Seaching for homes in the Oroville real estate market, the Chico real estate market, and the Paradise real estate on your mobile device just got a lot easier and more convenient with the recent release of REALTY WORLD’s Mobile Connect home search program.

 This new platform allows buyers to obtain listing information, nearly instantly, on any residential property for sale in the area in which they are currently located by simply texting  as simple two letter code. There is even a QR code available for you iPhone and Android users.   No more searching through cumbersome apps like REALTOR.com, Zillow and Trulia looking for a specific property that you are standing in front of trying to get updated information. And no more hassles when calling the phone number on a yard sign and getting hold of an agent that has no idea of what property you are asking about.

With this new system you get not only the information on the specific home you are texting for, but you also have the option of seeing the 5 other homes for sale that are closest to the home you are looking at. I have included a couple of links here that will provide further information on this awesome new system. The benefits to buyers and sellers alike are explained in the flyers.

To sign up for this program just give me a call or drop me an e-mail with your cell phone number and I will get you enrolled. As always there is NO CHARGE for this service and there is NEVER any abuse of your contact information. In fact, I will make you this promise: I will not ever call you about any home you inquire about through this system unless you ask me to.

Mobile Connect for Sellers

Mobile Connect For Buyers

Happy House Hunting!!!!!!!!!!!!

 For those of you unfamiliar with Kelly Ridge, it is a nice community overlooking Lake Oroville and Bidwell Marina; with a 9 hole golf course intertwined among many of the homes. For the most part it is a quiet neighborhood and pride of ownership is evident as you drive through the community’s winding roads.

As with nearly all subdivisions of this nature, there is an active homeowners’ association (HOA) there, as well as a document called Conditions, Covenants, and Restrictions. (CC&R’s) recorded on each lot in the subdivsion. These CC&R’s are basically a set of rules established as a means of insuring a certain conformity among the homes in the subdivision, which in turn protects the integrity of the subdivision and helps in maintaining property values. For example, most CC& R’s that I have read over the years set minimum lot sizes, minimum square footage requirements, prohibit livestock, require that your RV be parked out of view of the street, and so on. For the most part, the CC&R’s in this area are not as restrictive as they are in the more urban areas, but are just restrictive enough to do the job they were intended to do.

The enforcement mechanism in these CC&R’s is generally the homeowners of  the subdivision. If a homeowner notes a violation then he/she can normally take action to enforce the correction of the violation. In cases where there is also a homeowners association in place, the association itself can usually act to enforce the CC&R’s.  If the violator fails to take corrective action, the complaining party, through a civil action, can ask a judge to force the violator to comply. As human nature would have it, there are sometimes instances in associations such as these where some get “too big for their britches, ” (as my parents used to say)  and, in their own mind, become “Mayor” of the subdivision. Fortunately for the Lake Oroville real estate market, there are  not many HOA’s in the area, but the 2 or three that we do have, have demonstrated, for the most part, a fairly reasonable approach in the administration of their duties.

But, as they say, the times they are a changin’.

The most recent newletter published by the Kelly Ridge Estates Owners’ Association (KREOA) contains what I view is a very disconcerting column regarding a new enforcement program they are implementing to address CC&R violations.

Now, before I continue, I want to be clear here that I am in total support of  homeowners that want to see their neighborhood properly maintained. It is, after all, in everyone’s best interest that this be so. I just think this may be a heavy-handed approach that has the potential of causing a lot of unnecessary strife.

According to the newsletter, KREOA,

 “……will contract with a person who will do as complete exterior inspection as possible,” to “identify CC&R violations on homes listed for sale and foreclosed homes owned by banks.”

“Both buyer and seller are to be notified that escrow will not close until corrections are complete.”  “…..the notification letter will be sent to the escrow company handling the  sale advising that they are not to close until we verify that corrections have been made.” 

Sounds harmless and reasonable you say?

Maybe it is. But I do not think so.

Look who KREOA is targeting with this: “homes listed for sale and foreclosed homes owned by the banks.”  Why are they not targeting ALL violators? Why are they engaging in discrimination in their enforcement of their rules? I will tell you why….because it is an easy target.  But will it accomplish their goal or just prolong the process of getting the neighborhood in compliance?

For example:

What happens to the elderly widow who is trying to sell her house in order that she can move to an assisted living facility and needs every penny she can get out of her home in order to pay for her care?  Let’s say she has her house on the market and has a buyer for her home who is willing to comply with any repairs that KREOA insists on being done. Because it is inadvisable that a buyer make repairs to a home that the buyer does not yet own, and the seller simply has no funds to pay for the required repairs,  the repairs can’t get done  and the house cannot sell. So the transaction dies, the widow takes the house off the market, and because the focus of  KREOA is only homes listed for sale, the repairs never get done! Are you following me on this???

