In certain markets, it's so crazy with multiple offers.

We had a foreclosure in Alameda that was listed under $500K (it last sold for $683K in 2006). Within just a day of being listed on the MLS, it had an accepted offer, amidst the cacophony of wailing agents and their buyers who didn't get a chance to even submit an offer.

REOs and short sales properties under $300K in good condition and good locations are inundated with offers. I just called a listing that was posted by an agent from out of area who didn't even post the property in the local MLS. That property also received multiple offers, and the winning offer was significantly above list price, and it was a cash offer.

Yes....there are ever-growing groups of buyers at all levels who obviously have gotten off the fence and are ready to buy while prices and interest rates are still low.

Although some folks are still waiting for that "bottom", others are ready. So if you do find something you like, don't hesitate too long. It's becoming "you snooze, you lose". Srategize on submitting your best and highest offer. You may get only that one chance, so make it a good one.

Good luck!

Good info. Thanks to all. I forgot California passed a foreclosure moratorium law. I was thinking about the one some banks had in place that ended a few months ago. It just seems to me there should be more up for sale. I agree with the opinion banks want to unload them as quickly as possible. My thought is even given demand if the market was flooded all at once price would decrease. If they put them out slowly the market clears without putting additional pressure on price.

In your opinion will we continue to see properties come on-line (foreclosures and short-sales) in desirable locations for the near distant future?

Let's look at things from a bank's point of view. Try and work things out with the owner, best thing to do. Take it back and hold on to an empty house, that for sure has taxes on it, will not be in better shape if it is abandoned plus may have assosiation payments or put it on the market and sell it. How is the market for these properties? HOT! best time of the year to sell them? YES! many buyers wanting them? YES! Why OH! Why would they hold them. But banks haven't proven in the past that they know what to do or how to do it.
The moratorium will only effect 10% Default notices. The rest will be taken care of some other way, refi, motify, short sale or hang on till they can sell.

Back in late April I was hearing from an REO team that I work with that banks had over 80,000 houses that they would be releasing slowly. Now I am hearing that some banks are holding onto property and may do so for a period of up to 3 years! One reason I have heard is they don't want to over-inflate the market, another is they are waiting for prices to go up. It's interesting because banks, as home-owners, still have to maintain the property as well as the taxes, so to hold on to houses for that long is interesting to me.

RealtyTrac collects and aggregates foreclosure data and provides updated information twice-daily on the entire process from the time the Notice of Default has been filed until it is listed for sale. In my experience the information can be a bit hard to interpret, and not even up-to-date. I will say that I do use Realty Trac and other foreclosure sites as points of reference myself. So as with any website, take it for informational purposes only and not hard facts.

I recently heard a presentation by a lawyer who does work with the California Assocation of Realtors and they are predicting that the number of REO's will start to diminish drastically (which means short sales will go up) simply becaue they do not wish to own real estate. In addition, they now have to try to modify the loan before proceeding with the foreclosure procedures so this will either delay REO's further, or keep them from going into foreclosure altogether. Whatever inventory they currently have in stock will most-likely be the inventory we will see over the next year and a half.

As with all things in real estate, anything could happen. What exists today could change tomorrow.

Hope this helps!
Krista

The foreclosure moratorium effective in June 15, for another 90 days. Although the moratorium says that the banks can't foreclose unless they can prove that they have attempted to resolve the delinquency by doing a loan modification, etc. this moratorium has some loopholes that have already been reported in the news.

See: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/23/…

Banks are not in the business of being property owners and would want to unload the inventory as quickly as they can. I don't know that they are purposefully keeping properties off the market especially since there is a tremendous amount of interest from buyers and investors alike. The cost of maintaining properties and keeping them on the books are probably not worth it to the banks (and their listing agents) to hold off on offering them for sale.

Nonetheless, assuming that foreclosures are stopped from June 15-Sept 15, then yes, you should see a jump in bank-owned properties listed for sale after this period.

Just bear in mind: from the time that a property is foreclosed, it can take another 2-3 months before the banks assign agents to list the properties.

Hang in there.

Dear Email83,
From my experience I have not found Realty Trac to be a reliable source of information. Properties they have listed have either sold MONTHS ago or are flat out not foreclosures. Believe it or not they listed an entire parcel on a street around the corner from me that had had aprtments built on it YEARS ago. Another look at a property in my neighborhood that I just checked shows an auction- the property has been pending for over a month.

Banks want to MOVE their inventory and get these non performing assets off of their books, so keeping them off the market purposely makes no sense to me. However, on June 15th the state of California did impose another moratorium on foreclosures which is delaying some homes from going on the market.
IF another "wave" or "flood" of foreclosures were to hit the market any time soon, believe me the pent up demand is so large, this new inventory would be gone in very short order.

In the meantime, if you are trying to search for bank owned properties, a local REALTOR in Oakland should be able to set this up for you FREE OF CHARGE!

I hope this helps~
Micki

We have some "shadow inventory" in which the foreclosure process is active but they are being held at the lenders. We don't have a complete explaination of why these public records do not show up on Realty Trac, or Foreclosure. The banks are releasing them slowly due to the moritorium which may be why they are not public record yet. The bank can continue with the foreclosure process during the moritorium, but cannot act upon the default until they have tried loan modification.
It is frustrating because we know there are many properties unlisted.
Please visit my website: http://www.ForeclosureGarden.com