San Diego Real Estate Blog

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You can follow Dawn Sells San Diego on Twitter. Our San Diego Real Estate Twitter has all of our blog posts tweeted as well as all information pertaining to the San Diego Real Estate Market, News and Trends. Twitter is a great way for us to stay in touch with home buyers and home sellers in San Diego County.

We also keep you updated on foreclosure and short sale properties that we are selling and up to date information on the latest foreclosure and short sale news. Twitter is an excellent micro-blog for getting San Diego Real Estate Tweets out fast to our followers. If you want to follow the best San Diego Real Estate on Twitter make sure you follow us.

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

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2010 San Diego Real Estate Market

I know it’s still 2009 November and it might be a little early for 2010 San Diego Real Estate Market predictions but I think I’ll give it a shot. 2010 in the San Diego Real Estate Market should show more foreclosures than we had in 2009. In 2009 many foreclosures were held off of the market due to the moratoriums. Now that many of the foreclosure moratoriums are lifted the banks are gearing up to get the REO’s off of their books. 2010 in San Diego and many parts of the country will be known as the year of the “Last of the Foreclosure Market”. There will be more foreclosures after 2010 into 2011,  2012 and 2013 but 2010 will be the last big year for foreclosures.

There will still be more short sales and some banks are moving faster on them. There’s lots of talk about the short sales being streamlined and moving through the system faster. In 2010 it might just be a lot of false hope in this area. I hope I’m wrong and we see the short sales as a whole (not just select banks) move through the system fast and to a sale but it might just be a lot of hype. Systems like REOTrans are setting up to do short sales but I’ll believe the push towards short sales over foreclosures by the banks when I see it.

For homebuyers in 2010 it should be a delight with more inventory coming into the San Diego Real Estate Market. In some price ranges like the lower end first time home buyer prices under $400,000 there still will be a fight with other buyers to get the homes. There are way too many buyers and investors in the under $400,000 range in many areas of San Diego County that will keep this price range in very short supply in 2010. The upper end in non-coastal areas will still slide a little lower in 2010. We’ll see how this worked out in 2011.

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

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San Diego Real Estate Blog

EL CAJON, CA - APPROVED SHORT SALE: 1 Bedroom 1 Bathroom. Great location for this San Diego Condo well below the $100k mark. Investors delight – these numbers could work out great for you. Get out your pencil and do the math. This Approved Short Sale is a corner upstairs unit and is completely upgraded. This condo in the well known Villa Grigio Complex has Berber carpets, tile, stainless steel appliances which include microwave and refrigerator, granite counter tops, and custom kitchen cabinets. The master bedroom is complete with ceiling fan and mirrored wardrobe doors. This great value condo in San Diego County had wood blinds, air conditioning and custom paint. At a price like this it doesn’t have to be an REO to be a great deal. Get this one fast before someone sees the giveaway and takes it from you.

We have helped many buyers get into the home they are looking for in San Diego County. Many times we have Bank Owned Properties and Short Sales that need to sell fast. Make sure you let us know what type of home and in what location of San Diego you are looking at. We will keep you posted with any new homes or condos we have for sale.

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

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All Information is believed to be correct but not guaranteed.

San Diego Real Estate Blog

The San Diego Real Estate Market has seen better days. It’s not that there aren’t buyers seeking that perfect place to call home sweet home it’s the little inventory they have to choose from. Inventory is low especially in some areas of San Diego County in the first time homebuyer price ranges. So low that many VA and FHA buyers are taking their chances on short sales, which may or may not ever close escrow, and waiting it out.

I can’t tell you how many questions I answer on Trulia about buyers and short sales. Buyers are always asking, what takes so long, how come the banks won’t approve my offer, what’s going on, why did they take another offer, why did the bank foreclose on the home when I had an offer on it for 8 months, why is the seller declaring bankruptcy, and on and on. It’s like writing an offer on a home and putting it into a black hole and hoping something good comes out on the other end. It usually doesn’t.

