Mark Wisterman's Paradise & Lake Oroville Real Estate Blog

This is the 200th  post for thisLake Oroville & Paradise, CA real estate market blog. For a milestone such as this you might think that I would have something profound to impress upon you about the housing market in the Lake Oroville and Paradise, California areas.

To tell the truth, I actually considered that. But I came upon something yesterday that changed my mind about how to celebrate this monumental moment.

The hard drive on the computer that I use in my day to day operations is getting a little full. Ok, it is almost totally full. The hard drives on all my computers are  like my garage and storage area at my home.  I have a hard time throwing anything out. After all, I might need that stuff someday.

But, the time had finally come to clean house in a cyberspace sort of way.  As I was deleting files to make room for those that are now more important,  I came upon some old ad copy that I had written more than 10 years ago for listings that we were marketing back in the days when I was working with Bob Beever Realty.

Given the condition of the housing market in Oroville and Paradise, I thought you might enjoy a look back at some of those ads. See, I told you I might need them some day!!!

Ad copy for 9/30/99

 HARD TO FINDfive acres with well and 3 bd septic. Close to airport, golf, fishing and boating at Afterbay. Power readily accessible. Owner will carry with low down. Asking $45,000

 BANK REPO! 3bd 2ba 1980 mobile on 4 level acres. Has potential but needs work. Seller willing to finance for a long long long time with low low low down. Only $34,900

 TRIPLEX close to downtown. Seller motivated to sell quickly. Almost no vacancy rate. Assume favorable financing or ask seller to carry some paper. All offers considered. $114,900

 BEAUTIFUL VALLEY VIEW: Level to gentle sloping 5 acre parcel. Power close, minutes to lake, and you can almost see forever from here. Just $37,000

 ALMOST DESPERATE sellers need quick sale on this gorgeous property. Over 2700 sq ft incl. finished basement, 2 kitchens, 2 fireplaces, 24X48 shop, fenced pasture, small citrus grove. All on five acres close to town. Recently reduced to $198,000

 OUT OF TOWN SELLER can’t play landlord anymore. This home would make good rental or be perfect for buyer on small budget. Only $35,500

COPY FOR 12/3 – 12/4 1999 Read the rest of this entry »

 Sales for the Lake Oroville real estate market took a turn for the better this past week. The average sold price was the highest it has been in a very long time thanks to the sale of a couple homes that had been on the market for quite some time. The sale of these two particular homes was also the reason for the nearly doubling of the “days on the market” time. One of the homes had been on the market 928 days and the other had been for sale for 897 days.

Once again, though, the number of the week to lookout for is the number of Oroville homes currently on the market. This number has hit another new low for this blog site and is threatening to go under 300 for the first time in probably two years.

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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 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. 

 Wow, have I been a bad boy. I have neglected my duty to provide the Lake Oroville real estate market with the most up-to-date home sales stats. Not sure why I am behind, but here are the mumbers for the week endig January 4, 2010.

Maybe it was that mini-vacation I took that threw me off!!!

Stat of the week is the continuing decline is the number of Oroville homes currently listed for sale. The number hit a new low for the week. At the current sales pace this equates to approximately 6 month inventory of homes for Lake Oroville. 

Click Here for more historical info

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I recently attended a workshop put on by the City of Oroville Housing Development Department regarding changes to the First Time Home Buyer Financing Assistance Program that the city has had in place for a number of years now. Up until about 4 years ago the program was easy to explain to buyers as it was a pretty straightforward program. The City would provide secondary financing of up to $100,000 at 3% simple interest with no payments being required on the loan. The buyer would simply pay off the loan and any accrued interest whenever the buyer decided to sell the home.

Needless to say the program has been quite popular, especially when home values were going through the roof and nearly all first time home buyer were being squeezed out of the market.

But something else happened to the program when prices started their run up. The City of Oroville got greedy and decided that they would get into the real estate business by competing against local contractors in buying up vacant city lots, constructing their own homes, and requiring that they be financed through their loan programs when they were sold.

For a while everything was working like clockwork for the city. They were buying lots on the cheap, building average quality homes, and making a lot of money while values kept escalating and they kept raising the prices. But, as with many government programs, things have since not gone well.

Just as the market was beginning to pull back, the City had a total of 9 homes in their inventory, 6 complete and 3 under construction. it was obvious that they were getting nervous about market conditions because they arranged a workshop to solicit ideas from REALTORS®, and lenders on how they could get these homes sold. Unfortunately, there was not much of a turnout for the meeting. I happened to be the only REALTOR® in attendance, as many others had decided to participate in the annual Oroville Association of REALTORS® picnic instead. In addition to me and city officials, there were three or four lenders in the room. Read the rest of this entry »

Now, before revealing my answer to kick starting this real estate market, lets do a quick review of where we are today.

Remember, in part one of this two part post I reminded you that this mortgage mess in which we find ourselves has resulted in MILLIONS of home owners (3 million this year alone) losing their homes. Also, recall that I think that a major portion of these displaced former home owners could probably qualify to buy a home today if it weren’t for the fact that their foreclosure or short sale would be reflected on their credit report for the next 3-5 years. In addition, it seems to me that it would be extremely time consuming to attempt to figure out which of these borrowers were sold a “bill of goods”, which ones had no idea what they were doing, or which ones were just plain irresponsible in handling their finances.

