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How to buy a Bank-Owned home, too funny!!
Friday, October 16th, 2009Tyler Smith & Team “Most Listings taken” Top Producer September!!
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
We took the most listings in the office for the month of September. Thanks to all of our clients who supported us and to my great team who worked very hard. Our hope is to continue giving great service to our clients.
Thanks everyone.
Tyler Smith & Team “Top Producer” for September Most Volume closed
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
Thanks to all my workers here at the office, without them we could of not made this happen. Thanks to all the banks we service that trust us to service them. We all look forward to next month. Thank you!
Expected Wave of Sacramento Foreclosures Only a Trickle
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
SACRAMENTO, CA – Sacramento’s home prices are projected to drop 15.7 percent for the year, but that’s good news. Other counties are expected to fall 19 percent to 20 percent.
Much of Sacramento’s good fortune is due to the lack of foreclosures actually hitting the market. Banks are holding on to thousands of foreclosed properties in the Sacramento region. But, they are coming on the market in dribbles. So slowly, they are snatched up in a few days. That kind of demand is pushing up the price of homes that are $300,000 and under.
What was expected to be a flood of foreclosures
is turning out to be a trickle. Michael Lyon of Lyon Real Estate agreed.
“Now that we’ve talked to the banks and found out what’s going on, they don’t have the personnel to do the processing to get it out,” Lyon said.
Lyon said the federal government has put heavy restrictions on banks that took bailout money when it comes to following through on foreclosures.
“There’s too much of a bureaucratic mess to really throw these things out on the streets so they’re coming in at a rather absorbable rate, which is keeping that low end, under $300,000,” said Lyon. “It’s becoming a seller’s market. I didn’t think I would be saying this for years.”
Lyon predicts that instead of seeing a wave of foreclosures sweep in over the next few months, it will likely now be a steady stream over the next few years.
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Layoffs, buyouts spur many to rethink and retrain
Monday, October 5th, 2009
Jason Harnum of Roseville, shown above with his cat Charley, started a pet ID business after he lost his job as a mortgage broker. His company, Pet ID for Me, lets pet owners create ID tags online. The tags look like driver’s licenses, top, and owners can add their pet’s name, breed, color, contact information and photo.
Editor’s note: This one in an occasional series of stories about how Sacramento area workers are reinventing their careers during a period of high unemployment.
Maybe you’ve been laid off, accepted a buyout or taken early retirement and now are thinking about your next step.
Whether it’s a job-training program, a return to college or a venture into a small business or franchise, today’s rugged economy has led many to reconsider their career path.
At the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency, more than 50,000 people visit its 12 Sacramento Works career centers each year seeking résumé assistance and career counseling, said Robin Purdy, SETA’s deputy director of work force development.
Nearly 15,000 job seekers sought the centers’ help in the past three months alone – a 9 percent increase from the same three-month period last year, Purdy said. Many are looking for ways to retrain.
“We are seeing more and more people interested in improving their skills and looking for occupational skills training” in burgeoning fields such as health care and careers tied to green technologies, Purdy said.
Experienced workers are also retooling, re-entering the campus and the workplace. The numbers of students 59 and older enrolled at California State University has steadily grown over the past five years.
In fall 2004 semester, 1,677 students 59 and older were enrolled at CSU campuses. By fall 2008, the number had climbed to 2,117 – 182 of those at Sacramento State – with the majority in graduate studies.
For some seniors, the situation is more dire. They’ve absorbed a late-career layoff or buyout or have watched their 401(k) retirement funds disappear. They’ve forestalled retirement or have been forced to return to the job market.
“We’re seeing a lot of skilled people coming back to the work force,” said Bob Rice, a project director for AARP Foundation’s WorkSearch program in Sacramento, which helps mature workers re-enter the workplace. Officials estimate registration in the program is up 40 percent from the same time last year.
“Frustration is showing up with a lot of the people we work with,” Rice said. “They’re running out of money, they’re losing their house. There’s a lot of desperate people out there.”
At Los Rios Community College District, enrollment this fall at the four-campus district has swelled by 5,000 students from fall 2008, and classrooms are stretched to the limit.