Keep in mind if you’re a buyer who wrote an offer on a short sale you probably are in competition with 5 to 50 other buyers. Only 1 of those offers will get accepted and many times the home will go to foreclosure and no one gets it. It’s frustrating for everyone involved including all agents, the negotiators at the banks, sellers and all the other buyers trying to buy the home. Just think how the seller feels….. they are losing their home, their dreams, their investment, they and their family – kids, dogs, cats now need to find another place to live, most likely a rental or in with family, and their life is being turned upside down. Kind of puts things in a different perspective when you look at it from the side of the one who is losing the home.

San Diego Home Buyers using a VA or FHA Loan to buy a home or condo are often in third and fourth place when writing offers on foreclosed properties. They have that going for them too. The problem is with so many investors in the market buying foreclosures for cash or large sums of money down in conventional loans the VA and FHA loans aren’t usually the best way to go for an asset manager looking at offers on the REO asset they are managing. On cash offers they don’t have to worry about appraisal issues or finding out a buyer really doesn’t qualify for the loan to buy the foreclosure. It’s an unfortunate situation that people who want to buy the home to live in and be part of the community are being put in the back seat to investors looking to make a buck. But it is what it is and for now it’s bad news for some VA and FHA buyers. Hang in there. Times will change.

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

San Diego Foreclosures

San Diego REO Listing Agent

San Diego Real Estate               San Diego MLS 

San Diego Relocation                San Diego Home Search by Map

San Diego Home Buyers           San Diego Home Sellers

San Diego House Values           Local Real Estate Information

San Diego Real Estate Blog      San Diego Short Sales

San Diego Foreclosures            San Diego Green Homes

San DiegoListing Book

All Information is believed to be correct but not guaranteed.

San Diego Real Estate Blog

Foreclosures of San Diego is your source for all foreclosures in San Diego. We have tools to search all homes and condos for sale whether they’re Bank Owned REO Foreclosures, Short Sales or just normal listings. You can Search the San Diego MLS or use our San Diego Foreclosure MLS to find Foreclosures, Pre-Foreclosures or Auction Properties. Did I mention these Search Tools are FREE.

Thousands of people use our search tools every week and find the home or condo they are looking for in San Diego County. We allow visitors to use our tools because we want them to have a portal to search for their home or condo in the comfort of their home or office. If you need help seeing the property or writing an offer on the property or just some real estate advice please contact us.

San Diego Foreclosures

San Diego MLS

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

San Diego Foreclosures

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San Diego Real Estate               San Diego MLS 

San Diego Relocation                San Diego Home Search by Map

San Diego Home Buyers           San Diego Home Sellers

San Diego House Values           Local Real Estate Information

San Diego Real Estate Blog      San Diego Short Sales

San Diego Foreclosures            San Diego Green Homes

San DiegoListing Book

All Information is believed to be correct but not guaranteed.

San Diego Real Estate Blog 

I Googled San Diego Real Estate this morning and saw the top rated spot was a news article from the Union Tribune, Real Estate Expert: San Diego at Leading Edge of Recovery. The Real Estate Expert they site in the article is Lawrence Yun the Chief Economist for the National Association of Realtors. Yun is known for making many blunders and erroneous predictions in the past. Check out http://www.lawrenceyunwatch.blogspot.com/ for some in depth research on Yun’s other predictions and faux pas. I’m a big fan of laying all the facts out on the table for anyone buying a home in San Diego County. A prediction like this headline needs to have all the facts including the ones behind the scenes. 

The article Real Estate Expert: San Diego at Leading Edge of Recovery bases the recovery on rising prices and sales. Yun states that there is only a 2.5 month inventory of homes for sale and new home construction sluggish. He said that the demand is strong. In an excerpt from the article Yun confesses: “He began with a confession about how he missed the real estate bubble of 2004-06. Surely, the system had enough checks and balances to avoid a runaway market, he thought at the time. “I was clearly wrong,” he said.” My concern now is what else is Yun overlooking through assuming that others have checks and balances in place.  

