Mark Wisterman's Paradise & Lake Oroville Real Estate Blog

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

We’ve all heard the old saying , “Give them an inch and they will take a mile.” Right?

Well, this has never held more true than it does today in this age of bank owned properties. No, this is not another one of those bank, bashing blog posts that seem to be everywhere these days. Quite frankly it is difficult to tell if the expanding trend of banks REQUIRING  more and more of a potential purchaser before accepting an offer, is the work of the banks or of some of the bank-employed REALTORS® that have hitched their fortunes to their bank-employer.

Let’s take a little walk down memory lane to see what I mean.

Inch #1-In the beginning, banks that owned foreclosed homes simply required that a buyer present a loan prequalification letter with any offer that was made on one of their homes. This seemed fair, as no seller wants to be dealing with a buyer that is not qualified for a loan.

Inch #2- It was then not good enough that the purchase contract stated that the buyer had given a deposit check to their agent. The bank wanted a copy of the check.

Inch #3-Next the major banks required that any prospective buyer be loan prequalified with their bank before they would consider the buyer’s offer. Great way for the bank’s loan officers to try and persuade a buyer to swtich their business to them. Yes, it is happening! Read the rest of this entry »

Today marks the first day of the waiver of FHA’s “anti-flipping” or as I call it, the “anti-free market” rule. Under the ill- advised rule a home that was purchased with the intent of being “flipped” has to be held by the owner for at least 90 days before it would be eligible to be purchased with an FHA-back loan. The effect of the rule was to cause an unnecessary obstacle to a real estate investor purchasing a “fixer,” renovating it and putting it back on the market for a profit.

 In the days of the flaming real estate market, FHA’s motive was to slow down the rate of home price increases and profit taking by homeowners who wanted to take advantage of the current market conditions.

With the number of foreclosed properties on the market, many of which are in such bad condition that they would not qualify for any type of loan, the FHA is now looking for real estate speculators and investors to help bail out the market. With the 90 day holding period waived for the next year, investors can now snap up some of the great deals that are available, renovate them as quickly as they can so that they will qualify for a loan, and get them back on the market so buyers can take advantage of the available federal homebuyer tax credits.

This should significantly increase the number of turn-key livable homes on the market in the Paradise &  Lake Oroville real estate market,  something that is sorely needed right now.  Going forward I would like to see FHA permanently rescind the regulation as it interferes with the free market. Only when the government gets out of the way will the market repair itself.

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A little while back I posted a blog article regarding the lack of attention that many REALTORS® are paying to their obligation and legal requirement to provide the proper disclosure documents to clients and cooperating agents in a transaction. Not much has improved since then. The biggest violators of the disclosure laws seem to be those agents that are working as agents for the banks.

Before I continue let’s make one thing clear: Not every REALTOR® who is working for a bank is ignoring the law. Most of them are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

There does, however, seems to be a growing number of  bank-hired agents in our area that have somehow come to believe that they are above the law, in fact REFUSING to comply with disclosure requirements. And to be totally blunt about it, I am tired of it. So tired in fact, that it is time to do something about it. Maybe it is time to start naming names on this blog site of those agents who seem to have acquired the arrogance of the banks to whom they have pledged their allegiance, and refuse to do their jobs. Or maybe the Department of Real Estate would be interested in seeing what some of these “agents” are doing; I mean, NOT doing.

Here is an example of what I am talking about:

I e-mailed the local listing agent for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) last week to ask her to provide me her inspection disclosure. She is the listing agent for all of the HUD owned homes in Northern California. As an agent for the seller she is required to perform what the real estate law calls a “diligent visual inspection” of the property and provide a written disclosure of her findings to my buyer. As the agent of the buyer I to am required to do the same.

Her response to me was that she “normally” does an inspection when she is representing the buyer. But because I was representing the buyer she did not feel she was required to do the lawfully required visual inspection.

We currently have another transaction with an agent from S. California who has a bank owned property in Oroville listed. He too is refusing to provide the results of his visual inspection. Know why? He has never seen the home and has no idea what condition it is in. Being an agent from out of town DOES NOT exempt him from performing his duties. It seems that the longer this foreclosure market continues the more these type of agents cut corners and violate thier ethics. Can you imagine what it is going to be like by the end of the year if something isn’t done to fix it?

So here is how I am going to help YOU become part of the solution. Beginning this week I will be sharing with you the disclosures you can expect to see during your Lake Oroville, or Paradise, real estate transaction. With this knowledge in hand you can begin to demand the proper disclosures from your agent and have just that much more piece of mind about the purchase of your new home.

