From Homescape

Nevada, California and Arizona top state foreclosure rates, according to a foreclosure market report released by RealtyTrac this week. The report, which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were reported on 243,353 properties, a 4 percent increase from the previous month and a nearly 65 percent increase from April 2007. The data also shows one in every 519 U.S. households received a foreclosure filing during the month.

“The total number of U.S. properties with foreclosure activity in April was the highest monthly total we’ve seen since we began issuing the report in January 2005,” said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. “Although only about 2 percent of households nationwide are in foreclosure, these properties contribute to already bloated inventories of homes for sale, and put downward pressure on home values. Areas of California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona continue to be particularly hard-hit.”

In areas hit hardest by the housing crisis, property tax bases are eroding, putting municipal budgets in peril. The city council in Vallejo, California — part of a metropolitan area with a foreclosure rate that ranked sixth highest in the nation in April — last week voted to have the city file for bankruptcy. The San Francisco suburb of 117,000 people is expected to generate $5 million less in revenue than projected, because retail sales and property values are down amid an economic slowdown and slumping real estate market, according to a report issued by city manager Joseph Tanner.

Topping state foreclosure rates
Despite a 5 percent month-over-month decrease in foreclosure activity in April, Nevada continued to document the nation’s highest state foreclosure rate. One in every 146 Nevada households received a foreclosure filing in April, 3.6 times the national average, and the state’s foreclosure activity was up 95 percent from April 2007.

California posted the second highest state foreclosure rate in April, with one in every 204 households receiving a foreclosure filing during the month. Foreclosure filings were reported on 64,683 California properties in April, down less than 1 percent from the previous month, but still the most of any state, and an increase of 112 percent from April 2007.

Arizona foreclosure activity in April increased 26 percent from the previous month and 181 percent from April 2007, helping to bump the state’s foreclosure rate up to third-highest among the states. Foreclosure filings were reported on 11,620 Arizona properties in March, one in every 224 total households.

Florida had one in every 242 households receiving a foreclosure filing in April. The Sunshine State documented the nation’s fourth-highest state foreclosure rate. Foreclosure filings were reported on 35,264 Florida properties during the month, the nation’s second-highest total. Florida foreclosure activity increased nearly 17 percent on a month-to-month basis and 146 percent on a year-over-year basis.

Colorado foreclosure activity in April was down nearly 3 percent from the previous month and up just 3 percent from April 2007, but the state’s rate still registered fifth-highest among the states. One in every 349 Colorado households received a foreclosure filing in April, nearly 1.5 times the national average.

Other states with foreclosure rates ranking among the top 10 were Maryland, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan and Massachusetts.

California and Florida cities on the hot list
Six California cities documented foreclosure rates that ranked in the top 10 among the 230 metropolitan areas tracked in the report. Merced took the top spot, with one in every 66 households receiving a foreclosure filing during the month, followed by Stockton at No. 2, Modesto at No. 3 and Riverside-San Bernardino at No. 4. Other California cities on the list were Vallejo-Fairfield at No. 6 and Bakersfield at No. 8.

Three Florida cities registered foreclosure rates among the top 10: Cape Coral-Fort Myers at No. 5, Port Lucie-Fort Pierce at No. 9 and Fort Lauderdale at No. 10.

With one in every 116 households receiving foreclosure filings in April, the Las Vegas metro area documented the nation’s seventh-highest metro rate.

Check out other state rates among foreclosures at Informationbuilders.com/realtytrac/ActiveReport

Got hot local housing tips or a story you want to share? Contact Amy Le at openingdoorsblog@homescape.com.

While some economists and real estate experts are predicting that many housing markets across the country won’t hit bottom until late 2009 or even 2010, Christmas may come early for some more-fortunate home sellers. Money Magazine recently published their Top 10 list of metro areas that are expected to see price gains over the next year. Texas real estate seems to be leading the charge. To see how home values are appreciating or depreciating in your area, check out market-trend analyses of top metro areas across the country by FiServ Lending Solutions.

Everything is bigger in Texas, including the positive prices on homes in these towns:

McAllen
Median home price: $109,000
12-month price gain projection: 4%
5-year price change: 23.3%
View homes for sale in McAllen

El Paso
Median home price: $134,000
12 month price gain projection: 1.8%
5-year price change: 51.9%
View homes for sale in El Paso

Fort Worth/Arlington
Median home price: $134,000
12-month price gain projection: 1.4%
5-year price change: 17.4%
View homes for sale in Fort Worth

Houston
Median home price: $150,000
12-month price gain projection: 1.2%
5-year price change: 25.1%
View homes for sale in Houston

Dallas
Median home price: $161,000
12-month price gain projection: 1.2%
5-year price change: 15.8%
View homes for sale in Dallas

San Antonio
Median home price: $152,000
12-month price gain projection: 0.8%
5-year price change: 39.6%
View homes for sale in San Antonio

Sources: MetroTex Association of Realtors, city and county assessor’s office in McAllen, First American CoreLogic, FiServ Lending Solutions and LoanPerformance data.

