For those of you unfamiliar with Kelly Ridge, it is a nice community overlooking Lake Oroville and Bidwell Marina; with a 9 hole golf course intertwined among many of the homes. For the most part it is a quiet neighborhood and pride of ownership is evident as you drive through the community’s winding roads.

As with nearly all subdivisions of this nature, there is an active homeowners’ association (HOA) there, as well as a document called Conditions, Covenants, and Restrictions. (CC&R’s) recorded on each lot in the subdivsion. These CC&R’s are basically a set of rules established as a means of insuring a certain conformity among the homes in the subdivision, which in turn protects the integrity of the subdivision and helps in maintaining property values. For example, most CC& R’s that I have read over the years set minimum lot sizes, minimum square footage requirements, prohibit livestock, require that your RV be parked out of view of the street, and so on. For the most part, the CC&R’s in this area are not as restrictive as they are in the more urban areas, but are just restrictive enough to do the job they were intended to do.

The enforcement mechanism in these CC&R’s is generally the homeowners of  the subdivision. If a homeowner notes a violation then he/she can normally take action to enforce the correction of the violation. In cases where there is also a homeowners association in place, the association itself can usually act to enforce the CC&R’s.  If the violator fails to take corrective action, the complaining party, through a civil action, can ask a judge to force the violator to comply. As human nature would have it, there are sometimes instances in associations such as these where some get “too big for their britches, ” (as my parents used to say)  and, in their own mind, become “Mayor” of the subdivision. Fortunately for the Lake Oroville real estate market, there are  not many HOA’s in the area, but the 2 or three that we do have, have demonstrated, for the most part, a fairly reasonable approach in the administration of their duties.

But, as they say, the times they are a changin’.

The most recent newletter published by the Kelly Ridge Estates Owners’ Association (KREOA) contains what I view is a very disconcerting column regarding a new enforcement program they are implementing to address CC&R violations.

Now, before I continue, I want to be clear here that I am in total support of  homeowners that want to see their neighborhood properly maintained. It is, after all, in everyone’s best interest that this be so. I just think this may be a heavy-handed approach that has the potential of causing a lot of unnecessary strife.

According to the newsletter, KREOA,

 “……will contract with a person who will do as complete exterior inspection as possible,” to “identify CC&R violations on homes listed for sale and foreclosed homes owned by banks.”

“Both buyer and seller are to be notified that escrow will not close until corrections are complete.”  “…..the notification letter will be sent to the escrow company handling the  sale advising that they are not to close until we verify that corrections have been made.” 

Sounds harmless and reasonable you say?

Maybe it is. But I do not think so.

Look who KREOA is targeting with this: “homes listed for sale and foreclosed homes owned by the banks.”  Why are they not targeting ALL violators? Why are they engaging in discrimination in their enforcement of their rules? I will tell you why….because it is an easy target.  But will it accomplish their goal or just prolong the process of getting the neighborhood in compliance?

For example:

What happens to the elderly widow who is trying to sell her house in order that she can move to an assisted living facility and needs every penny she can get out of her home in order to pay for her care?  Let’s say she has her house on the market and has a buyer for her home who is willing to comply with any repairs that KREOA insists on being done. Because it is inadvisable that a buyer make repairs to a home that the buyer does not yet own, and the seller simply has no funds to pay for the required repairs,  the repairs can’t get done  and the house cannot sell. So the transaction dies, the widow takes the house off the market, and because the focus of  KREOA is only homes listed for sale, the repairs never get done! Are you following me on this???

Here is another thing that KREOA is getting ready to do: They intend to hire someone to go out to the County of Butte Building Department and research building permits to see which homeowners have not pulled the proper permits when repairing their homes. Shades of Big Brother??????

It seems that KREOA has decided it is in the best interest of the neighborhood if they establish their own informal Kelly Ridge Association Patrol force (my words, not theirs)

Over reaction you say? I thought that too when I first reacted to the newsletter. Until I read  this sentence in the newsletter that I think portends a coming conflict:

“If you have a problem with a neighbor leave a message at  589-**** and it will be handled by one of the Directors.”

