RealEstateRaves

Nevada leads the way in foreclosure filings per household, but in sheer numbers California unfortunately has accumulated more foreclosures than anywhere else in the nation.   Because our population here in California is so large we can’t compete with Nevada for the most foreclosure filings per household.  In either case this is an extremely bothersome situation for our nation.  I applaud the efforts being made by President Bush and others to help solve this problem but it may be too little to late.  Those individuals considering short sales or actual foreclosure options are naturally traumatized beyond belief.  Families are being pulled apart with stress levels well beyond what is humanly manageable.  While we can say it’s their problem not ours… the truth is it is our problem and will likely impact all of us in many ways over the course of the next 18-24 months.  We all know when the government gets involved in any major crisis, problems generally don’t get better any time soon. 

Some of you may remember the “gas crisis” of the 70’s where we believed [told] the world was running out of petroleum and lines began to form around city blocks while frustrated drivers waited in very long lines to fill up.  Then when that didn’t work well someone came up with the idea of allowing people to fill up on “odd” and “even” days depending upon their license plate number.  The culprit wasn’t that we were running out of gas in this country it was because the supply of gas was distributed based on a year earlier arbitrary index.  Many, many suppliers of gas [gas stations] could not get enough gas to supply to you and me through the government imposed ”allocation plan”  so the individual operators of those gas stations  had to themselves wait in long lines at the Federal Energy Department making application to change their year earlier allocation to current day requirements.  What seemed like an eternity waiting in unbelievably long lines only lasted 6 weeks….just enough time to process each of those individual gas station operator requests for an allocation increase to meet demand. 

Let’s hope that this time the government works swiftly and solves our credit & liquidity crisis quickly.  Unlike the “gas crisis” the financial liquidity crisis time line has already exceeded the gas crisis of the 70’s.  I remain hopefull this too shall pass and we will begin to see signs of normalcy in early 2008.  It’s very allarming when you examine the number of foreclosures this year with many more to come without a little help from our leaders:

Total foreclosures reported in November 2007:  201,950  

Top 10 States in November 07:  California  39,992, Florida 29, 238, Ohio 16,308, Texas 11,599, Michigan 11,464, Georgia 8,968, Nevada 6,694, Colorado 6,425, New York 5,794, Arizona 5,767

The foreclosure statistics above don’t account for all the “short sales” that often are the chosen method for banks to recoup their “under water” loans by taking back properties in lieu of foreclosure.   Banks put their hopes on the “short sale” method by eventually selling the property and recapturing some of their investment.  Short sales are typically a more economical solution for banks when the true cost of foreclosure is considered. 

Joe Parsons

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