Got hot local housing tips or a story you want to share? Contact Amy Le at openingdoorsblog@homescape.com.

In today’s highly competitive real estate market, home sellers can take some significant steps to ensure their home has the best chance of selling for the highest price the market will allow. Here are five steps to help you achieve that:

• Pricing: Pay special attention to these key points:

1. Homes comparable to yours that have sold most recently in your neighborhood or market area. This is a key indication of how to price your home. It also shows what actual buyers in the market have paid for homes similar to yours.
2. You may also want to tour listed homes in your market area and note their condition and how they compare with yours in amenities and square footage. These homes will be competing with yours for buyer attention.
3. Find out which listings in your market area have expired. These properties were essentially rejected by the market, and understanding why will keep you from making the same mistakes.

• Packaging: While pricing is very important, packaging the house is equally so. I call this the preparation and prevention stage of home selling, and if implemented correctly, it will save you time, money and frustration. Packaging can be broken out into three significant steps:

1. Pre-inspection and residential service contract: Most prudent buyers order an inspection on a home before they purchase it to ensure it doesn’t have any mechanical, structural or termite defects. Inspections can put the contract in jeopardy or cost the seller more money. Defects found during the inspection can either alarm a buyer enough to opt out of the contract or to ask the seller to pay for repairs (which will lower the net profit from the sale). This risk could have been avoided by simply conducting a pre-inspection and making any repairs before the buyer was found. Providing your buyer with a residential service contract, which is a warranty covering future repairs, gives you peace of mind when you sell your home.
2. Staging: Your home is customized personally for you. When you place it on the market, it needs to be transformed into a product with broad market appeal. Think of a well-appointed hotel room. It’s warm, inviting, and often features vignettes that evoke emotion or relieve stress. Fresh white linens, fluffy pillows, and maybe a decorative display of toiletries help set the scene. There are no personal items that make you feel like you are invading someone else’s territory. Declutter, depersonalize, make cosmetic repairs, and make it sparkling clean. These are the first steps to staging, and I highly recommend that you hire a professional stager or a Realtor with a staging experience. It may cost a little more, but a staged home nets a seller an average of 6 percent more than a non-staged home. Staging also plays a significant role in developing photos that make buyers on the Internet want to stop, drill down for more information and then make an appointment to view your home.
3. Multiphoto marketing: Consumer research shows that most buyers find multiple home photos in a listing extremely helpful. It is very important to display multiple photos that are bright and dynamic Multiphoto marketing along with staging improves a consumer’s online experience and attracts more buyers to your property.

• Promotion: Marketing is the engine that drives the automobile. Your home will not move if it is not properly marketed. About 84 percent of buyers used the Internet to search for a home in the first six months of 2007, according to the National Association of Realtors. That statistic has been climbing every year since 1995, and the Internet is likely to continue being a major resource for home buyers. Therefore, having a Web presence on high-traffic sites is a key factor in getting your home sold. Local print advertising should also market the Web site that lists your home’s property details.
• Market feedback: The market is constantly changing. New property listings in your area and shifting buyer demand, which rises and falls throughout the year, impact your chances of selling your home. So it is always prudent to keep a watchful eye on the local market. Check out Gary Greene’s blog to learn more about keeping abreast of your local market.
• Negotiation skills: Knowing the terms of the contract and what expenses can be negotiated to net more money at closing can make a big difference.

The sale price is not the whole story, especially if the seller is bearing more expenses than necessary in the terms of the contract. When hiring a Realtor, make sure they have a good command of contracts and will be a proactive negotiator for you. How do you know? The first sign of a good negotiator is that they show confidence in their own value, appear interested in getting the most dollar for your home and cover the important aspects of selling your home, which are mentioned above.

Selling a home is not easy or fun, but taking these five key steps will make a big difference in keeping market time to a minimum and generating more net proceeds at closing.

Prudential Gary Greene Blog

With more than 4,000 new condominium units expected to be completed in metro areas like Atlanta and Phoenix this year, cities across the country are bracing for a flood of new supplies. Many of these new units are a result of developments that were created during the height of the housing boom and are now coming to a completion. According toThe Wall Street Journal, developers in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, FL, “are readying nearly 10,000 total new units in a market already struggling with canyons of unsold condos.” San Diego, another hard-hit region, will add 2,500 units, according to estimates provided by Reis Inc., a New York-based real estate-research firm.