In other words, if you don’t like something your neighbor is doing, like, as the newlstter says, leaving, “excessive amounts of dog poop in a yard constituting a health hazards (and driving neighbors off their decks to in homes with windows shut), call what I am now calling the Kelly Ridge Association Patrol People  (K.R.A.P.P.) and it will be handled- whatever that means!

I wonder if all of the Director’s homes are in compliance? If not, I wonder how they are going to ”handle” it when they find K.R.A.P P. on their doorsteps. Or do they only intend to send a bunch of K.R.A.P.P.  their neighbors way!!!!!

There goes the neighborhood? I certainly hope not! 

 Now, normally I would proclaim to all of you in the Lake Oroville real estate market that all real estate is local and that it is much more important to stay in tune with the local home sales numbers as opposed to general reports on the market. While this is still my philosophy, I do not think it is at all wise to IGNORE reports on the broader markets. After all, it is the broader markets that get the media coverage when it comes to just about anything real estate these days. Like it or not the media has a lot of influence on the consumer’s psyche that helps in creating the mindset that consumers are using when making decisions on whether to buy or sell a home.  If you are a regular reader of this blog site that serves the real estate housing markets of Oroville, Chico, Paradise, Yuba City, and Marysville California you know that I do not believe any improvement will occur in this housing market until we have two things: Employment and consumer confidence.

It is becuase of the latter of these two vital ingredients that I want to share excerpts from the article posted on DQNews.com.

The number of California homes that went into foreclosure fell to a four-year low last quarter, the result of a more stable housing market as well as policy changes in the mortgage servicing industry, a real estate information service reported.

Last quarter’s activity was the lowest for any quarter since 53,493 NoDs were recorded in the second quarter of 2007. It was well below half the record 135,431 default notices recorded in the first quarter of 2009.

A total of 56,633 Notices of Default (NoDs) were recorded at county recorders offices during the April-to-June period. That was down 17.0 percent from 68,239 for the prior quarter, and down 19.2 percent from 70,051 in second-quarter 2010, according to San Diego-based DataQuick.

Mortgages were least likely to go into default in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties. The probability was highest in Kings, Sutter and Yuba counties.

Trustees Deeds recorded (TDs), or the actual loss of a home to foreclosure, totaled 42,465 during the second quarter. That was down 1.4 percent from 43,052 for the prior quarter, and down 10.9 percent from 47,669 for second-quarter 2010. The all-time peak was 79,511 in third-quarter 2008.

Last quarter’s trustees deeds total was the lowest since 35,431 were filed in fourth quarter 2010, and the second-lowest since fourth quarter 2007, when 31,676 were filed.

Now, let’s be clear here. Even with this “encouraging” news, we have a long long way to go until the real estate market is healthy again. But it is important to understand, especially for you buyers out there who are still waiting for things to go lower, that this market is so beat up right now that, if this type of news consistently continues over the next two or three quarters, it is very possible to see some firming up of prices and maybe even some very modest price increases.  Just food for thought.

In an artice that just arrived in today’s communication from Inman News, I thought I was experiencing Deja Vu all over again. In fact, some of it sounded so familiar that I started to rack my brain as to where I had heard this kind of thing before. I looked high and low and still no hint. I looked inside and outside. I looked everywhere in the entire Lake Oroville real estate market area. But no luck remembering where I had heard it before.

So now my dear readers, I turn to you for help. Here, excerpted in part, (Click Here to see entire article) is what I read from the article written by Glen Roberts, Jr., entitled “ A slow-motion real estate recovery”. Maybe you  can help me remember:

Mark Dotzour, chief economist for the Texas A&M Real Estate Center, said government stimuli have delayed recovery.

“We’re not in a ‘double dip’ in my mind,” said Dotzour — referring to some economists’ talk of a second dive into downturn after some signs of an economic rebound — “we just never hit bottom in the first place.”

The market essentially “fell off a cliff,” and the government’s “lifeline” of programs it throttled at the recession, among them the homebuyer tax credit programs, “Cash for Clunkers” auto program, loan mod programs and Federal Reserve’s purchase of Treasury debt, did not have the intended benefits.

The market “would have started coming back up to a year ago or so if we hadn’t had the federal intervention in the first place.”

