings reported by the NWMLS end of month stats (assuming they were only counting listings that changed from active to pending that month), since they exclude STI and the others I mentioned.

Cary, no worries about counting twice. There is only one Pending date field, and only one.

Tim, Yes, in my weekly report, I am very careful with my definition of pending. It goes like this:

Pending = All pending statuses with a pending date within the previous 7 day period. This is the same standard I use week in and week out, so trends will be easy to spot.

Also, on the BoA thing, I read they can satisfy that capital requirement by converting the government preferred stock to voting stock. I was against government taking an equity stake in the first place, but this is just bad for a number of reasons. I suspect BoA will resist doing that, but if it has to, that will be long term bad.

There are 2 possibilities I can think of why a long period has gone by without the status changing from pending inspection. One is that the agent screwed up and didn’t change the status when they should have. The other is that the inspection revealed a somewhat complicated defect and the parties have continued to negotiate how to resolve the issue. For example, the inspection period may have been extended to get contractors to propose a fix and give estimates and then perhaps have the repair completed before the parties signed off to satisfy the inspection contingency.

California saw a massive surge in sales interest too after 30-50% price drops and a deluge of foreclosed in the market. The interest was in bargain homes at bargain prices….now, its likely too their pending sales were a joke, lacking completed sales approvals too? A home sale ain’t a home sale until the fat lady escrow sings [it gets approved and signed].

I always tell people your home isn’t worth a penny more than what the escrow papers are approved and inked with….all your other pipe dream “what my home is worth” rationales are just that.

I hear BoA needs another $34B in bailout today to keep afloat, the American bad growth loan fun goes on and on…is there no end? Even Roubini says we can’t keep bailing the banks out for years on end, we have to walk away, like we did with Chrysler.

Even mainstream media is questioning the validity of the bank stress results, with too much public brainwashing in their statements, per today’s AP news in part:

“….But with the results set to be released Thursday, critics say regulators seem so intent on avoiding statements that might undermine confidence in the banks that they risk eroding trust in the stress tests themselves….”

Rest of URL:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Public-scrutiny-blunted-bank-apf-15148777.html?sec=topStories&pos=3&asset=&ccode=

Or do a zillion new listings always show up in January?

Yup.

Tim, why is there such a large discontinuity where the graphs wrap from December of one year to January of the next? Shouldn’t the left and right endpoints of those traces be closer together than that? Or do a zillion new listings always show up in January?

Watch out Puyallup!

http://www.cnbc.com/id/30580830

From what people tell me this activity is giving them more hope for next year. It appears this year is better than last year

Demand is up. I look at some houses that are well priced for any market. Well built, well maintained houses on nice lots in good locations are being priced to move.

Also remember that the economy for the next two years will have the illusion of being better than it is by the Census hiring so many people. It’s not just the people on the street, but statisticians, IT personnel, Corporate Research and Development hiring to interpret the data as it comes in all give the look of an expanding economy.

What all of that means is that I would like to see some statistics on the expired listings, or cancelleds, to get a better idea of the phantom inventory.

Anyway, I’m showing about 250 pending properties (including Inspection) are either short sale or bank owned, if I did it right. Again though, that’s only going to be partially accurate at this point because not all the agents will have changed their listings yet.

Kary,
Login to Locator, click the Searches menu, go to Standard and check your property type, then click the Additional Criteria tab on top. Scroll down a little ways and you can see the options for short sales/reo properties.

The rule requiring a check box selection on short sales and bank owned just went into effect, so such searches wouldn’t be terribly accurate at this point. Hopefully though we’ll be able to search that way soon.