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 Here is this week’s report, dear readers. Really nothing in this week’s numbers of any major note for the Lake Oroville real estate housing market. We did, however have only 4 business days of data this week as a result of the county recorder’s office being close in observance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. REO/Short sales returned to their post holiday average with over half of the weekly sales attributed to “distressed”  sales.  

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 Could it be that time is proceeding faster this year than last? It sure feels like it here, in the Lake Oroville real estatet market as this is already the second weekly market report of the new year.

The trend towards lower inventories continued last week as the number of home on the market ticked down another notch. This week’s stat of the week is the number of sales that involved a “distressed” home, those that are either bank owned or short sale priced, has shown a significant decline for 3 of the past 4 months. I don’t think this is any type of trend, but is an interesting stat, I think. 

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.!!!!!!!!!!!

As my final posting of 2009 for the Lake Oroville real estate market I was planning on doing a small recap of real estate market stuff for the year. But as I set down at my computer this afternoon to compose another one of my compelling and informative blog posts (laugh here), I quickly came to the realization that, for just the next couple of days, it might be a better use of this space to reflect a little on where we were when this year began and how far we have come.

You see, last year at this time I was pretty much sitting alone in this big ol’ office space with a bunch of empty desks hoping against hope that I would be able to get through just one more year of slumping sales and keep my head above water. To be totally candid, it was not a good start to a new year.

A lot has changed since that January of 2009. Just about the time I was feeling at the end of my rope, a former associate of mine approached me about coming to work for me. Steffan and I had started out in the real estate business together in 1994. I has always respected him for his ethics, honesty, and putting his client first. Plus, he is an all around nice guy. So, aboard he came.

Just a couple of months before this, I began working on one what I thought was one of those escrows from hell. The kind of escrow that you work on for 7 MONTHS and never get the deal done. (yikes). Turned out that because the transaction took so long, the other agent and I spent quite of bit of time on the phone together.  As we got to know each other better it began to seem to both of us that she would be an excellent fit in my office. We had the same work ethic, we both believed in doing the right thing, and in addition to her amazing commitment to her clients, she also understood that real estate will be impossible to do going forward without the tools of technology. It took a while for Christi to make the move but she finally made it.

Towards the middle of the year, as Christi and Steffan got settled into their new desks, I had the opportunity to speak to another agent or two about making the move to a better office. Although it seemed clear that they were not happy where they were, they were hesitant to make a move. Which, as it always seems to, worked out  perfectly.

Steffan suggested that I talk to an agent that he thought would be good to have in the office. Not only had I never worked on a transaction with her, I can’t say for sure that I had ever met her. Trusting Steffan’s opinion as I do, I finally arranged to meet with her. Robin subsequently joined the team in August and I must confess that had I not hired her I would have missed out on working with a very loyal person who will do nearly anything for her clients. I also appreciate Robin for her honesty and ethics.

It is said that things happen for a reason. In each of these cases it was all the right reasons.

So here I sit with just a little over 6 hours left to this year of 2009, amazed, once again, at how far I have come in just 12 short months.  3 awesome associates to work with, nearly $7 million dollars in sales, and finising in the #2 spot among all Lake Oroville real estate office that don’t deal mainly with foreclosures.

To Christi, Robin, and Steffan I say thank you. To our valued customers, I appreciate your loyalty. To those of you who we will meet in the coming year, I say, in advance: Thanks for placing your trust in us. We promise to make your real estate transaction as easy as possible.

Please be safe tonight

 Merry Christmas, everyone. Welcome back to your weekly sales stats for the Lake Oroville Real Estate market.

Unit sales took an upward turn last week, which I am hoping will continue to happen going forward. The stat of the week this week is the average sold price. For the first time in a long time we see foreclosure sales and short sales below 50% of the homes sold for the week. As a result, the average sold price jumped nearly 15%.  Yes, I know, it is only one weeks worth of data, but may be an indication of what prices will do as the “distressed inventory” continues to clear.

Once again there is very little to comment on with regards to the past week’s numbers for the Lake Oroville real estate market.  We are still seeing at least 1/2 of all sales from the foreclosure or short sale market. The interesting thing is that these distressed properties account for less than 1/4 of all homes on the market. Logic would suggest that we shoud be running out of foreclosures at this pace, but that has not been the case. Could it be that the so-called “Shadow Inventory” of  homes that the banks are said to be holding is actually being carefully metered by the banks so as to simply release one or two at a time for sale for each one that closes escrow?  Can’t say I know the answer to this one but it is an interesting theory I think.