Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Foreclosure Pets Phenomenon Intensifies

From News 10:

The Sacramento SPCA...is seeing a dramatic jump the number of animals being surrendered by owners who are going through foreclosure...During the last four months of 2007, the Sacramento SPCA took in 176 dogs and cats from people who said they were surrendering them due to "moving," said [Director Rick] Johnson. That is 100 more than the same four months in 2006. Johnson doesn't see the situation getting better any time soon.
From the Sacramento Bee:
The Sacramento City Council approved the $130 million sale Tuesday of its Sheraton Grand Hotel and garage on J Street – along with an unusual agreement to return about $23 million of the city's profits to the buyers as subsidies for additional downtown projects. Council members voted 8-1 in favor of the sale despite a public admonition by interim city Treasurer Tom Berke that more review is needed, particularly given the depressed state of the real estate market. He suggested the city might hold on to the hotel longer and wait for prices to rise.
...
Other council members called the price fair, and expressed fear that market conditions would deteriorate further and the deal would evaporate...Councilman Steve Cohn, addressing Berke, said, "If you're correct about how severe this recession is, now is exactly the time to sell.
...
In a brief appearance at Tuesday's council meeting, [David] Taylor said the Sheraton deal provides a way to keep downtown redevelopment alive during a bad economic cycle. "We were frankly seeing so many projects die downtown over the past 18 months that we were concerned about our ability to perform on some of the downtown projects we've been working on," he said.
From the El Dorado Hills Telegraph:
More than 70 people packed the main room of the senior center to ask questions and listen to updates about area road issues from a guest panel consisting of Richard Shepard, Department of Transportation director, Russ Nygaard, DOT deputy director, supervisors Rusty Dupray and Helen Baumann, and Captain Bill Donovan, of the California Highway Patrol.
...
Shepard and Nygaard were unable to give specific timetables for the completion of many DOT projects because of lack of funding, which Shepard said is directly tied to the housing market. "We’re facing a housing slowdown at the moment," Shepard said. "And 50 percent of our Capital Improvement Program revenue comes from housing development fees."
From the Associated Press via the Washington Post (hat tip Housing Wire):
Anticipating a surge in troubled financial institutions, federal regulators aim to increase by 60 percent the number of workers who handle bank failures. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. wants to add 140 workers in the division that handles bank failures, bringing the total to 360, said John Bovenzi, the agency's chief operating officer.
...
Gerard Cassidy, managing director of bank equity research at RBC Capital Markets, projects 150 bank failures over the next three years, with the highest concentration coming from states such as California and Florida where an overheated real estate market is in a fast freeze.

6 comments:

patient renter said...

I'm pretty amazed to see the Sac City Council actually did the right thing, at least so far as they recognized that property values will not be increasing any time soon.

Sold in '05- Bought in '09 said...

Can anyone shed some light on what is going on with "Placer County Land Speculators LLC"?

For the last two weeks the Wednesday edition of the Roseville Press-Tribune has published in the Public Notices section, a very interesting Notice of Trustee Sale. It covers one entire page plus one column. It lists 200 individual investors by name and investment amount, a long, vague and legalese description of property plus assets and finally the debt owed.

The dollar amount invested by the 200 individual investors (and I'm assuming this cash to have already been lost), is $27,500,000. The amount of the debt being foreclosed upon is $51,799,126.95.

Maybe I'm stupid but this looks like a nearly $80,000,000 bloodbath right here in Placer County. I know there will be some recovery on the land sale but holy cow!

Why is this not a news story? Have I just missed it? Anyone have any details?

aggiealum said...

Banks are playing if safe (ironic isn't it?) The 30yr fixed rate and 10yr Treasury are at its greatest difference since 1986. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if borrowers can negotiate a rate with the banks? Or are they pretty set on the rates they want?

Jacob said...

I am sure there is some room to negotiate with a bank, if you know the right person or dept to talk to.

But there are services online like lending tree that can get you a better rate than the standard from a particular bank.

Cmyst said...

Hey, sold --
I dunno what's going on with the speculators LLC, but if you pose the question in the water cooler, I find that it sometimes gets an answer whereas if it's posed in one of the front page stories it will sometimes get "lost" as new stories are posted.
It's a VERY interesting question, btw.

Hard Money Lenders Direct in California said...

How much is your home worth? Well, it all depends where you live.

The real estate market is still shaking. New data suggests that home prices have hit a new record low. In every new study that comes out, homeowners from Miami, to Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles, have seen their home value go lower every time.
Is that disappointing? Of course it is.
Should we sell? Is not a good time.
Should we stick to it? Yes, if you can.
Have we hit bottom? Nobody knows.

Banks are facing their worst foreclosure crisis.
Don’t take me wrong, it’s good if you are in the market to buy a home for yourself or if you are an investor, but if you are not, and you own a home, most likely the value of your property is down at least 15 %.

Why do banks care if you are loosing your home? By having to sell repossessed homes, banks have to literally slash their prices down. It gets very costly for them, after all, they have to pay property taxes, maintenance costs, and whatever utilities that need to be paid, all of this expenses for a house that it’s just sitting there, vacant, and the bank is getting nothing in return.

The latest study by the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index of 20 cities, revealed the news that for 22 consecutive months home prices dropped. Only from April to May, 2009 the decline was of 0.9 %