In the UT Article, “He also predicted that foreclosures will continue at high levels for the next 12 months because of the weak economy. But unlike last year, he said this year’s foreclosures are being snapped up in many markets, including San Diego.” The market in many areas of San Diego is saturated with many short sales. Many of the short sales have homeowners in them not making mortgage payments and in the foreclosure process while trying to short sell their home. I think the foreclosures at high levels will carry on well past 12 months. Related Blog Post : http://www.responsiblelending.org/mortgage-lending/tools-resources/new-foreclosures-by-state-for.html  

Many agents and asset managers speak of the tidal wave of foreclosures that are coming. I wonder why the banks are holding back all of the foreclosures that should be on the market. If the foreclosures are being held back and not put on the market for sale then there is a false sense of inventory. They are foreclosed on or will be soon but the homes are intentionally not being made available to home buyers. Why? Maybe this is to stabilize and firm up the market. But is this real or false stabilization? 

The question is by doing this is it creating another problem of false values like the bubble we just came out of. I don’t know but the information needs to be out there for potential home buyers so they have all the facts when buying. Let’s face it, when NAR says something the news and the public listens. Let’s make sure they have all the facts not just the talking points for getting buyers to buy homes. 

San Diego Real Estate Blog   

I think “Making Home Affordable” the title and the name of the web site have it all wrong, it’s supposed to be “Buy a Home You Can Afford” but most things right now in the world are either upside down or just plain wrong.               

I checked out the Obama led web site “Making Home Affordable”. The standard Homeowner’s HOPE Hotline mantra with the HOMES of HOPE 888-995-HOPE number in red to get you to call for urgent help. This government has hijacked the word HOPE from day one and probably won’t stop until they’ve moved on. Which is HOPEfully soon. Not that the next elected group of thugs and profiteers will do much better … I’d settle for doing nothing than the direction we’re heading now.                         

It was the HOPE of homeownership for many who should never have qualified for the loan that drew them into this burden that now is destroying their lives …. THE MORTGAGE PAYMENT. A HOPE fueled by GREED that lent money to anyone with a faint heartbeat with little regulation and little to no verification of the homeowner’s real ability to pay it back after the ARM would readjust. Lenders were making money hand over fist and could sell the note quickly on Wall Street to a sea of buyers, so why should they care to verify or tighten up on their lending practices. Now the banks and mortgage holders are losing money hand over fist as taxpayer’s bailout them out as well as our government and their buddies…… hand over fist.  

The printing presses ($100 machines) are rolling at the Department of Treasury and the money going in every direction imaginable except to where it needs to go. The cost “PAYBACK” is left to our children and their children and so on….. while the baby boomers will have their nest eggs refilled with government pork, $4,500 car buying credit and free healthcare. WHOOOOPI. One of the saddest parts of this whole mess is putting the burden of this generation’s foul-ups on the children and their children. Well I guess they’re doing what they like to do, borrow and spend and expect someone else to pay or somehow get out of it. Their best answer is to pin it on the kids because they don’t have a voice, YET!                  

HOPE. I used to think HOPE was something like a wish, a dream that you wanted one day to be fulfilled, something in your life or in another’s life that would happen to bring joy into it. Now HOPE is a slogan, a word used by agenda pushers to play on people’s emotions and to get them to go in a specific direction. After all, who doesn’t want HOPE? Right?

Back to the web site …….

On the home page of this web site it asks

Are You Eligible? Please use the self-assessment tools provided on this websiteto see if you are among the 7 to 9 million homeowners who maybe able to benefit from Making Home Affordable.

Right below this is a “Find out if you are eligible” button.

The next web page will ask you to choose if you want to see if you are eligible for “Home Affordable Financing” or “Home Affordable Modification”. Select the one that best fits your desire.

Under “Home Affordable Financing” you have to answer YES to every question to be eligible. That means that you own a 1 -4 unit home, your loan is with Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, your current on your mortgage payments and “the kicker”-  you believe that the amount you owe on your first mortgage is about the same or less than the current value of your house. Remember that last question asked about first mortgage only, not first and second. If you answered yes to all of these cross your fingers and toes and HOPE.

