4 years to clear the Shadow Inventory.
People often talk of the Shadow Inventory, that mysterious excess capacity of homes that will hit the foreclosure market, but is currently in limbo and have not hit the foreclosure market for whatever reason. There is the usual speculation ranging from it being the result of large banks controlling the flow of foreclosure inventory to protect their assets to conspiracy theorists who think the Government is behind it. But how do you measure it?
Well, economists at Morgan Stanley included the inventory of homes will eventually need to be processed through the REO process, including those that are going through HAMP and HAFA right now. While others just measure those that are 90 days delinquent in their mortgage payments. However you measure it, there is a lot of interest in trying it quantify the size of the Shadow Inventory.
Different bloggers and journalists have written about and speculated as to the size of this Shadow Inventory. This week, Morgan Stanley took on the task and reached the conclusion that it would take up to 4 years to clear the Shadow Inventory. The number of homes were calculated at 8 Million.
Is this assessment accurate or inaccurate? Who knows. Capital Economics did their own analysis and came to the conclusion that 5.5 Million homes (short of 3 years to deplete) would fall into the Shadow Inventory. Regardless of whose numbers you choose to believe, it is very large at between 3 – 4 years. It looks like we will have a few more years of having to deal with distressed properties.
Santa Clara County Market Conditions: November 09 vs. November 08.
In less than a week 2009 will leave us behind and we will greet the new decade by welcoming 2010. In the last 3 years of the past decade, we have seen a dramatic shift in the real estate market place. A shift that most of us could not fathom in the beginning of the passing decade; yet reality bit us hard and we got to live through an epic correction in the real estate market place.
Are we out of it yet? Of course not. Have we by-passed the worst of it? Probably.
However, as long as Silicon Valley’s unemployment rate remains above 11% and the dreaded shadow inventory along with the toxic option ARM fiasco about to recast in the coming couple of years, things will not be back to normal and we will not be completely out of the woods for a few more years until the market fully corrects itself by ridding itself of the excess capacity of distressed properties.
But, I don’t want to imply that there is only gloom in the horizon. According to newly released sales data from CAR (California Association of Realtors), we here in Santa Clara County did fairly well in the past 12 months: the median price of our homes increased by 17%! I am quite certain that increase was largely fueled by the First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit Incentive program.
We went from $515,000 in November 2008 to $605,000 in November 2009. (Chart A) That is certainly a step in the right direction towards price stabilization on the one hand, but a bit disconcerting because the affordability index has now fallen for two consecutive quarters and is now on a declining slope. (Chart B)
I personally don’t believe it is in our best interest to get back to the peak prices of April 2007 when the median home price reached $868,410 (Chart C) and only about 25% of the first time homebuyers in California could afford to buy a median priced home (keep in mind that the median price in California is significantly less than Santa Clara County). As the data in Chart C demonstrates, the median home price is inversely proportionate to the Affordability Index. It is better for us to have lower prices so more people can afford to become home owners. But regardless of what I think, the market will dictate prices. We will see next year how the market reacts to the changing economic factors.
The mystery: why are foreclosure notices increasing but actual foreclosures decreasing in Santa Clara County?
The above article mentions an interesting phenomenon that occurred last month in Santa Clara County’s foreclosure market. Between August and September of 2009, the actual number of homes being foreclosed (either sold at auction or returned to the bank as REO properties) decreased, while filings of Notices of Default and Notices of Trustee Sale remained consistent.
“Lenders foreclosed on 415 homes last month, down about 5 percent from August.….. Of these, 109 homes were sold at auction to third parties and the remaining 306 were taken back by the lender. …… At the same time, lenders filed 1,257 notices of default, the first step in the foreclosure process, and 1,027 notices of trustee sale, the final step before actual sale of a foreclosed home. The numbers for August were almost the same.”
The author doesn’t really reach a conclusion but leaves us wondering as to why this may be happening.
Well, I will pull data from the MLS in an attempt to interpret what may be happening in our back yard.
But first, it is important to understand the process of foreclosure. Simply put, when a person receives a Notice of Default from the lender, they have 90 days to cure the default, or a Notice of Trustee Sale will follow, scheduling a date and time by when the property will be sold at the County Courthouse. By the Notice of Trustee Sale date, if the delinquent amount, plus penalty and interest is not cured, then it is sold. But there is a wonderful vehicle which by now everyone has heard, which can stop that foreclosure if executed properly: the Short Sale.
If, from the time that the lender issues the Notice of Default and before the auction date, an experienced San Jose Short Sale Agent can bring in a qualified buyer who is willing to take the property off the sellers’ hands and if the lender agrees to the terms of the sale, then that foreclosure process is stopped with the closing of escrow on the property in question.
What the article did not factor into the equation were approved short sales that closed escrow. I pulled data about Short Sales that actually closed during the months of August and September.
For the Month of August 2009, in Santa Clara County 187 properties identified as being short sales (both single family and condo/townhomes) successfully closed escrow (Fig A). But in September 2009, 251 properties identified as short sales closed escrow (Fig B). I’m not a mathematician, but by my estimate, that is an increase of 25% from August to September of short sales approved by lenders. And more than sufficient to explain the disparity as to why the notices are increasing but why the final result is decreasing.
So let’s look at the complete picture in September 2009 in Santa Clara County. Over 2000 notices starting the foreclosure process goes out to homeowners. Of those, approximately 1000 attempt a short sale and 251 of them are successful in preventing a short sale (Campbell Communication conducted a survey in February 2009 of Realtors and concluded only 23% of short sale are successfully completed). Of the 750 who were unsuccessful in their short sales, 415 of them actually get foreclosed (109 of them lose their homes to auction and another 306 of them are evicted and the lender takes over their homes). That leaves 1335 people still stuck in foreclosure limbo — the original 1000 who chose not to do a short sale and the remaining 335 who were unsuccessful with their short sales but have not gotten around to being foreclosed yet — wondering when they will be evicted. And these homes that have not been foreclosed or sold through short sales are often referred to as the shadow inventory of bank properties. Depending on how this inventory will be released, it could have a tremendous impact of flooding the market with cheap, bargain priced bank owned (REO) properties. Let’s hope the lenders will release them gradually, rather than all at once or, even bettter, allow more of them to be sold as short sales so they can stop the influx of undervalued properties from hitting the market place and bringing down home values.
Fig A . August 2009
Fig B. September 2009
