Mark Wisterman's Paradise & Lake Oroville Real Estate Blog

For all of you interested in the foreclosure trends in the areas that I service, which includes the real estate markets of Lake Oroville, Paradise, Chico, Yuba City, Marysville, and Tehama and Glenn counties, here are the latest stats as compiled by ForeclosureRadar.com

These one year charts show that an interesting long term trend has begun to develop that we have not heard too much about in the media.  These charts are beginning to show significant reductions in the number of foreclosures filings taking  place.  Although the charts are a little roller-coaster-like when looking at the monthly numbers, the overall trend is slowly working its way down.

To be sure, we are certainly not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination when it comse to the impact foreclosures are having on the overall value of the home across the state.  It is encouraging to see that the long term trend is beginning to head south ever so slightly. Will it stay down? That is hard to say given the recent events with the foolishness surrounding the debt ceiling, stock market gyrations, and the fact that consumers have a general feeling of despair when it comes to the current economic climate in which we find ourselves. What I do know is that with the media so focused on the incompetence in Washington, D.C. there is a good chance that this news will not be considered important enough to share, simply because it is not “dramatic” enough.

On this blog site we take the drama out of the market and replace it with just the facts so you can decide for yourself what is happening.

I have placed links at the bottom of this posting for each area of the real estate market I service. Click on whichever area in which you are interested in seeing.

Oroville Foreclosure Report      Chico Foreclosure Report

Paradise Forclosure Report      Marysville Foreclosure Report

Yuba City Foreclosure Report     Glenn County & Tehama County Foreclosure Report

I just received an e-mail from the CEO of REALTY WORLD -Northern Ca/Nevada with an attached article discussing the latest foreclosure numbers for the State of California.

 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.

Here are the latest foreclosure reports for the real estate markets of Lake Oroville, Ca, Chico CA, Paradise CA, Yuba City Ca and Marysville, CA.

These reports still show what has been true for the past couple of years- a very volatile market with not much in the way of any long term trend that could assist us all in anticipating where the market is going from here. This uncertainty, as well as rampant unemployment, is doing its best to keep many buyers on the sidelines, as they seem to be waiting to the bottoming in pricing.

If you are one of these buyers be sure that you are keeping a close eye on trends on prices and interest rates as you wait. Remember that the Federal Reserve has pulled out of the mortgage market and are no long artificially deflating interest rates. Rates are going to react much more quickly to changes in the economy than at anytime in the past 2 years without the government interference that has kept them low. Believe me when I say I understand the fence-sitting mentality as not much this economy has to offer feels very good right now. Read the rest of this entry »

I just signed up with this really cool new Newsletter service provided bt the National Association of REALTORS®. I will be using this service from time to time to bring important real estate topics to all of you in the Lake Oroville, Chico, Paradise, Yuba City, Marysville real estate markets and the real estate markets surrounding these areas. I would appreciate your feedback on this service as I always want to be bringing you the most pertinent real estate information available. Afterall, shouldn’t you have the most current information available to you as contemplate selling or buying a home?

One of  the great benefits of my association with Realty World of Northern California is the amount of technology and information they provide to me free.  Without their commitment to me and other Northern California Realty World broker’s and their associates, this blog site would not even exist.

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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As a long time (17 years and counting) real estate professional in the Lake Oroville real estate market,  I cannot count the number of times that I have people approach me and ask, “How’s the market?”

In the early, and inexperienced, years of my career I got somewhat caught up in the answer that every real estate “salesperson” used: “Oh, it’s great. I have lots of transactions going, and I am really busy!!” As I matured in the business (or just got too old to hype things anymore), I realized that the pat answer that everyone else was giving was not what inquiring minds wanted to know. People  wanted to know what market conditions really were. Not some pie-in-the-sky, feel good answer. Problem was, back in 1994,  there was no easy way (remember, Al Gore was just inventing the Internet in those days) to gather the data necessary to actually provide any reliable and timely reporting aboutOroville real estate market conditions.

Wow, how times have changed….or have they? I still hear people asking about the market and I still hear nearly all the real estate sales people using the same cliche’d responses. What  I have strived to do on this blog site over the past 2 years is to provide an opportunity for you to see for yourself  how the market is doing, in an unbiased, straightforward approach. Letting you see the stats for yourself.   The leaps and bounds that technology has taken now makes it possible for you to avoid the “opinions” about the market and allows you to draw your own conclusions. Afterall, the market is not driven by opinions, it is driven by the numbers.

My latest tool, that I am making available to you, is data that shows the latest and greatest information about the Oroville foreclosure market. The charts included in this posting show the trend of foreclosure filings over the past year for the Oroville real estate market areas of  zip codes 95965 and 95966, but I am also able to provide more indepth charts as I expand my foreclosure reporting to you.

I am holding myself back from giving my take on what these two charts might be telling us, because I would like to hear from youabout what you think. Click the comment button at the top of this post to chime in.

If you would like a bigger view of these charts, simply CLICK HERE or on one of the charts.

Have you ever had one of those days, weeks, or years when you finally get so fed up with something that your head almost explodes. Well, I am having one of those moments right now, in good old Lake Oroville, CA. and I guess I am going to have to be the first one to do something about it since it seems that nobody else wants to.

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

Those of you who know me, whether you are a client, or another REALTOR®, or a friend, know that I take the business of negotiating and successfully completing real estate transactions very seriously. You also know that I do not believe for a moment, that just because someone may have a real estate license or calls themselves a REALTOR®, means that the particular someone is competent, or educated enough to properly represent their clients best interests. Let’s face it, it is way too easy to get a real estate license in this state.

It takes more than a license or the paying of dues to the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR)  to acquire the proper level of competence to do the job. Above all else it takes education and the desire to stay informed of the latest trends, rules, laws, etc.

This is why I am very pleased to announce that each of my associates have thought it important enough to spend the time necessary to join me in completing the educational requirements set forth by NAR  in order to obtain our Short Sales & Foreclosure Resource Certification. This is the ONLY “distressed property” certification recognized by NAR. A certification that, at the time we received ours, had been attained by only 2,500 of the nearly 1 million REALTORS® nationwide.

Through the attainment of this certification we have gained valuable knowledge and have access to the resources necessary to counsel and better guide our clients through the foreclosure and short sale processes. In fact, (here comes the commercial), we are the only office in the Lake Oroville real estate market, and maybe the entire Butte County real estate market, where every associate in the office has earned the certification. Are we “experts” yet? Nope. But, knowing my associates as I do, we are going to be as close as you can possibly be as this market begins to move away from foreclosures and more into the short sale arena.

Oh, just a side note regarding “experts”  in this business. If someone calls themselves that, in most cases you should probably run away as fast as you can. Case in point-There is one REALTOR® in town that claimed in her advertising that she was a “Short Sale Expert” and yet had never, ever negotiated a short sale transaction of any kind.!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, I’m back on schedule with my weekly Lake Oroville real estate market report.

Only nine Oroville area property sales this week, however I do expect the numbers to improve over the next two weeks as those escrows that were opened as the original tax credit window of November 30th was closing, should be completed toward the end of the month and into the first week in December.

Of particular note in these numbers is that the number of properties listed for sale continues to decline and has hit a new low since I began reporting Oroville sales to you.

On the foreclsoure and short sale front, we continue to these properties selling at a rate that is far larger than the percentage of these on the market, which will, if nothing changes, make them harder and harder to find.

Expanded Report