Lake County Real Estate Blog

Hi

As Mom used to say "If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything." Well, I haven't written in a while because I've been scouring the media to find a good sense of perspective about the current market. I think I'm making progress. 

I came across a couple of interesting articles that help somewhat. One is by Scott Burns and can be found on MSN.com and the other is by Marcie Geffner which was in the Sunday SF Chronicle real estate magazine. They both look at the current foreclosure situation and offer a perspective not heard (by me anyway) on TV or in print media up to this point.

They both have looked at the numbers and concluded that the foreclosure "crisis' may well be overblown. As Scott Burns said "this news will disappoint the doom and gloom crew and all those seeking the excitement of financial upheaval".

The statistics would seem to bear them out. The actual national average rate of foreclosures was still only 1.033% at the end of 2007. About 30% of all home are owned mortgage free and another 30% or more are rented and thus paying for themselves. This means that for all the "noise about a crisis" out there, only 7/10ths of 1% of all homes out there were in foreclosure.

Further they say, the national numbers tend to mask what are essentially regional problems in various areas of the country. For example, in the top 100 real estate markets, only 34 had foreclosure rate above the group average while 51 had averages of 1% or less. The Stockton area has a high rate of about 4.9% while Providence Rhode Island has a rate of .41%.

I think what it comes down to is that all real estate is local in nature. Here in Lake County there are some foreclosures as well but while they factor into the market, they do not drive the market as a whole and the market is not "depressed" overall. There are many homes on the market and prices are lower due to the credit crunch but this situation will dissipate in time and the market pendulum will begin to swing back to a buyer and seller balance.

Keep an eye on the residential market here in Lake County by visiting the Monthly Market Comparison page on my website. It's the tab at the top of my homepage in the center. You can track the "health" of the market over time and hopefully get a sense of where the market is now and where it is going.

I hope you find this information of useful and I thank you so much for taking the time to read it. - Steve McKenzie

I just listened to this interview on www.MarketWatch.com with Joel Naroff, chief economist with Commerce Bank. He is discussing the record drop in home prices in January as seen in the home sales index mentioned mentioned below. Here is a little bit of what he had to say:

The record drop in home prices as seen in the S&P/Case-Shiller index for January show "the problems are being reflected in the prices, and that's the market working" says Commerce Bank chief economist Joel Naroff. While the drop is painful, Naroff says, "We're getting towards that bottom. Maybe not in prices, but prices have come down enough that we're probably going to see stability if not a slow rise in sales as we go through the summer into the fall."

This is very wolcome news for buyers! To hear more just click on the link provided below (or above). It's under five minutes and worth the time.

Thank you very much for reading my blog! - Steve McKenzie

http://www.marketwatch.com/tvradio/player.asp?guid=%7BC2DB7640-9AF0-4D0D-82FE-09FBB8527F62%7D