Mark Wisterman's Paradise & Lake Oroville Real Estate Blog

Great news, for the Lake Oroville real estate market, and beyond is just coming across the newswires.

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is extending the waiver to the onerous rules that prohibit FHA insured loans from being used for the purchase of homes that sold within 90 days of being acquired by the seller.

Under the rule, if a seller has owned the home for less than 90 days and the sales price is more than 20% higher than what the seller originally paid for it, then FHA would refuse to insure a loan for it.  Apparently FHA feels that it is “predatory” sales practice to make a profit on the sale of a property that you may have purchased at an opportune price.

With home sales sagging FHA decided last year to mostly waive the restriction on the practice of “flipping” through January 31, 2011. In other words, they decided that through January 31, 2011 they would allow the free market to work.

In a very smart move, with the expiration date of the waiver looming, FHA has extended the waiver for the balance of 2011. While there are still parts of the regulation which hinder the sales of flipped homes, the extension of the waiver is a wise decision and the FHA is to be applauded for its effort to free up the free market.

If the agency would prefer a standing ovation over simple applause, it should do the right thing by getting rid of the silly rule all together.

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Another exciting development descends upon the downtown area of the Lake Oroville real estate market today with the opening of the office of Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated.With its origins dating back to the 1890′s, the investment firm’s belief of “safeguarding the money of others as if it were your own” has guided them through portions of 3 centuries.

So why is this such a big deal?  Because,  the debut of the Stifel (pronounce it, Steeful) Nicolaus office marks the return of an investment company downtown that still operates, in many ways, as a “family” run business.  And, because my longtime friend, and even longertime ( I know, this is not a word) investment adviser, Jim Moll is going to be working there, and I want to help get the word out that his new office, which is actually his old office, is open for business.

Jim, along with fellow Vice President/Investments Kevin Zeitler, and Client Service Associate, Callie McBee, are pleased to welcome you to their new company at 1891 Robinson Street, Oroville Ca 95965.

The new phone number is 530-534-8021

The name on the door and the number on the telephones may have changed, but Jim’s, Kevin’s and Callie’s commitment of  “safeguarding the money of others as if it were your own” won’t.

Good Luck, Guys!!!!

I recently had cause to discuss an issue with the City of Oroville Housing Department regarding whether or not a particular home located within the city limits of the Lake Oroville real estate market could be approved to be sold to the first time home-buyer that I am representing.

Without getting into the minutia of the issue, the Housing Department originally said that my client would not be able to purchase the home based on the current guidelines that were established within the grant program that is being used to fund the loans for first time home buyers that are purchasing homes within the city limits of the Lake Oroville real estate market.

In my view, the guideline that they were using was one that was very subjective and open to broad interpretation. In discussing this issue with the housing department over a three day period I think I talked to nearly everyone in the department.

I talked to Dawn, Tiffany, Vanessa, and Pat during this time and to be totally honest I thought I was going to get the proverbial government runaround that normally comes in  dealing with “policy.”

Well I was wrong. That’s right….wrong!

Each of these public servants listened to my concerns and my position with an open mind  and in the end understood that the guideline was in fact extremely subjective and worked diligently to do the right thing for my client , as well as for future users of the First Time Home Buyer Loan Program, of which many in the Lake Oroville real estate market have availed themselves.

The postition that these ladies are in cannot always be an enjoyable job. Dealing with REALTORS®, lenders and first time home buyers while trying to keep up with, and communciate, the many changes that occur in the grant programs that make the loan programs possible has got to be quite a challenge.

A big thank you to Pat Clark, the Director of Business Assistance and Housing Development, and the entire staff in the department for their help. It is refreshing to see that common sense and fairness are alive and well in the halls of our city in the Lake Oroville real estate market.

You knew it wouldn’t be long before I made it easier for you to utilize your smart phone to access this blog site, search for properties in the Lake Oroville, Paradise  and Chico California real estate markets, and get the latest in interest rates and other real estate news and advice.

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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Here are the numbers for last week’s Lake Oroville real estate market. This is the third week in a row that the number of Oroville home sales has been in single digits, and the 7th week out of the past 8 for this. With inventories still low, and a lot of that inventory in disrepair it is becoming more and more difficult to find properties for Oroville area buyers.  All of my team members have pools of buyers that they simply cannot find decent properties to show them.

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 Another ho-hum week for Lake Oroville real estate market as sales activity continues to under perform. But once again we find that the inventory of Oroville homes for sale has dropped to another low. 

If the current activity in the office of our Oroville market is any indication we may soon be seeing a change in these sales numbers. Our Oroville agents have been very busy this week showing property and writing offers. It is good to see that maybe the spring-like weather is bringing buyers out.

If you are thinking of selling, now might be the time to get your home on the market.

A not so funny thing happened to the Paradise, CA real estate market last week. Only two sales to report from Paradise this week.

The one encouraging thing to take from the week’s meager numbers is the fact that the average Paradise home sale was over $250,000 and the average time that each of these two homes were on the market was only 24 days. From the seller’s side of the equation it is good to see higher prices homes selling quickly.  Hopefully we will have more substantial numbers to discuss next week.

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

 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.

Welcome back, once again, to your weekly sales update for the Paradise, California  real estate market. Market activity remains stable this week when compared to last week. The astute observer that you are probably noticed a revision in the housing numbers that I reported last week.  The revision was made because my intent is to report home sales activity for the town of Paradise. Last week’s report also included the Magalia area.

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?

Paradise, listings, homes for sale, properties, Lake Oroville, Oroville, Creal estateA Butte county