Though officials say the reasons for the spike vary widely, among the incoming students are job seekers and employees squeezing into classes to boost their skills or jump-start their chances on the open market.
“We do have job seekers returning to our colleges. They’re coming to us because their out of work or they’re afraid of losing their jobs,” said Susie Williams, a district associate vice chancellor.
Some 70 El Dorado County residents signed on in June to a program for job seekers organized by Green Valley Community Church in Placerville. After the eight-week program ended recently, five came out of the program with jobs, said volunteer instructor Michael Dugan.
“We wish the numbers were higher,” he said, but in today’s economy, “we’re delighted that anyone’s getting jobs.”
Another 100 job seekers are signed up for the current eight-week module.
In a Sacramento-area market where the jobless rate sits at 12 percent, more people are looking for ways to stay afloat or chart their own destiny.
Now is the time, AARP’s Rice said.
“When you’re laid off and that is a gap in your work life, it gives you a chance to figure out what you want to do.”
Credit unions report rising mortgage action
Thursday, October 1st, 2009California credit unions originated more than 12,500 primary mortgages � including purchases and refinances � in the second quarter of 2009, the highest since the second quarter of 2004 and almost 2,000 more than in the first quarter, according to the California Credit Union League.
CCUL, which is headquartered in Ontario and has an office in Sacramento, said California credit unions originated more than $7.3 billion in loans in the second quarter, up from $7.1 billion in this year’s first quarter.
The league also noted that Sacramento County credit unions saw money market shares gain more than $207 million, or 7.8 percent, in the second quarter, while regular savings and checking accounts had gains of less than 1 percent.
BUILDINGS ON THE BLOCK IN SACRAMENTO
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
California selling buildings worth $2 billion to raise cash
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
As the California economy roared in the 1990s and tax revenues poured into a treasury overseen by Gov. Pete Wilson, the state laid plans for a series of new office buildings in Sacramento to spare itself from paying rent to other landlords.
Barely a decade later, the Schwarzenegger administration is launching a process to sell many of the same buildings that were originally touted as long-term money savers for taxpayers. The goal today is more immediate: pay off debt and steer cash into the state’s depleted general fund. It’s among a variety of short-term crisis solutions that include selling surplus state property, moves also being undertaken in cash-strapped Arizona.
In California, 11 state-owned sites with an estimated value of almost $2 billion will be listed for sale in early 2010 to pay off about $1.4 billion in bonds and net another $600 million “to support other critical state government programs,” said state Department of General Services spokesman Eric Lamoureux.
The state wouldn’t move out of the buildings; it would continue to lease them from the new owners.
The sell-off has lit up the skies for brokers in an otherwise downcast office real estate sector, where few buildings are being bought, sold or even listed, especially in Sacramento. It’s likewise called fresh attention to the state’s battered finances and stirred banter about whether it’s smart to sell long-term real estate assets for short-term goals in a weak market.
Many in the real estate industry acknowledge it’s a close call, but believe “beautiful class A” state buildings with a single tenant will command premium prices.
“It’s unfortunate they would sell them. But they definitely have a need for financing right now, for equity to solve this budget crisis,” said Tom Aguer, president of Sacramento-based commercial real estate brokers Aguer Havelock Associates. “It’s a very creative way for them to fix their problem. But in the long term, these are great assets.”
Brokers like Aguer and others among the nation’s leading real estate firms are already assembling proposals and lining up national teams to broker the sales. The state is demanding an experienced partner: a firm that has done five separate deals of $20 million or more in the past seven years, and at least $150 million in total deals in that span.
No one can calculate for certain the fees such a deal could bring a brokerage firm. But it’s widely said in the industry that the higher the price, the lower the commission. Even a commission as low as one-quarter of 1 percent of almost $2 billion in sales could net a firm nearly $5 million.
Specifically, the state is proposing a so-called “sale/leaseback” deal in which buyers of state buildings would rent them to the state afterward.
“We intend to maintain 100 percent occupancy in the buildings just as we have today,” said Lamoureux, whose department manages state buildings. “We’re just looking to sell the property and lease back over an extended term, probably along the line of 20 years or so.”
