“Glass Half Full” Perspective

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER BUSINESS SECTION 8/8/2011
Jonathan Lansner
“Home sales Hot only at the Beach”
“It’s hot near the ocean, real estate speaking, as beach communities are only neighborhoods seeing home-sales growth… For the 22 business days ending July 22—freshest numbers from DataQuick—our region by region analysis of local real estate trends find that Orange County home buying market is improving.”

The number of homes sold in the beach cities of Orange County is up 10% from a year ago BUT median selling prices as a whole are down compared to a year ago.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER BUSINESS SECTION 8/6/2011
Jonathan Lansner
“8% of Newport Listings are Distressed Homes”
The overall Newport Beach home Market in Corona del Mar and Newport Coast, is better compared to the rest of the county. Newport Beach shows an average of only 8% distressed homes out of all current listings. The rest of the county shows about 32.8%.

LOS ANGELES TIMES BUSINESS SECTION 8/5/2011
Alejandro Lazo
“Number of Borrowers winning Foreclosure Relief inches up in June”
“The number of troubled borrowers gaining permanent mortgage relief from the administration’s main foreclosure assistance program inched up just 3.7% from May to June… The Home Affordable Modification Program was launched in early 2009 with the aim of helping 3 to 4 million homeowners avoid foreclosure through 2012. The only problem is that only 657,044 people have qualified for this modification.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER REAL ESTATE SECTION 8/2/2011
Jonathan Lansner and Jeff Collins
“O.C. hottest housing? Easily, Newport Beach 92660”
“If you want to understand Orange County’s housing slump at its simplest, please note that just one ZIP code of the county’s 83 major ZIPs experienced both rising sales and an increased median selling price in the first half of 2011 vs the year before. Newport Beach, 92660—the heart of the waterfront community—where buyers paid a median of $1.1 million in the years first six months.”

“Glass Half Empty” Perspective

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER BUSINESS SECTION 8/6/2011
Jonathan Lansner and Jeff Collins
“Distressed sales could last 5 years”
In an interview with Jon Cook, the president and CEO of the Prudential California Realty chain owned by Home Services of America Inc, Lansner and Collins asked a series of questions related to the Orange County and Southern California Real Estate Market.

“What’s your take on the 2011 housing market so far?” According to Cook, O.C. housing markets have remained relatively flat in the last 6 months, but we have seen a slight increase in monthly sales. He is optimistic that we have seen the toughest part of distressed sales market because Notice of Defaults is decreasing. He continued to say though we are not completely out of the woods yet because of shadow inventory banks are still holding.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER BUSINESS SECTION 8/4/2011
Marilyn Kalfus
“Does the new short sale law come up short?”
New Short Sale Law that just passed in California to protect homeowners from deficiency judgments in short sales could have an unintended effect. A major loophole in this bill that could hurt the real estate market rather then help…” The new legislation would extend the protection against a deficiency judgment to the second loan

“The lender who’s second in line, now having no real incentive to cooperate with a short sale, denies it. The first lien holder goes through the procedure to take the home back through foreclosure. The second lender then can still go after the homeowner for a deficiency judgment. And the first lender can turn what would have been a short sale into a bank-owned property that can be sold at some point for more money.”

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER BUSINESS SECTION 8/3/2011
Jonathan Lansner
“Distressed-home prices smacked by slump”
“According to CoreLogic, recent housing slump is hitting pricing of distressed homes—residences in, near or through foreclosure—harder than the rest of the market.” California selling prices are down 6.7%. In Orange County, home prices including distressed homes saw a drop of 4.5% compared to June 2010. Excluding distressed homes, home prices are only down 2.5% compared to June 2010.