I will now be posting at North Orange County Housing News

Hi Readers,

I will now be posting at the new North Orange County Housing News website.  It's part of the Orange County Housing News Network.  I thank you for reading this blog and it was joy to post.

Thanks,

North Orange County Real Estate Blog

Realtors Lower 2007-2010 Home-Sales Estimates by 14%

I like to know how many standard deviations this is wrong.  This is a BIG error.

The Realtors’ new figures also show 2008 was the worst year for home sales during the housing bust, with only 4.11 million sold, down 16% from the previous estimate of 4.91 million.

Home sales for the first 10 months of this year were also revised downward. October’s sales pace was lowered to a rate of about 4.25 million sales per year, from an original estimate, from an original level of 4.97 million.

Yun cited several reasons for the group’s sales revisions. The group’s reports were “not matching up with other housing-related data,” he said.

The Realtors group, he said, was overcompensating for sales that were not recorded through the regional and local real estate listing services from which the group gets its data. Those “multiple-listing services” have consolidated in recent years, giving them more coverage of local housing markets.

Other factors leading to the downward revision included a decline in “for sale by owner” transactions that were completed without a real estate agent, some new-home sales also being reported by real estate listing services and some sales being reported on more than one listing service.

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November's Western US median home price down 8.4% from a year a go

Existing-home sales in the West rose 3.6 percent to an annual level of 1.16 million in November and are 11.5 percent higher than November 2010. The median price in the West was $195,300, down 8.4 percent below a year ago

Also, this is when mortgage rates are still at record lows.  Buried in this article is that fact that 2007 through 2010 sales of homes were overstated by 14.3%.  I'll post that soon.

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Big Jump in defaults rates in Los Angeles in November

The squatters are coming!

All five major metropolitan statistical areas showed November mortgage default rate increases. Los Angeles saw the largest increase, jumping to 2.53% in November from 2.15% in October. The rate in Miami rose to 4.47% from 4.16%.

That's a 20% increase in the default rate in one month.  Nationally this is a slight increase, but their might be a another correction for the Los Angeles / Orange County metro area.  This could be, in part, BofA increasing the number of foreclosures in the area.  BofA needs cash, so they are starting to move out their inventory.

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Home building spikes higher

Yes, but it's a minor spike, this is not 2007 again.

Home building spiked up in November to the strongest level in almost two years, as record-low mortgage rates and a surge in apartment and condo construction lifted activity.

Housing starts shot up to an annual rate of 685,000 in the month, up 9.3% from October and 24.3% higher than a year earlier. Building activity easily topped predictions of 627,000 starts economists surveyed by Briefing.com were expecting.

Building permits, a closely-watched reading that is less affected by weather than actual starts, also shot up, rising 5.7% from October and 20.7% from the year before to 681,000 homes annually.

"By historical standards, homebuilding activity is still very depressed, but at least it appears to be on an established upward trend," said Paul Diggle, property economist at Capital Economics.

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LPS: Delinquent mortgages rise in November

I think this is the trend as more people walk away from their mortgage.

The number of delinquent mortgages in November rose to 8.15% from 7.93% the prior month, according to a first look report from Lender Processing Services (LPS: 14.47 +1.19%).

That delinquency rate as a percentage of the LPS database of 40 million mortgages declined nearly 10% from a year earlier. About 4.14 million homes were 30 or more days past due in November, with about 1.81 million properties more than 90 days past due.

LPS considers a mortgage delinquent when it's at least 30 days in arrears but not in foreclosure. The company recorded 6.26 million homes either delinquent or in foreclosure last month.

Foreclosure presale inventory dropped 3% from October, but increased 2% from November 2010.

States with the highest percentage of noncurrent loans include Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey and Illinois, according to the LPS report. Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska and North Dakota had the lowest noncurrent loan rates

Link Here

Ex-Freddie, Fannie Chiefs Sued by SEC

Not surprised at this.  However, Fannie and Freddie were following a failed pushed by the federal government to make "everyone a homeowner".

“This action arises out of series of materially false and misleading public disclosures,” the SEC said in the complaint filed against Syron. The agency seeks unspecified damages against the defendants. Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac aren’t named as defendants in the case.

Mudd, now CEO of Fortress Investment Group LLC, was ousted when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were seized by regulators in September 2008.

I wonder if this investigation or a new investigation will look at the policitians, but they always seem to cover themselves.

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New Foreclosure Wave is Coming: Olick

There is an anticipation that more homeowners that can pay their mortgage will simply default, because they have negative equity in their house.  This report sort of confirming this prediction.

"November’s numbers suggest a new set of incoming foreclosure waves, many of which may roll into the market as REOs [bank repossessions] or short sales sometime early next year,” said James Saccacio, co-founder of RealtyTrac. “Overall foreclosure activity is down 14 percent from a year ago, the smallest annual decrease over the past 12 months, and some bellwether states such as California, Arizona and Massachusetts actually posted year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity in November.

Also, there some states that are having major delays.

Other states, like New York and New Jersey, are still seeing huge delays in the foreclosure process--986 and 984 days respectively, says RealtyTrac, but they too are starting to ramp up, as various moratoria have been lifted and judges have made rulings that will kick-start the process. That will mean more distressed properties surging into an already troubled housing market. Foreclosure starts outnumber sales by three to one, and 45 percent of foreclosure starts in October were repeat foreclosures, according to Lender Processing Services.

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