Here is another thing that KREOA is getting ready to do: They intend to hire someone to go out to the County of Butte Building Department and research building permits to see which homeowners have not pulled the proper permits when repairing their homes. Shades of Big Brother??????

It seems that KREOA has decided it is in the best interest of the neighborhood if they establish their own informal Kelly Ridge Association Patrol force (my words, not theirs)

Over reaction you say? I thought that too when I first reacted to the newsletter. Until I read  this sentence in the newsletter that I think portends a coming conflict:

“If you have a problem with a neighbor leave a message at  589-**** and it will be handled by one of the Directors.”

In other words, if you don’t like something your neighbor is doing, like, as the newlstter says, leaving, “excessive amounts of dog poop in a yard constituting a health hazards (and driving neighbors off their decks to in homes with windows shut), call what I am now calling the Kelly Ridge Association Patrol People  (K.R.A.P.P.) and it will be handled- whatever that means!

I wonder if all of the Director’s homes are in compliance? If not, I wonder how they are going to ”handle” it when they find K.R.A.P P. on their doorsteps. Or do they only intend to send a bunch of K.R.A.P.P.  their neighbors way!!!!!

There goes the neighborhood? I certainly hope not! 

But during my number crunching I realized that it  has been a while since I had updated my charts that I have been using to track the monthly and annual Lake Oroville home sales. 

After updating these charts I noticed an interesting long term trend in one of the charts that I thought you needed to see. From past blog posts, you all know that I do not take the  month to month numbers that are released into the media on an ongoing basis as important as what has happened over longer periods of time. I think the media is far too focused on what this month did compared to that month, which in turn has focused the consumer on the very same thing.  This narrow focus is what I believe is going to cause many buyers to miss  the great opportunities that currently abound in the marketplace as far as prices and interest rates are concerned. 

Now before you get excited, thinking this is another one of those real estate blogs posts that tells you to BUY NOW!!!!, let me tell that it is not. This market is going to provide great buying opportunities, for those of you that still have jobs in this economy, for the foreseeable future.   What I am telling you is to look at this chart and see for yourself what this Lake Oroville real estate market is whispering to you. When looking at a chart like this most people look at the peaks to see how high things have gone. What I suggest that you look at here is the lower side of this chart. The former stock broker in me says ignore what is happening in the high side and pay close attention to what is happening on the low side. In the stock broker world a stock that showed a trend of higher lows was one to pay attention to and was a good signal that the stock was poised to move to higher highs.  (Click Here or on the Chart to Enlarge)

As indicated on this chart, the number of homes sold on a monthly basis in the Lake Oroville real estate market have been setting higher overall lows since 2008. The indication here is that, as far as the number of Oroville homes sold is concerned, the worst appears to be over and if this trend continues we will eventually begin selling units at a higher pace than the pace at which new listings are coming to market.  It will be this difference between supply and demand that will result in an increase in values and prices. Let’s be clear here. We have a LONG way to go before any appreciable change in prices and values. The current state of our local, state, and national economies are now the main cause of the drag on the market. Unemployment has now surpassed the loan scandals of the past few years as the culprit for this ugly market.  

Hopefully, information like this will keep you from being surprised while thinks SLOOOOOOOOWWWWWLLLLLLY gets better. 

These one year charts show that an interesting long term trend has begun to develop that we have not heard too much about in the media.  These charts are beginning to show significant reductions in the number of foreclosures filings taking  place.  Although the charts are a little roller-coaster-like when looking at the monthly numbers, the overall trend is slowly working its way down.

To be sure, we are certainly not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination when it comse to the impact foreclosures are having on the overall value of the home across the state.  It is encouraging to see that the long term trend is beginning to head south ever so slightly. Will it stay down? That is hard to say given the recent events with the foolishness surrounding the debt ceiling, stock market gyrations, and the fact that consumers have a general feeling of despair when it comes to the current economic climate in which we find ourselves. What I do know is that with the media so focused on the incompetence in Washington, D.C. there is a good chance that this news will not be considered important enough to share, simply because it is not “dramatic” enough.

On this blog site we take the drama out of the market and replace it with just the facts so you can decide for yourself what is happening.

I have placed links at the bottom of this posting for each area of the real estate market I service. Click on whichever area in which you are interested in seeing.

