What Did The Banks Take Back In September?

There is definetely something to be said for consistency! That is what the last 2 months have yielded in terms of properties going back to their respective lenders due to foreclosure.

In August there were 211 and in September there were 209. How's that for a horse race? Seeing this number go lower in the coming months is what I'm expecting since the number of notice of defaults is dropping.



25 of the 209 properties taken back were in the Santa Barbara, Goleta, Montecito, and Carpinteria areas.  This is a small increase over the previous months, but nothing significant.

Countrywide was again the big land baron taking back 45 of the 209 properties. I have only been watching who the lender is for a couple of months now, but Countrywide is certainly the big winner or loser depending on your perspective.

Lompoc had 35 properties and Santa Maria had a total of 125 with the sourrounding areas in the northern part of the county sharing the rest of the properties.

March REO's In Santa Barbara County

One of the nice benefits of working at such a good company is that we have a group that specializes in generating information on all kinds of property statistics.

Most recently I have been playing with the information they have on REO's and Notice of Defaults and Notice of Trustee Sales.

I think one of the hot topics these days is where are all the bank owned properties and so my thoughts are to publish this information monthly using the same mapping product that I use for the monthly sales maps.

There were 92 properties that went back to their respective lenders in Santa Barbara County in March. By looking at the map it is very obvious to see that most of the new bank owned properties are in the Santa Maria and Lompoc areas.

I counted 8 properties in the Santa Barbara area, so with a little math that leaves 84 properties in the Lompoc, Santa Maria areas.

Here is a link to a map representing information on REO's for January and February.

I hope this map is helpful, and See You In Escrow!

Are There Any Deals Today?

Being asked the question about getting a good deal on a piece of property these days always seems to turn the conversation to foreclosures and bank owned properties.

These bank owned properties are better known as REO's or Real Estate Owned. I decided to do a little homework on the REO's in Santa Barbara County. The properties I decided to check out were the ones where a deed had been recorded making the foreclosing lender the new owner of the property.

I found that there were 203 properties in January and February that the banks had taken back. Of these 203 properties here is how they broke down by city

Buellton 1
Carpinteria 4
Goleta 8
Guadalupe 5
Lompoc 36
Los Alamos 2
Orcutt 1
Santa Barbara 13
Santa Maria 130
Santa Ynez 2
Solvang 1

It doesn't take a degree in mathematics to look at these numbers and see that Lompoc and Santa Maria are where most of the foreclosure activity is. Nearly 82% of the properties are in those 2 areas.

The South Coast has a little over 12% of the properties that went back to the foreclosing lender in January and February. The remaining 6% are spread out amongst the Santa Ynez Valley and the smaller cities in the North County.

The types of properties that are now owned by the bank break down like this
Condominiums (Residential) 21
Multi Family Units 8
Residential Agriculture 2
Single Family Residence 170
Vacant Land 2

Single Family Residences continue to be the types of properties that are being foreclosed on. Maybe next month I will take a look to see how many are second homes or primary residences. Either way these properties are putting a drain on the residential market.

Some specifics about the loan amounts that were foreclosed upon are these
Average Loan Amount $409,129
Highest Loan Amount $1,348,319
Lowest Loan Amount $15,000

These loans that were foreclosed on have some interesting characteristics. The oldest loan was taken out on December 3rd 1997 for $88,738 on a single family residence on Lockwood Dr. in Santa Maria. The most recent loan was taken out on April 27, 2007 for $181,000 on a single family residence on Concha Loma Dr. in Carpinteria.

I find this information all pretty fascinating, but does it help answer the question about there being any real deals out there when you are looking for property. I don't think it does. I don't think it will, but at least you are now armed with hopefully more than you knew before about the properties that have been taken back by the lender.

If you would like more information on these properties click here and you will be taken to a map of the county showing these 203 properties. Good Luck in your search.

Santa Barbara Foreclosure Info Jan 2008

The Santa Barbara Foreclosure Chart is showing some interesting changes now that we have a few months of data to compare.

The piece of the process that starts everything else is the recording of the Notice of Default. In January in Santa Barbara County there were 284 recorded, which is the largest number since the mortgage meltdown began.

The next step in the process is the recording of a Trustees Deed. For January there were 98 recorded. This is also the largest number we've seen. This is the number that leads to all the Bank owned properties for sale.

The Bank owned properties or more commonly referred to as REO's that sold in January stayed at the same number we saw in the previous 2 months, 17.

The last, but probably not least line on the chart is the number reflecting how many loans are being adjusted in a given month. You could argue that this is the number that starts all the others moving, but I haven't figured out if there is a direct relationship yet, so I'm holding out. This number for January was 139.

As you can see from the graph the number of loans that adjusted in January is down significantly, but will be climbing in April and May back to the 180 level. This coupled with the rise in the number of Notice of Defaults and Trustees Deeds makes me think we are seeing the worst of this.

I do expect a rise in the number of foreclosed properties being sold based on what we've seen the last 12 months. The number of sales occurring seems to be about 25% of the number of Trustees deeds we record, so with that in mind we may be seeing about 25 bank owned properties closing escrow in a given month in the not too distant future.

I think we are seeing the worst of it, knowing what I know about the number of loans that are going to adjust in the next 6 months. I also think there will be some positive impact on the market with respects to the stimulus package that is being implemented.

So all that is left to say is, See You In Escrow!