My request for what your ideas might be to fix this was answered by one of my most loyal readers, Steve Davis  who wrote:

“One could start the qualification on who gets help and who does not by the ones that put 20% or more down were really qualified buyers – vs the low or no down people who should have never purchased a home.”

I do agree with Steve that we could start allowing those who had originally put 20% down access to new loans. but we still have the issue of credit scores for these people too.  So what should we do? Read the rest of this entry »

The working group of the Oroville Association REALTORS®  met with officials of the Lake Oroville Area Public Utility District (LOAPUD) yesterday to continue discussions aimed at crafting a fair and balanced solution to the issue of faulty sewer laterals in the district and throughout the greater Oroville real estate market.

You recall that the district, under pressure from the State of California to do something to avoid  possible contamination of ground water,  intended to implement the onerous and unfair program of requiring sewer laterals to be tested and repaired before allowing the sale of a home within the district to close escrow.  This point of sale requirement is bad on nearly every level and I have adamantly voiced my opposition to this since becoming aware of the requirement in July. If you would like to refresh your memory on the issue please click on the link below to see my previous blog posts about this.

History of LOAPUD Posts

In addition to LOAPUD officials, REALTORS®,  title company representatives and myself, the meeting was also attended by representatives from the other two sewer districts in town, (City of Oroville and Thermalito Irrigation District), as they too are looking to implement a sewer lateral repair program.

The result of this latest meeting was very encouraging as all parties not only expressed a willingness to work together to come with a workable solution but also actually discussed alternatives to the existing plan.

The idea that seemed to garner the most positive response by all is a variation of what I suggested in my blog post of August 27th when I said: Read the rest of this entry »

Oroville area law enforcement agencies are searching for a man in the attempted kidnappings of at least 4 youths since mid September.

According to reports the man is driving a brown or tan van, and has attempted, as recently as October 6th, to lure children into his vehicle near Ophir School, Plumas Avenue School, and Nelson Avenue.

The description of the man in last week’s attempted abduction is a white man in his 40’s or 50’s, with a stocky build.  The man has grey, curly, shoulder-length hair.

 If you have information about the case immediately call the Butte County Sheriff’s Department.

 Let’s get this low life off the streets before he hurts someone.

 Click on the links below for more information as well as tips to help your kids stay safe.

Oroville Mercury Register Report

KHSLTV Report

Link to Safety Tips

For real estate print ads that is.

When I first got started in the Oroville real estate business in 1994, virtually all of the advertising  to market a property was done in print media. We used either the local papers, or the traditional real estate magazines, or a combination of the two, to make buyers aware of  properties that were listed for sale. 

After Al Gore invented the internet (sorry for the political satire there) things began to  change. There was a new way of advertising that hardly anybody knew how to take advantage of. I remember a conversation with my then broker, Bob Beever, about the internet. Something neither one of us knew that much about at the time.

He said, “Mark, Why do we even need the internet?” and with my wealth of understanding of technology at the time replied, “I have no idea.”

Despite our lack of understanding the technology at the time, we made the leap of faith to launch one of the very first real estate web sites in the Oroville market.

Fast forwarding to today we find that the internet is by far the dominant media real estate consumers use to find their next home. The numbers speak for themselves. In 2008:

73.6% of All Americans had internet access

78% of all home buyers we using the interenet to find their next home

20% of home buyers used a newspaper or magazine to find their next home

33% of home buyers use the internet to search for a home more than 5 times a month

Being that we are already more than halfway through 2009, it is a pretty good bet that all of these numbers, except the one related to newspaper and magazine users, have increased.

The result of this change in consumer behavior have sent those print publications that depend on the real estate business into a financial nosedive. Causing some major newspapers across the country to eliminate their real estate sections all together. Locally I have seen the results too. The local real estate magazines contain only half the pages they used to have, and our local weekly shopper magazine that at one time had something like 12 pages of real estate ads now has barely 3 pages devoted to real estate.

Interestingly though, as this shift has taken place, many real estate agents and their offices, at least in this town, are still stuck in their old ways; preferring to have little or no internet presence for their seller’s properties. In fact, one of the offices in town that is associated with one of the largest real estate franchises in the world, does not even have it’s own local website, preferring to only use their parent company’s website on which to place their listings. 

I admit that I too am still using print media for my listings. It is something that I would like to discontinue as the resources I expend on print could go a long way toward expanding exposure to my listings online. So why do I do it?  Because many sellers are also not quite up to speed on the technology either. There are some that want to see their properties in print not realizing that only 20% of buyers are actually seeing the property advertised that way. As I continue to counsel sellers on the benefits of online marketing I will redirect resources from print and into more internet marketing.  Fortunately, for my sellers, I have the resources to do both during the transition.

Today’s moral of the story for sellers: Print media is quickly becoming an thing of the past. Insist that your agent market your property where  buyers are actually looking: Online!  And be sure to check out their personal websites before letting them work for you.