Brokers say the lease-back provision is likely to stir interest among risk-averse investors known in the trade as “coupon clippers.” Those are big institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies.
“There are numerous buyers looking for single-tenant buildings with the long-term leases. It’s a steady income. It’s a low-risk deal,” said Nico Coulouras, vice president in Sacramento for Lowe Enterprises, a Los Angeles-based development and investment firm.
Among the state complexes proposed for sale are some of Sacramento’s biggest buildings and most distinctive landmarks: downtown’s massive East End Complex next to Capitol Park, finished in 2003; the 17-story Attorney General Building on I Street, completed in 1995; and the sprawling 1.8 million-square-foot campus of the Franchise Tax Board, expanded earlier this decade at the city’s eastern edge.
Elsewhere, fixtures of the Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles skylines – bearing names of politicians from Ronald Reagan to Hiram Johnson – will also be sold.
Lennar falls deeper into red
Monday, September 21st, 2009Signs that the housing market is gaining traction have yet to pull Lennar Corp., one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, out of the red.
The Miami-based homebuilder (NYSE: LEN and NYSE: LEN-B) said it lost $171.6 million, or 97 cents a share, on revenue of $720.7 million for the third quarter ended Aug. 31. A year ago, it reported a net loss of $89 million, or 56 cents a share, on revenue of $1.11 billion.
The third quarter results included write-downs totaling 76 cents a share.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a 46-cent loss on revenue of $774 million.
Lennar was the area’s fifth-largest homebuilder in 2008, selling 277 homes in the six-county Sacramento region with a 5.7 percent market share, according to analyst Hanley Wood Market Intelligence.
Lennar president and chief executive officer Stuart Miller said the overall housing market is on the “road to recovery.”
“While high unemployment and foreclosures will continue to present challenges, consumer sentiment has significantly improved as homebuyers have recognized that the residential housing market is stabilizing,” he said.
Miller said the company’s strategy is to target first-time buyers and bargain-hunters, which are helping new home orders rise each month. New orders were still down 8 percent in the third quarter, but that decline was the smallest percentage year-over-year decline since November 2006.
“In order to capitalize on the improvement in our sales pace, we increased our home starts during the quarter, which will lead to higher deliveries in the fourth quarter,” Miller said. “We are also encouraged by the continued improvement in our cancellation rate.”
The cancellation rate dropped to 19 percent from 27 percent, gross margin on home sales shrunk to 15.6 percent ($98.9 million) from 18 percent ($179.4 million).
Third-quarter home sales revenue in the third quarter decreased 36 percent, to $635.3 million from nearly $1 billion in 2008. The drop was mostly due to a 28 percent decrease in home deliveries and a 12 percent decrease in the average sales price of homes delivered.
Year-over-year, the average sales price was down by $30,000 – to $239,000.
California unemployment: 12.2 percent
Friday, September 18th, 2009The state’s unemployment rate rose three-tenths of a point in August, to 12.2 percent, state officials said today.
Sacramento-area unemployment hit 12 percent, up slightly from a revised 11.9 percent the month before, the state Employment Development Department said.
But there was some good news: Payroll jobs fell statewide by only 12,300, suggesting an easing of the recession. That was only one third as many jobs as were lost in July, and the lowest toll in more than a year.
The Sacramento region lost 1,700 jobs during the month, or about one-fourth the job loss recorded in July.
“This moderation (in job loss) looks to me like we’re going to have job growth pretty quickly here in California,” said Howard Roth, chief economist at the state Department of Finance.
But he added that the August jobs report got a seasonal boost of sorts: With the school year starting so early in many districts, education payrolls swelled more than usual.
And even as layoffs taper off, the unemployment rate will keep going up for a while as Californians resume looking for work, he said.
“I think we’re on the road to recovery,” said Stephen Levy of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. But he acknowledged that continued job loss, however small, will leave many Californians skeptical that the situation is improving. “There’s a reason people don’t think the recession is ending,” he said.
Michael Bernick, a former director of the EDD, said that although layoffs are slowing, “there’s been no uptick in terms of hiring.”
Tags: recession