Oroville Foreclosure Report      Chico Foreclosure Report

Paradise Forclosure Report      Marysville Foreclosure Report

Yuba City Foreclosure Report     Glenn County & Tehama County Foreclosure Report

 Now, normally I would proclaim to all of you in the Lake Oroville real estate market that all real estate is local and that it is much more important to stay in tune with the local home sales numbers as opposed to general reports on the market. While this is still my philosophy, I do not think it is at all wise to IGNORE reports on the broader markets. After all, it is the broader markets that get the media coverage when it comes to just about anything real estate these days. Like it or not the media has a lot of influence on the consumer’s psyche that helps in creating the mindset that consumers are using when making decisions on whether to buy or sell a home.  If you are a regular reader of this blog site that serves the real estate housing markets of Oroville, Chico, Paradise, Yuba City, and Marysville California you know that I do not believe any improvement will occur in this housing market until we have two things: Employment and consumer confidence.

It is becuase of the latter of these two vital ingredients that I want to share excerpts from the article posted on DQNews.com.

The number of California homes that went into foreclosure fell to a four-year low last quarter, the result of a more stable housing market as well as policy changes in the mortgage servicing industry, a real estate information service reported.

Last quarter’s activity was the lowest for any quarter since 53,493 NoDs were recorded in the second quarter of 2007. It was well below half the record 135,431 default notices recorded in the first quarter of 2009.

A total of 56,633 Notices of Default (NoDs) were recorded at county recorders offices during the April-to-June period. That was down 17.0 percent from 68,239 for the prior quarter, and down 19.2 percent from 70,051 in second-quarter 2010, according to San Diego-based DataQuick.

Mortgages were least likely to go into default in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties. The probability was highest in Kings, Sutter and Yuba counties.

Trustees Deeds recorded (TDs), or the actual loss of a home to foreclosure, totaled 42,465 during the second quarter. That was down 1.4 percent from 43,052 for the prior quarter, and down 10.9 percent from 47,669 for second-quarter 2010. The all-time peak was 79,511 in third-quarter 2008.

Last quarter’s trustees deeds total was the lowest since 35,431 were filed in fourth quarter 2010, and the second-lowest since fourth quarter 2007, when 31,676 were filed.

Now, let’s be clear here. Even with this “encouraging” news, we have a long long way to go until the real estate market is healthy again. But it is important to understand, especially for you buyers out there who are still waiting for things to go lower, that this market is so beat up right now that, if this type of news consistently continues over the next two or three quarters, it is very possible to see some firming up of prices and maybe even some very modest price increases.  Just food for thought.

These reports still show what has been true for the past couple of years- a very volatile market with not much in the way of any long term trend that could assist us all in anticipating where the market is going from here. This uncertainty, as well as rampant unemployment, is doing its best to keep many buyers on the sidelines, as they seem to be waiting to the bottoming in pricing.

If you are one of these buyers be sure that you are keeping a close eye on trends on prices and interest rates as you wait. Remember that the Federal Reserve has pulled out of the mortgage market and are no long artificially deflating interest rates. Rates are going to react much more quickly to changes in the economy than at anytime in the past 2 years without the government interference that has kept them low. Believe me when I say I understand the fence-sitting mentality as not much this economy has to offer feels very good right now. But also believe me when I say that nobody is going to ring a bell at the bottom of interest rates. Is it a good time to buy? With these prices and interest rates….yes it is. Will tomorrow be a better time to buy???? Nobody knows for sure. And that uncertainty is what is holding back a recovery in the market.

Click Here if you would like to view and/or print the report

In an artice that just arrived in today’s communication from Inman News, I thought I was experiencing Deja Vu all over again. In fact, some of it sounded so familiar that I started to rack my brain as to where I had heard this kind of thing before. I looked high and low and still no hint. I looked inside and outside. I looked everywhere in the entire Lake Oroville real estate market area. But no luck remembering where I had heard it before.

So now my dear readers, I turn to you for help. Here, excerpted in part, (Click Here to see entire article) is what I read from the article written by Glen Roberts, Jr., entitled “ A slow-motion real estate recovery”. Maybe you  can help me remember:

Mark Dotzour, chief economist for the Texas A&M Real Estate Center, said government stimuli have delayed recovery.

“We’re not in a ‘double dip’ in my mind,” said Dotzour — referring to some economists’ talk of a second dive into downturn after some signs of an economic rebound — “we just never hit bottom in the first place.”

The market essentially “fell off a cliff,” and the government’s “lifeline” of programs it throttled at the recession, among them the homebuyer tax credit programs, “Cash for Clunkers” auto program, loan mod programs and Federal Reserve’s purchase of Treasury debt, did not have the intended benefits.

The market “would have started coming back up to a year ago or so if we hadn’t had the federal intervention in the first place.”

