Pending Sales Up and Distressed Property Sales Down Statewide

-   As reported here this month,  sales are up and bank owned sales are down here in northern SLO county.   That same trend is here statewide.  Check it Out Here

New Underwriting Guidelines

Thinking of Refinancing or Taking Out a Loan for a new Home Purchase? - Underwriting guidelines have changed so you may want to read to see if any of these may apply to you. Check this Out!

Bank Owned Sales in North County Drop

 In 2011 37% of the homes sold in the North County were Bank Owned Properties.   Year to date for 2012 that number has dropped to 26% of the residential sales.  Short sales, (where the seller is "underwater"meaning they owe more on their home then the asking price and the lender agreed to take less then the loan balance to close the sale) accounted for 17% of the sales in 2011 and year to date in 2012 they are now 21% of the sales.   Combining together the short sales and bank owned properties for 2011 they accounted for 54% of the sales last year.  This year together they are at 47% of the sales so far.   The short sales have climbed some over the bank owned foreclosure sales as most of the large lenders now realize that it is in their interest to not have to take the property back in foreclosure and taking less on their loan balance through the short sale process can be better in many cases.   The best news of course is that distressed property sales as a whole are on the decline here as a whole while the market in totality is on the upswing. 

MAY NORTH COUNTY REAL ESTATE STATISTICS-

Sales of all North County real estate types increased 21% in May over April and also up 22% over May of last year. The first 5 months of the year are also up 12% for the same time period in 2011. Properties in escrow are down 3% from last month and up 11% over May of 2011. Active listings on the market were up 1% from April but down 28% from the same time last year. We are looking forward to the same positive upturn we saw in the market last year.