The federal homebuyer tax credit programs appear to have been largely ineffective, essentially “stealing” sales forward that would have occurred at a later time. “We believe pretty strongly that we paid back every bit of that stimulus,” he said, with the slumping sales that followed expiration of the tax credits.

Hmm…..now where in the world have a I heard these type ideas before?????  Wait……………..yes…………………..now I’m starting to remember………….Here is what I had read in the past.

August 31, 2009

“When the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit was enacted, I advised that we not get too excited about any uptick in sales activity, as the uptick will be the result of the government paying people to buy homes creating an ‘artificial’ demand.”

“The housing sales numbers will continue their upward trend, and may even accelerate through the end of the year as last minute first time home buyers scramble to close escrow by November 30, 2009.  Should Congress choose not to extend the credit deadline we will probably begin to see a trailing off of  the sales pace toward the middle of spring 2010.”

“On the home values front, we are still facing a huge challenge. There are still plenty of foreclosures on the market and the word is the banks have plenty more inventory on their books that have yet to come to market. If this is true, home values will continue to stay depressed. If these reports turn out to be exaggerated it will be good news for home values going forward.”

September 30, 2009

“My big concern is that getting money from the government to buy a house or buy a car or to buy anything, is like giving the consumer economic cocaine. It only takes once or twice to get hooked on it and the fear of consumer withdrawl will cause the Congressional junkies to keep pushing more at us.”

“I say let the free market do it’s thing.”

October 23, 2009

“Remember that during the “dark days” of the market when it seemed that everyone was saying the collapse of the real estate market was leading us into the next Great Depression? At the same time I was advising you to take the predictions of gloom and doom with a grain of salt and keep your perspective on what was really going on.”

“I am advising the same thing now. While these are impressive numbers, they are numbers mostly driven by the federal first time home buyers tax credit, the Cash for Clunkers for the housing industry. To provide the perspective on this look what happened after the Cash for Clunkers program ended; auto sales dropped by up to 50% for some auto makers. There is still some heartburn to go through as we climb out of the hole created by the explosion of the bubble. Hopefully, while making the ascent we don’t find ourselves on a slippery slope that is sometimes created by government bailouts.”

June 23, 2010

“But, wait!! I thought the government’ s tax credit program was supposed to stabilize the market. If you listened to, and believed what,  the National Association of REALTORS® and the California Association of REALTORS® have had to say about the credits, you should be seeing a recovery by now. But, what we are beginning to see, on a National basis, (which is what most of us read and hear about) is a rapid move of the market toward the place it would have already gone, if  the people who should know better would have been honest about the ultimate impact of these credits they were supporting.”

“Instead these groups landed on the side of  getting a quick “fix” instead of thinking long term.  Now we have to look even longer term because the inevitable has been prolonged.”

 

So have you figured out who is responsible for this foresight?? Just click on any of the above date links and it will all become clear to you.

To be perfectly candid, in a market such as this, and,  as a matter of fact, in any type of market,  it is pretty much an economic impossibility to have a website such as this one, pay for it myself, and still be able to subscribe to other online real estate tools that assist buyers, sellers, and others in the Lake Oroville real estate market and beyond, in quenching their thirst for information on market conditions, or in assisting them in determining the value of their Oroville, Chico, Paradise, or Yuba City home.  A simple comparison search of other agent’s personal websites, if they even have one, will bear me out on this.

The newest feature that I able to subscribe to is one that provides you the ability to do a FREE search for the status of properties in the foreclosure process. With just a couple clicks of your mouse you can search for, and request foreclosure information on, not just any Lake Oroville home, but of homes in the states of California, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, and Nevada that are facing foreclosure.  This new service is powered by ForeclosureRadar.com, which is the new leader in the gathering and disseminating of foreclosure information in the Western United States.

If you find a property about which you would like to know more, simply click on the link and complete the request form. The request form comes direct to my e-mail box and I can then provide the current status to you.  (Don’t worry, I am not going to spam you into oblivion with a bunch of worthless e-mails)

Accessing this free search service can be done by clicking the Foreclosure widget or the Foreclosure Search navigation link at the top of my site. Or click here to access the search screen.

