Hayes Commercial Publishes Commercial Property 2nd Quarter Review

Hayes Commercial has put out their review of commercial property activity for the first half of the year.

The report includes retail, industrial, and multi-family statistics.

The information about vacancy rates, as well as property sales is interesting to read.

Check it out

Foreclosures! The Next Big Wave, When?

I have been doing my best to track the foreclosures in Santa Barbara County now for a few years and so far I'm not seeing this next big wave everyone seems to be mentioning.

Businessweek published an article that said they could hit this summer.

L A Times also had a recent article about the impending wave.

Maybe I need to be more patient and let this play out. There is another interesting article by the New York Times with a little different slant on things.

They mention that banks are not wanting to foreclose on properties these days for one big reason. Many lenders have a troubled balance sheet and to take possession of more foreclosed properties only makes the books worse.

The article makes it sound as though more lenders are willing to try and work something out with the troubled borrower than they would be before all these foreclosures happened.

So what does that mean to us in Santa Barbara County? Last year around this time we had just seen the highest number of Notices of Defaults, Notices of Trustees Sales, and Trustees Deeds recorded in the history of Santa Barbara County.

This year we have seen the number of Notices of Default hit an all time high in March. A curious thing has been happening though. The number of Notices of Trustees Sale, and Trustees Deeds are down significantly from last year. Could the New York Times article be right?

One other explanation is that the lenders are just not processing these properties as fast as they should in an effort to keep the books looking as healthy as possible.

Do I still need to be more patient or is it possible that some of the lenders are working harder to keep people in their properties? Time will tell.

I would love to hear what you are experiencing.

Wow! Homes Sales Rise In June.

When we have been seeing the number of properties sell in the South Coast hover around or under 100 monthly, 157 is a big increase. The chart reflects 158, but CORT reported a duplicate that I have removed.

That is the highest number of properties selling since August of 2007 when there were 160. It is also well above the highest number of sales in a given month for all of last year of 131.

The area that saw the highest number of sales was Santa Barbara with 77. Goleta had 46, Carpinteria and Montecito both had 15, Hope Ranch had 2, Summerland 1, and Unincorporated Area had 1.

Median prices for the communities of Goleta, Carpinteria, and Santa Barbara continue to be affordable based on years past. Santa Barbara's median price was $715,000. Goleta's was $635,000, and Carpinteria's was $555,000.

Having a 49% jump in the number of sales from May to June was a bit of a surprise, although the activity has been better in recent months. It would appear there was some pent up demand as well as buyers finding the deals they are looking for.

I would like to think the number of sales will continue to stay around 150, but a small increase in rates and the summer holidays may throw a bit of cold water on the activity.

Let me know your thoughts.