Between Freddie and Fannie there are still 218,000 foreclosures set to come on the market. As reported in Creative Real Estate Daily, in terms of Fannie, just as we were so surprised and pleased that Freddie Mac had actually turned a profit in the first quarter of this year (see the article, “Did I Miss the Freddie Mac Bake Sale?” posted last week), Fannie Mae comes out with its first quarter numbers. The GSE had a loss to the tune of $8.7 billion in the 2011 first quarter! It’s enough to make you want to do a Donald Trump on the agency—you’re fired!
Fannie Mae says this was mainly because of declining home prices in that quarter. Really? Would that be the only reason?
With needing to draw additional funds to cover these losses, Fannie Mae’s draw on the government piggy bank (since the government seized control of Fannie in late 2008) has now reached nearly $100 billion.
Fannie Mae’s first quarter production numbers look like this:
- 51,043 loan modifications
- 78,000 single-family loan workouts (including 60,000+ home retention solutions)
- 17,120 short sales and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure
- 53,549 REO properties gained through foreclosure (up nearly 8,000 from the 2010 first quarter)
- Total single-family REO inventory (as of Mar. 31, 2011): 153,224 with a value of $14.1 billion.
Dave Liniger mentioned at the Catalyst Conference that Bank of America is holding 700,000 properties that are 90 days late – not sure what other banks are holding.
The big question is – how many are here locally? How will it affect our market? How will it affect our prices?
RealtyTrac has released the results of its statistical study on which U.S. cities are the best places to buy foreclosures in 2011. It started with the 100 most highly populated metropolitan areas, and then used a 10-category criteria of things like unemployment rates, foreclosure activity, and sales prices to narrow the field. The result is the 10 best cities to buy and invest in foreclosures this year:
- Akron, OH
- Rochester, NY
- Buffalo, NY
- Cleveland, OH
- Portland, ME
- Milwaukee, WI
- San Jose, CA
- Memphis, TN
- San Diego, CA
- Durham, NC
Guess what, we aren’t in here which is good for us! Thanks for the update Creative Real Estate Daily!
Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5B – Wow! EBay Inc. bought Skype in 2005 for around $3.1 billion but took a $1.4 billion charge for the transaction in 2007 after it failed to produce. Regardless, jump on board Skype – 107 million users Skyped 207 billion minutes. Also, when communicating with people 55% of communication is physiological, 38% is tonality and 7% is words. Emails and texts can get misconstrued, get in front of your clients or get them on Skype – it’s free!
State attorneys general are holding meetings with the nation's largest mortgage servicers this week to negotiate a settlement agreement for the robo-signing issues that surfaced last fall. Speculation on the combined fine amount ranges from $5 billion to $20 billion. The services include Bank of America and Wells Fargo among other banks. Stay tuned for more details.
Mark Zuckerman of Facebook looks to have purchased a $7,000,000 home in California. Not too shabby for a 26 year old!
Online real estate brokerage Redfin has removed 42 agents from its partner referral program due to mixed customer reviews, the company announced in a blog post Friday. Redfin also axed eight partner agents for creating fake customer reviews – integrity counts. We just have to get them to not rebate back to buyers off the HUD!!
Home Alone house is on the market for $2.4 million! Great house, great neighborhood, bratty kid not included!
Mortgage rates are at this year’s lows, purchase mortgage loans are up and I know Leslie Wish will tell us all about it and MARS has reared its head again and I know Sadaf Saberi and Ryan Koppel will cover this topic for us as well.
You now have great information to help you with your business and to talk with clients about to show you are the expert. Get it? Got it? Good!
Now, go sell something!
Scott's Motivation and Real Estate Market Updates 