Related articles

• Report: Foreclosure Activity Drops in April(blogs.wsj.com)
• Foreclosures vs. Delinquencies: It’s All About the Courts(blogs.wsj.com)
• Foreclosure Filings Fall To 40-Month Low(clewismortgage.wordpress.com)
• VA Foreclosures(vabenefitblog.com)

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Don’t ask me why I haven’t done this for so long. Except for the fact that the market for Oroville home sales has not changed much since we last discussed this, I really have no reason, or even a lame excuse.

But, with Spring  just around the corner (I think), there is no better time than the present to start again. First you will notice that I am again posting monthly and yearly comparison stats in the right columns of this blog.  Here you can see how the sales of Oroville homes compare to Butte County as a whole. Remember the old saying that all ”all real estate is local”. So ignore the national stats because they have nothing to do with our local markets.  Oh, one more thing…. MY intent is to also post these stats on my facebook business page at www.facebook/RealtyWorld.CA so if you haven’t been there please stop by and “LIKE” my page to be sure that you see my posts there.

  

 

 

According to reports from the hunting grounds, Butler, an owner of  the ever popular Wagon Wheel Market, here in the Lake Oroville real estate market,  took the 8 x 8 elk during the afternoon hunt. By late afternoon representatives from the Department of Fish and Game certifed it as the largest elk ever taken by hunting with bow and arrow, granting Pat world record status for his efforts.

I think there is elk jerky in my future!!!!!!!!

Congratulations Pat.

Today I am announcing the launch of my very own iPhone app that is now available for download at the App Store. With this highly sophisticated, but easy to use, app you now have not only my contact information in the palm of your hand but you can now access all the services of my blog site with just the touch of a button. No more addresses to remember and no more passwords to forget. This is just another investment I am making for you in order to provide a service, that nobody else in the Lake Oroville real estate market will,  in order to make current and relevant real estate information readily available to you.

See my current listings, check out my latest blog post, or even find my Facebook, Twitter, and Linked-In pages. Spend as much, or a little time as your prefer because there is NO COST to you to download this App. Check back often, though because updates and come cool additions are coming soon.

And unlike many of today’s apps this app will be compatible with Blackberry and Droid users. Look for the rollout annoucement for these phones on the site sometime before Labor Day.

Download your app at the iTunes App store and search for AgentNTouch. After downloading, launch the app and in the Agent I.D. box enter 5303704691.

I would greatly appreciate your feedback and suggestions. My goal is to always be an AgentNTouch.

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Below is a letter I just mailed off to the California Department of Real Estate, in the hopes that something can finally be done to bring some of these REO agents back to reality. I am absolutely tired of these agents hiding behind the excuse that a bank owned listing exempts them from doing their job. They must be held accountable for their inaction.

February 16, 2010

California Department of Real Estate

Attn: Enforcement

P.O Box 187000

Sacramento, CA 95818-7000

Dear Sir/Madam:

Over my nearly 16 years in the California real estate business, I have seen a continuing deterioration in the care that many licensees take in the performance of their duties as required by the laws and regulations under which they operate.

With the enormous numbers of foreclosures that have come to the market over the past 3-4 years has come a likewise increase in the number of licensees who fail to fulfill their duties under their license. The biggest violations have to do with the lack of disclosures being made by listing agents for their bank owned listings.

In the past, if an agent neglected to provide me with the appropriate disclosures, a simple phone call to the agent fixed the problem. The missing disclosure would either be faxed or e-mailed to me promptly. This is not the case in today’s market environment. There are an ever increasing number of agents who either refuse, or ignore their duty of disclosure. In particular, many agents are not performing any type of diligent visual inspection, and the problem seems to be growing.

Enclosed are three examples of what we have received in our office lately from agents who have neglected, or ignored their duty to disclose. Each of these from agents representing REO listings.

While it gives me no satisfaction to resort to lodging this complaint with your department, I feel I can no longer sit silently by while our industry continues to shoot its reputation in the foot. I am sure that I will most likely suffer some repercussions from my fellow REALTORS for lodging this complaint, but at some point someone has to stand up for the right thing; not the popular thing.

If there is anything I can do to shed further light on these cases please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours truly,

Mark S. Wisterman

Broker/Owner

DRE# 01181168

Which brings me to the question of what you want to see in these Paradise numbers. Do you want to see  just Paradise stats or would you like to me to include numbers for the Magalia area too?

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