Chico Area Update

Because the last blog noted a substantial discrepancy between local home sales and the figures reported by the National Assoc of Realtors I thought I'd continue offering you local MLS figures to make of what you will. These are March month to date (27) 2008-7. Greater Chico, 31 in 08 vs 79 in 07; Paradise Area 17 in 08 vs 30 in 07; Glenn County 12 in each year; Greater Oroville 21 each year.
There is no way I know of to give honest perspective to the foreclosure situation. It's a political year and so much of the "news" is a bunch of sound bites playing on the fears of the uninformed that it's difficult to know fact from fantasy. One of the economic advisers for a candidate just opined that the situation is so bad that people are walking out of loans that out value the home and are going down the street and buying a distressed property at a bargain price. Come on. A lender is going to let a credit risk that bad have a new loan? I don't recall whether this adviser works for the Bosnian sniper fire victim or the one that for twenty years didn't hear a word his preacher preached, but the ailment seems to be contagious. Foreclosure is a nasty business with no winners, but I don't believe it's happening to many deserving, responsible home owners, but rather to those who started with no equity and went downhill from there, or speculators who are not eligible for our sympathy, let alone our money for bail-out. As to the lenders who thought to profit from reckless behaviour, tough. They made bad decisions and can and should now suffer the consequences. Strangely enough, if a manufacturer puts out a bad product they must suffer the expense of correcting the problem. Banks put out some bad products. Let the cost of the recall be on them, not us. At a practical level, while the banks are jockeying for some government munificence, we find that they are surprisingly unresponsive in their loss mitigation departments to appeals for some work-out strategy that would benefit both lender and borrower. Phone calls and emails go unanswered, not returned when some contact can be made, and seemingly indifferent to the urgency of the problem. We know of this behaviour from Countrywide, Chase and Citigroup with clients of ours, and title company people tell us that this is industry-wide. Aren't those three companies frequently named as being in the most trouble? Why not put some intelligent people to work on the phones and get the problem fixed internally where it belongs?
The brighter picture indicates that for buyers, there is money available for loans, a huge inventory of homes to pick from and prices that should appear attractive. For sellers it will continue to be tough. A lot of competition for buyers and an uncertain future for home values. Best advice is to carefully consider the price and make the old place as sharp as you can make it and consider what you can offer by way of incentives. A positive outlook will help a lot.
As usual,
Thanks for visiting.