Under “Home Affordable Modification” you also have to answer YES to every question to be eligible. That means your home is your primary residence, the amount you owe on your first mortgage is equal to or less than $729,750, you’re having trouble paying your mortgage, you got your current mortgage before January 1, 2009, and your payment on your first mortgage (including principal, interest, taxes, insurance and homeowner’s association dues, if applicable) more than 31% of your current gross income? HOPEfully you can answer YES to all of the questions and then there’s HOPE.

I don’t want to give a sense of false HOPE to troubled homeowners so I want to be clear about this. Please try and use this web site to see if they can help you. From what I have seen in the San Diego area including Chula Vista is that most homeowners that purchased a home in the past 1-4 years can’t truly answer YES to all of the questions in either category. The ones that can are still only eligible for the Making Home Affordable program.

Most of the homes in many neighborhoods in San Diego County are short sales. This means that there was no loan refinancing or loan modification for the homeowner that allowed them to successfully stay in their home. If there was they would not be short selling the home, and many are short selling their homes and condos. Some truly just didn’t try, shame on them. Most are just way upside down in property value and can’t make the monthly payments since the ARM readjustment or loss of job.

Its simple math, let me show you;

Paid $800,000 for home … worth $500,000 – why do I want this home?

or

Monthly income $5,000…. house payment jumped to $4,900 – need to eat!

These short sale listings will either be sold short or be taken back by the bank through a foreclosure and end up on the market as a Bank Owned REO. I have spoken with many homeowners who just want to get out their homes or condos and just move on. They want to close that door in their lives and open the next one. The choice of keeping a home that has decreased in value 40% in 3 years and a monthly mortgage payment that is just not possible to pay is destroying families.

I have met many that have said “enough, I’ll take the credit hit and short sell my home or let the bank foreclose on it” and they have. I will always ask them if they contacted an attorney and a CPA to go over all of the ramifications of both. This is essential if the path of short sale or foreclosure is in any ones future.

I HOPE this review of the Making Home Affordable web site helps you.

http://www.makinghomeaffordable.gov/

If  you need help buying or selling a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

San Diego Foreclosures

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All Information is believed to be correct but not guaranteed.

San Diego Real Estate Blog

May 2009 - The Mortgage Reform and Anti Predatory Lending Act HR1728 passed on Thursday May 7, 2009. The House of Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 300 to 114 and is said to protect homeowners from questionable and predatory lending practices that were partially responsible for the record home foreclosures and financial crisis.

This Mortgage Reform and Anti Predatory Lending Act sets up rules to ensure that lenders make loans that mortgage borrowers can afford to pay back. The act also bans prepayment penalties on ARMs Adjustable Rate Mortgages that are the real culprit loans in the foreclosure mess. This bill will also hold accountable the secondary mortgage market for following the same rules. One lawmaker said, “The message is simple. Lenders can’t give loans to people who can’t afford them. And borrowers have to tell the truth about their finances when they apply for a loan.” Not to be disagreeing with the administration of hope but isn’t this just common sense?

Nancy Pelosi the Democratic House Speaker said, “The simple fact is that our laws and enforcement efforts did not keep pace with the complexities of a global economy and a financial industry where the greed of some trumped common sense. Insisting on responsible borrowing and lending and ensuring that borrowers enter into mortgages they can repay or refinance will help families protect their most valuable asset — their home — and guard against another financial and housing market meltdown.” I would have to ask Nancy why she didn’t do something about it, she was a lawmaker at the time and there were many economists warning the government about this.

Many San Diego home owners and potential home buyers know the facts about the San Diego housing market and its foreclosure mess. This act, although very important for protecting potential home buyers when getting a mortgage comes in way too late. The damage is already done. I think if anyone dropped the ball it was the U.S. Government and there lack of proper legislation to protect home buyers and the greed that’s within the system itself. Isn’t that what we elect them for? It’s very interesting to see where all of the elected officials got their campaign contributions, the banks and companies now getting all of our future tax dollars in the form of a so called bailout? What a joke.

