(Syd’s baseball team – currently undefeated 4-0 and in 1st place. My Gators – nope, didn’t make it past their first game in NCAA March Madness.)
But Short Sales are #1! According to Thomas Popik, research director for Campbell Surveys, “Short sales now account for the No. 1 category of distressed property.”
Confirming what I’ve been saying for years, “Losses on short sales are typically lower than for REO, and both lenders and the government are pushing programs to facilitate short sales.”
The Survey reports that last month distressed property sales accounted for 48.1 percent of the home purchase transactions. These February numbers were up significantly from the 37.3 percent level recorded as recently as November.
We saw a dip last fall and into the winter due to increased government efforts, including temporary foreclosure moratoriums and a push to qualify more financially troubled homeowners for mortgage modifications. However, as I said back then, that dip was temporary and just postponed the inevitable. Now a growing number of distressed properties are hitting the housing market.
With more distressed properties coming onto the market, the Campbell Surveys reports that home prices are again showing signs of weakness. Average home prices for all categories properties (damaged REO, move-in ready REO, short sales, and non-distressed) – declined from January to February in the latest survey.
Popik makes another important point for real estate investors: “as more and more people default or simply want to walk away from their properties, mortgage servicers are having trouble expeditiously processing these complicated transactions.”
Because these transactions are so complicated and the lenders are so back-logged, real state investors who understand the winning argument and how we add value to transactions can get deals done that agents and sellers would not be able to do without us. You want to know how? ==> I’ll tell you.