Supply and no demand
The U.S. finished 2007 with a supply of condos large enough to absorb 10 months of demand, the highest level since the National Association of Realtors began the tally in 1999, the Journal reported.

While developers may not be thrilled by the overstock, condo buyers fishing the market may have a wider net to cast with significant price cuts on the newer units. This latest flood of inventory will come at a hefty cost for most lenders across the country. Lenders of all sizes have $42 billion of condominium debt on their books, according to Foresight Analytics. In just three months — between the third and fourth quarters of last year — the delinquency rate rose to 10 percent from 5.9 percent, according to the Oakland, CA, research firm.

While it may seem surprising that anyone would want to add supply to a market whose troubles have been well-publicized for several months now, the Journal reports that the economics of condo building encourage developers to bring half-finished projects to completion, even when prices and demand are plunging. Developers usually put up their own money for a project first, then spend borrowed funds. Once developers have spent their money and have commitments from lenders, they have a strong incentive to keep building to finish the project.

Going rental
Driving around Chicago, I’ve noticed some developers have turned their condos into rental units for the time being. They probably figure they could make more money selling the units after the inventory goes down and the housing market regains its footing. But going the rental route will only work if you’re smart about it.

When I was walking my dog this weekend, I noticed a condo down the street from me that had been on the market for over six months, now had a for rent sign posted outside. The condo was a for-sale-by-owner, and last time I checked, the owner had already reduced the price of the unit by $15,000 from the original asking price. But I guess the price cut failed to lure any buyers. The rental price for the 2-bed, 2-bath condo is $1,895 per month not including utilities. The average 2-bedroom, 1-bath apartment in my neighborhood is going for $1,200. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather share the single bathroom if it means saving me $700.

I’m sure the owner of the condo wants to earn enough money to pay for property taxes, condo assessments and possibly make some extra cash on the side, but his asking price in no way fits within the surrounding rental market. If you can afford $2,000 in rent a month in Chicago, you probably can afford to buy (or you’re renting a luxury high-rise apartment downtown that has a private doorman and gym). Know your market, do your homework and be realistic when you come up with your rental price, otherwise, it will just be another bad investment choice.

Got hot local housing tips or a story you want to share? Contact Amy Le at openingdoorsblog@homescape.com.

We at Homescape decided to conduct a consumer survey to learn more about today’s online users and better understand how they use the Internet for their home buying and selling needs. We posted the survey on our homepage during the first two weeks of April and had 744 respondents; 535 of them answered all of the questions. Inspired by the survey’s successful response rate, we will continue to track the growing trends and improve our methods to help consumers with their home selling and buying needs.

Here are some of the survey highlights:

Background information
• 93.7% of respondents described themselves as consumers.
• 80% own a single family home.
• 61% currently own their own property (condo or raw land).
• 42% live in a small town or midsize city.
• 35.7% are first-time home buyers.
• 27% live in a suburb of a large city.

Demographics
• 58% of respondents are female.
• 42% are male.
• Age breakdown:
o 23% are 45-54 years old.
o 21% are 55-64 years old.
o 20% are 35-44 years old.
o 17% are 25-34 years old.
o 13% are 65 and older.
o 6% are 25 and younger.

Home buying and selling
• Why were online users looking for a new home?
o 29% said they were changing careers and relocating.
o 26% were tired of their current homes.
o 20% were downsizing.
o 17% were upgrading to accommodate a growing family.
o 5% were getting married.
o 3% were graduating college.

• Other key findings:
o 85% of respondents were considering working with an agent to assist them in their home search.
o 65% were using the services of a real estate agent to sell their current home.
o 47.6% were planning to buy a home within 6 months, while 28.3% said they wanted to buy within 1 to 3 months.

Internet usage
• How often in an average month did respondents visit a real estate or related Web site?
o 50.3% said they visited real estate sites 1-2 times a month.
o 29.3% visited real estate sites 5 or more times a month.
o 20.4% visited real estate sites 3-4 times a month.

• What did respondents want to do online?
o 77.7% said they were looking for homes for sale.
o 31.3% were looking for neighborhood information.
o 10.6% were looking for advice on home buying, selling and financing.

And the finding that made us all smile was:
86% of respondents said they would recommend Homescape.com to a friend or relative.

Got hot local housing tips or a story you want to share? Contact Amy Le at openingdoorsblog@homescape.com.