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Thursday, February 25, 2010

The New 2010 Home Purchase Contract

They are at it AGAIN! Those California Assoc. of Realtors (CAR) Lawyers are tireless!

The contract to make an offer to purchase a home just went through another round of modifications. We can't believe it but they managed to add stuff without actually making the contract any longer....HURRAY!

Actually, we kind of like some of these changes and feel that they really help to clarify some of the terms of the contract and will better keep unethical folks from being able to offer on a property under the false pretenses of one type of financing and then dubiously switch to a less desirable (from sellers point of view) type later.

We think this may have a profound effect on some earnest money deposits in the future. Hopefully it is a deterrent but only time will tell. To read the new RPA in its entirety click on the picture-------->>>


or go here:

Monday, February 15, 2010

North Orange County CA Short Sales - Market Update 2/15/10


There is a ton of talk these days about short sales, some good information and lots of misinformation. Consumers seem to be split into two groups, those that think that foreclosure home buying is easy (usually haven't done it) and those that think its impossible (usally have tried but unsuccessful).

The truth is somewhere in the middle. There are good deals out there that can be bought but they aren't giving them away and they will require patience. Here's a quick general lay of the land...

In North Orange County there are:

203 single family short sale homes on the market
350 under contract
104 have actually closed in last 2 months

We think these stats just about sum up the market we are seeing in North Orange County CA. That is, we're seeing about 50 short sale closings each month for the 500 or so listed as active or under contract. In other words, we're going through about 10% of the short sale inventory each month.

The thing with short sales is that the success of their closing depends on numerous factors, not just a willing buyer and seller. These factors include but are not limited to borrower financials, borrow history, borrowers situation, buyers financing, property location, # of lending institutions, lending institution policy, and competence of the listing and selling agents. Much of our inventory will never close under short sale due to one or more of these things and trustee sale will be inevitable.

Here's the city breakdown for closed sales:

Buena Park (22)
Brea (10)
Fullerton (28)
La Habra (14)
Placentia (13)
Yorba Linda (17)

Now these numbers aren't mind blowing but if you'd asked us 2 years ago if we'd take 10% as a local industry average we would've. Most short competent short sale agents, ourselves included, will do much better than this because we can eliminate at least one of the above variables.

If you'd like to see if your situation is likely to work as a short sale, just shoot us an email. If you're interested in purchasing one, you can view current short sale inventory on our North Orange County home for sale page.