If  you need help buying a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

San Diego Foreclosures

San Diego REO Listing Agent

San Diego Real Estate               San Diego MLS 

San Diego Relocation                San Diego Home Search by Map

San Diego Home Buyers           San Diego Home Sellers

San Diego House Values           Local Real Estate Information

San Diego Real Estate Blog      San Diego Short Sales

San Diego Foreclosures            San Diego Green Homes

All Information is believed to be correct but not guaranteed.

San Diego Real Estate Blog

There are many foreclosures because of the Foreclosure Moratorium that are waiting to be put on the market for sale by banks, asset managers and REO agents. The foreclosure moratorium here in San Diego County as well as most areas of the United States has kept homeowners in their homes through the 2008 holidays and then extended into 2009. Now that we’re well into 2009 there are many wondering why hasn’t the banks released the foreclosures. Many of them are vacant and the buyers are looking for new foreclosures to buy. In fact there are so many buyers here in San Diego they are starting to get discouraged in some San Diego markets and price ranges on the lack of inventory. There are also multiple offers on many homes sometimes exceeding 30 offers.

Some say the foreclosures are being held off the market because the banks are waiting to see if the Obama administration will subsidize the banks for their toxic assets. If that’s the case one of two things will happen the government “our tax dollars and our kids and grandkids tax dollars” will bailout the banks once again and then the foreclosures will come onto the San Diego market or the administration wont bail them out and the foreclosures will come on the market. Either way if this is the hold up let’s make a decision already because my buyers are getting real tired of waiting.

The word here in San Diego is that there are buyers galore and not enough homes for sale in some areas and some price ranges. Mostly first time home buyer price ranges. The inventory is filled with REO’s that are heavily damaged and needing lots of work or short sales with many offers and slow moving negotiators at banks. I HOPE by summer the Obama administration will CHANGE what’s going on.

If  you need help buying a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

San Diego Foreclosures

San Diego REO Listing Agent

San Diego Real Estate               San Diego MLS 

San Diego Relocation                San Diego Home Search by Map

San Diego Home Buyers           San Diego Home Sellers

San Diego House Values           Local Real Estate Information

San Diego Real Estate Blog      San Diego Short Sales

San Diego Foreclosures            San Diego Green Homes

All Information is believed to be correct but not guaranteed.

San Diego Real Estate Blog

San Diego - First Time Home Buyers Only – 8000 Dollars !

The $787,000,000,000 stimulus bill signed into law has some benefits for first time home buyers. In the bill signed by Obama there is an $8000 first time home buyer tax credit. This $8000 amount was sized down from $15000 in the original version of the stimulus package. Here in San Diego County California and rich foreclosure environments like Chula Vista in South County San Diego welcomes this first time home buyer $8,000 tax credit incentive.

Some of the details are that the home purchased must be the first time home buyers principal residence. There is a cap of $8,000 if the purchase price is higher than $800,000. A first time home buyer in San Diego or anywhere in the U.S. would be someone who has not owned a principal residence for 3 years. This will only apply to home buyers buying in 2009 so if you’re sitting on the fence of San Diego home buyers this could be the thing that gets you down off the fence and back in the market.

There are also income limits that state single buyers need a modified adjusted gross income of $75,000 or less to qualify for full credit and $150,000 for married couples. If buyers make more income than the amounts stated they could be eligible for reduced credits. Make sure you talk to your accountant about this. The $8000 tax credit is refundable. Buyers will have to own the home for at least 3 years if they want to capitalize fully on the tax incentive. The tax credit will have to be returned to the government if they sell early. There are situations that will be exceptions to this rule.

Make sure you contact professional tax consultants for full factual information on this $8,000 First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit.

If  you need help buying a home or condo in the San Diego area make sure you contact us we’re your San Diego Realtor.

San Diego Foreclosures

San Diego REO Listing Agent

San Diego Real Estate               San Diego MLS 

San Diego Relocation                San Diego Home Search by Map

San Diego Home Buyers           San Diego Home Sellers

San Diego House Values           Local Real Estate Information

San Diego Real Estate Blog      San Diego Short Sales

San Diego Foreclosures            San Diego Green Homes

All Information is believed to be correct but not guaranteed.