The federal homebuyer tax credit programs appear to have been largely ineffective, essentially “stealing” sales forward that would have occurred at a later time. “We believe pretty strongly that we paid back every bit of that stimulus,” he said, with the slumping sales that followed expiration of the tax credits.

Hmm…..now where in the world have a I heard these type ideas before?????  Wait……………..yes…………………..now I’m starting to remember………….Here is what I had read in the past.

August 31, 2009

“When the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit was enacted, I advised that we not get too excited about any uptick in sales activity, as the uptick will be the result of the government paying people to buy homes creating an ‘artificial’ demand.”

“The housing sales numbers will continue their upward trend, and may even accelerate through the end of the year as last minute first time home buyers scramble to close escrow by November 30, 2009.  Should Congress choose not to extend the credit deadline we will probably begin to see a trailing off of  the sales pace toward the middle of spring 2010.”

“On the home values front, we are still facing a huge challenge. There are still plenty of foreclosures on the market and the word is the banks have plenty more inventory on their books that have yet to come to market. If this is true, home values will continue to stay depressed. If these reports turn out to be exaggerated it will be good news for home values going forward.”

September 30, 2009

“My big concern is that getting money from the government to buy a house or buy a car or to buy anything, is like giving the consumer economic cocaine. It only takes once or twice to get hooked on it and the fear of consumer withdrawl will cause the Congressional junkies to keep pushing more at us.”

“I say let the free market do it’s thing.”

October 23, 2009

“Remember that during the “dark days” of the market when it seemed that everyone was saying the collapse of the real estate market was leading us into the next Great Depression? At the same time I was advising you to take the predictions of gloom and doom with a grain of salt and keep your perspective on what was really going on.”

“I am advising the same thing now. While these are impressive numbers, they are numbers mostly driven by the federal first time home buyers tax credit, the Cash for Clunkers for the housing industry. To provide the perspective on this look what happened after the Cash for Clunkers program ended; auto sales dropped by up to 50% for some auto makers. There is still some heartburn to go through as we climb out of the hole created by the explosion of the bubble. Hopefully, while making the ascent we don’t find ourselves on a slippery slope that is sometimes created by government bailouts.”

June 23, 2010

“But, wait!! I thought the government’ s tax credit program was supposed to stabilize the market. If you listened to, and believed what,  the National Association of REALTORS® and the California Association of REALTORS® have had to say about the credits, you should be seeing a recovery by now. But, what we are beginning to see, on a National basis, (which is what most of us read and hear about) is a rapid move of the market toward the place it would have already gone, if  the people who should know better would have been honest about the ultimate impact of these credits they were supporting.”

“Instead these groups landed on the side of  getting a quick “fix” instead of thinking long term.  Now we have to look even longer term because the inevitable has been prolonged.”

 

So have you figured out who is responsible for this foresight?? Just click on any of the above date links and it will all become clear to you.

Lately the word is, the more things change the more they stay the same. Except for overall home values, that is. In Oroville we can’t seem to sell anymore than 7-8 homes per week and average prices of the Oroville home listings that are selling continue to trail downwardly.

Here are this week’s numbers: 

The higher rate was imposed upon California by our legislature and Governor on April 1, 2009 in the hopes of helping close the budget gap caused by the out of control spending of our “state leaders.” As usual, raising taxes only made matters worse. But enough about politics.

With the expiration of the current increased tax rate only two weeks away (unless it is somehow extended) it is wise to consider putting of any non-essential purchase until the new rate takes effect. Consider the savings you will enjoy by putting off the purchase of that new car you are about to buy. By simply waiting a mere two weeks you can save yourself $200 in sales tax for a $20,000 car and $300 in taxes for a car that costs you $30,000. Heck, that is like getting a free tank of gas Speaking of cars, you can also save on registration fees if you put your purchase off until July 1st because vehicle registration fees are also being rolled back then.

The reduction in the sales tax is going to be good for the economy of a state struggling to get back on its economic feet by leaving consumers with more money in their pockets that will most likely be spent on other things. For example, the overall price on a gallon of gas will be reduced by the reduction in the sales tax. At today’s price of $3.77 per gallon at the corner AM/PM you will save almost 4cents per gallon with the new (or should I say old) rate.

If it is at all possible for you to put off that taxable purchase until July 1, then I say do it and keep more of YOUR money.

Related articles

• Calif. legislators OK online sales tax, and that means Amazon(bizjournals.com)
• California Democrats send budget to Brown(bendbulletin.com)
• California Lawmakers Pass No-Tax Budget as Deadline Looms(businessweek.com)

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