Is The Market Turning???
So, last year at this time we had almost 30,000 properties on the market. As of Monday (7/27/09), we had 26,061 properties on the market (including 13,518 contingents and pendings - I include those because they have not sold yet, but that’s another blog entirely). Of those, 8103 were REO (which equates to about 31%) and 11,767 were short-sales (which equates to about 45%). Of 4189 sales in the past 30 days, 3076 were REO and 409 were short-sales.
The majority of the properties on the market are still “distressed”, but the larger percentage are short-sales now, versus REO and prices seem to be creeping upwards. Does this mean the market has turned?
There are a lot more things to consider when making a statement like “the market is turning”. The banks do a lot of “shuffling” and have been considering a lot of things that the government has been offering. Their decisions are complex and take time. What I BELIEVE it boils down to is whether the banks need liquid capital now or a write-off later. If they need or want to accumulate liquid capital for some reason, they’ll facilitate more short-sales. If the need a write-off for the next quarter, they’ll foreclose. The write-off the banks get from the foreclosure process are by far larger than the write-offs they get from short-sales. It just depends on where the banks need the money and when. The banks have always made the rules, we’re just now realizing that we have to play by them.
Of course, that’s just what I think. 
Thank you very much for that great article
Comment by Rings | 08.2.2009 | 4:07 pm