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Crystal Ball – Foreclosure Prices Have Bottomed in Twin Cities

April 22, 2009 by 11 Comments
Cartoon 1

For weeks now I've been getting the feeling that we've turned the corner on prices in foreclosures.  Today I'm ready to go out on a limb and take the position that prices on bank owned inventory has bottomed and in fact is likely to bounce up some over the next few months. These are the reasons why I believe we've come to this moment: Inventory is Falling (image courtesy MAAR) From February 1, 2009 to April 1, 2009 the inventory of lender mediated (short sale and bank owned) listings has fallen by 1200+ units... a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Foreclosures and Short Sales, Info for Buyers, Info for Sellers, Market Stats Tagged With: ,

Coming Soon – New Foreclosure & Short Sale Search Options

April 18, 2009 by 2 Comments

10 months after the Minneapolis/St. Paul area MLS (RMLS of MN) made available the somewhat-useful-but-really-bastardized-lender-mediated-mls-field and 14 months after I started openly pushing for specific fields, they have now come to see the light and are redoing the fields as three separate and distinct fields that address each of the major questions/problems of lender mediated listings: Three new required fields will be added to NorthstarMLS. (Tentatively planned for activation Tuesday night--we will let you … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Foreclosures and Short Sales, Info for Buyers, Market Stats, Opinion Tagged With: , ,

Minnesota 2008 Foreclosure Statistics Released

March 9, 2009 by 3 Comments
2008 Minnesota Foreclosures by County

Thanks to the Minnesota Homeownership Center Blog for telling me about HousingLink's Q4 2008 update to their Foreclosure Report. What's especially interesting to me is the chart showing foreclosure counts as a percentage of total houses: MAAR did a similar "heat map" for the Twin Cities, specifically looking at 2008 "lender mediated sales" - which are foreclosures or short sales in our MLS: … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Community Issues, Foreclosures and Short Sales, Info for Buyers, Info for Sellers, Market Stats Tagged With: , ,

Q4 Lender Mediated Report & City Level Data Released

January 27, 2009 by 2 Comments
Hennepin County Sheriff Sales through December 2008

Today I am pleased to announce the release of the Foreclosures and Short Sales in the Twin Cities Housing Market: Q4 2008 Update.  This is the 4th installment of quarterly reporting of lender mediated sales and their impact in the Greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area, which I co-author with the musically, intellectually, politically and statistically talented Jeff Allen.  2008 reports from quarters 1, 2 and 3 are also available. Here's how to know if buying a foreclosure or short sale is right for you. This … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Foreclosures and Short Sales, General, Info for Buyers, Info for Sellers, Market Stats, Opinion, Personal Experiences Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Financing Costs for Twin Cities Homes – A Different View

December 30, 2008 by 2 Comments
Twin Cities Housing Finance Costs Per Square Foot - 2008

I love data... be it hard numbers, graphs, charts, tables, interpretation, etc.  I've come up with another concept of tracking overall affordability: combining cost per finished square foot with mortgage rates to give an overall cost of financing each square foot of house over the last few years (I only had data back to 2002): This chart is using approximate mortgage costs and an estimated cost per square foot for 2008 so this isn't "scientific quality" but the trend is very clear and I think it's close.  … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Community Issues, Foreclosures and Short Sales, Info for Buyers, Info for Sellers, Market Stats, Mortgage Rates, Opinion Tagged With: , , , , ,

Short Sales are "Liar Listings" on the Twin Cities MLS

August 26, 2008 by 8 Comments

Short Sale Definition: a home sale where the seller owes more than what the home is worth and is asking the lender(s) to accept an amount that is less than the amount owed to them as payment in full. The same problem continues to come up day after day and I finally have the time and focus to sit down and write about it.  For the last year now, short sales have become a common type of listing in our market and in markets around the county.  A short sale is a "Liar Listing."  In most circumstances, the seller and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Foreclosures and Short Sales, Info for Buyers, Info for Sellers, Market Stats, Opinion, Personal Experiences Tagged With: , , , ,

Twin Cities Foreclosures & Short Sales – A Report Analysis

August 14, 2008 by 4 Comments
Listing Activity since 2005 - Q2 2008

For several weeks now, Jeff Allen (and several others) from MAAR and I have been working diligently to provide an update to our one-of-a-kind research report we released a few months ago.  We've just released Foreclosures and Short Sales in the Twin Cities Housing Market Q2 2008 Update.  The report contains updates to a lot of the data we've previously reported on, but also contains some new information and trend analysis.  Jeff Allen is a real wizard with data and analysis and this report is the best snapshot … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Community Issues, Foreclosures and Short Sales, Info for Buyers, Info for Sellers, Market Stats, Personal Experiences Tagged With: , , ,

Crazy Homeowner – Keep Kids in Private School & Mom at Home, Lose the House

August 11, 2008 by 1 Comment

CNBC has a new show called "On the Money with Carmen Wong Ulrich" and I recently saw a segment that drove me nuts.  Click here to see the video. Here's a summary: They send one kid to private school ($14,000/yr currently), the 2nd will be in kindergarten next year Mom stays at home Mom can start working 2 days a week next year when youngest goes to private school Their mortgage rate will adjust... in 2011 Their house has no equity so they were thinking about doing a short sale to reduce their monthly … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Community Issues, Foreclosures and Short Sales, Info for Sellers, Opinion, Personal Experiences, Useless Ramblings Tagged With: , , , ,

US Housing Rescue Bill Resources

August 5, 2008 by Leave a Comment

There's some good things in the housing bill that Congress & the President signed into law but also some surprising disappointments.  An 800+ page bill takes time to process, but here are a few resources so far that deal with some of the biggest parts of the bill: First Time Buyer Credit Analysis from the National Association of REALTORS Fact Sheet for the HOPE for Homeowners Act from the Minnesota Homeownership Center Fact Sheet for New Tax Incentives For First-Time Buyers from the Minnesota Homeownership … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Foreclosures and Short Sales, Info for Buyers, Market Stats, Mortgage Rates Tagged With: , , , ,

Happy 4th of July… Stay Tuned for News Next Week

July 2, 2008 by Leave a Comment

The last 6-8 weeks have been busy and while the real estate market isn't what it used to be, it is still keeping me plenty busy.  In addition, I'm busy working with Jeff Allen to release a 2nd Quarter edition of our Twin Cities foreclosure/short sale report.  Lender mediated sales will be with us for a long time to come so the updated information will give agents and the public a more detailed and current understand of our market.  While the MLS recently implemented a "in foreclosure/bank owned" field, we're … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Foreclosures and Short Sales, General, Useless Ramblings Tagged With: , , ,

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This website is a service of Aaron Dickinson of Edina Realty, a broker Participant of the Regional Multiple Listing Service of Minnesota, Inc.