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Calif. home prices down 22.48%, nation’s worst
2008-04-22 20:55:00
First American LoanPerformance says Calif ornia home prices were falling at a 22.48% annual pace in late March, again, worst in the nation. Next in this dubious line was Florida (-17.41%), then Nevada (-16.67%), Arizona (-16.32%), and Ohio (-10.78%.) California has been at the bottom of this national ranking since May. (What’s behind the price slump? Golden State foreclosures are soaring. READ HERE!) The nation’s top performer was Utah, with 4.9% annualized gains, the second consecutive month that state’s taken the crown. (As an aside, with an eye to today’s Democratic primary: Pennsylvania home prices are falling at 6.46%, the nation’s 36th ranked market by this FALP math. In March 2007, Pennsylvania homes were appreciating at a 1.8% pace.) FALP says … “28 states now show year-over-year real estate declines … However, on a quarter-over-quarter basis, there are now 36 states with decreasing property values.” To read more, CLICK ...
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Anaheim Hills home fetches near-record $6.3 million
2008-04-22 09:00:00
A seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom mansion — plus guest quarters, a pool, a cabana with a frescoed ceiling, a tennis court, and two acres of landscaped gardens — in Anaheim Hills (pictured on right) sold earlier this month in an all-cash deal for $6.3 million after a one-week escrow. “This home in Newport Coast would probably be around $25 million — at least,” listing agent Carole Geronsin said of the property. Geronsin said this Anaheim Hills home, located on Copa de Oro, had been on the market for a year, most recently with range pricing (meaning it was listed to sell within a given range, rather than for a single list price). It ended up selling above the intended asking price after getting multiple offers, she said. The next closest selling price in Anaheim Hills was another Copa de Oro home that sold for $5.65 million two or three years ago. As with other properties in the trophy home market, the Copa de Oro sale likely had little to do with what&rsqu...
More About: Home , Record , Million

Hong Kong has world’s priciest rents; LA’s 31st
2008-04-22 03:04:00
Annual survey of global rents by ECA International, corporate human resources consultants, finds that Hong Kong ’s still the priciest big city on the planet to rent a typical three-bedroom apartment. Cost, in U.S. do9llars by ECA’s math? $9,734 a month! Compare that to a global big-city average of $2,950. Six of the top 10 priciest locales were in Asia — Hong Kong plus Tokyo (4th), Mumbai (6th), Seoul (7th), Singapore (9th) and Ho Chi Minh City (10th.) Moscow (2nd), New York (3rd), London (5th), and Caracas (8th) filled out the top 10 of the 92-city study of rents, in U.S. dollars, as of September ‘07. Read more HERE! ECA doesn’t track O.C. rents. (Latest average local rent, per Real Facts, was $1,696. Don’t know if that’s comparable to ECA’s numbers, though!) But ECA found L.A. rents rank 31st on the globe, down from No. 29 the previous year. San Francisco was 23rd; San Diego was 66th. The cheapest on this list? Karachi in Pakistan.
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Another Pimco trader sells O.C. home to rent
2008-04-21 22:23:00
BusinessWeek reports in yet another unflattering portrait of the sagging O.C. economy by a national news organization this gem … Scott Simon, who heads housing industry analysis at Newport Beach-based money management firm Pimco, recently sold his home with a view of the ocean in nearby Laguna Niguel. He was surprised that the property got several offers and went for close to his asking price, to a European buyer. “Good properties are still trading at pretty good prices,” he says. “You come apart from the worst first.” Still, Simon says he’s renting for now. It’s cheaper than owning, and he thinks lower prices lie ahead, particularly if government support for the housing market wanes. Housing, he says, is “the single most important thing in the economy right now.” Fellow Pimco bond trader Mark Kiesel grabbed a few media notices in ‘06 when he sold his O.C. home and very publicly noted it as a trade against local home pric...
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O.C. gets $800,000 lesson in credit crunch
2008-04-21 22:21:00
Your blogger’s most recent Register column says … Orange County has borrowed $123 million in so-called “Teeter bonds” that let government, in essence, get cash from some unpaid, local property taxes. These “variable-rate notes” carry interest charges that can change each week. But the county, in theory, should pay a relatively low rate because they bought insurance from Ambac, one of several bond insurers that ran into financial turmoil thanks to their own bad bets on risky bonds. Insurers like Ambac rent out their own gold-plated, Triple-A credit score. But when just one credit rater marked down Ambac to “AA” in January, havoc broke out. It wasn’t that Ambac was likely to fail, though, some harsh critics think some bond insurers’ trouble is deeper than has been revealed. This rate surge appears to be mainly a case where typical buyers of insured bonds – ultra-risk-averse traders, by nature — fled at the first whif...
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Demand for O.C. homes up 23% in a year
2008-04-21 09:01:00
The math of Steve Thomas at Re/Max Real Estate Services in Aliso Viejo says demand for O.C. housing is growing. As of last Thursday, 2,374 existing homes and condos had been placed into escrow in the past 30 days, a 23% gain vs. a year ago. It’s a strong hint that when these deals-in-the-works are completed in the next two months, we’ll see a mathematical end of the county’s home-buying losing slump. By DataQuick’s tracking of closed deals, it’s a losing streak that’s run 30 months back to September 2005. Also, Thomas calculates a “market time” benchmark tracking how many months it theoretically takes to sell all the inventory in the local MLS for-sale listings at the current pace of pending deals being made. By this logic, it would take 6.55 months for buyers to gobble up all homes for sale at the current pace vs. 6.77 months two weeks earlier and below 7.75 months a year ago. Thomas notes: “Our agents in the trenches are una...
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Capo Beach only ZIP with 1st quarter home-buying gain
2008-04-21 00:30:00
Analysis of DataQuick’s O.C. stats by The Register’s Jeff Collins shows these first-quarter homebuying trends … Home sales for all three months totaled 4,420, down 45 percent from Q1 ‘07 and also a record quarterly low. On average, 9,400 homes trade hands in Orange County during the first quarter of the year. Prices fell in all but 12 of Orange County’s 83 ZIP codes during the first quarter. Sales fell in every ZIP code but one, Capistrano Beach , which had an additional four homes sold than the year before. To read more, CLICK HERE !
More About: Buying , Quarter

Insider Q&A told north O.C. home prices off up to 40%
2008-04-19 09:06:00
James Joseph is owner of the Century 21 Ambassador real estate brokerage in Brea and Whittier. We’ve spent a deal of time in this space chatting about beach-close and mid-county properties. This week, we checked back in with James (our last chat is HERE) to see how North County housing is faring … Us: What is the state of the home market in your north county niche general? James: Tremendous buyer activity, increased open house activity and prequalified buyers, but bottlenecked at the lender. Buyers waiting for the new programs to be available. Confusion about what is and is not available on the loan side. It seems every other day Washington is floating a new idea. Bottom line: Lots of buyer interest and lots of confusion. Us: How is spring shopping season going? James: More first time buyers more interest. Lots of activity surrounding foreclosures and short pays. Us: Are sellers becoming realistic about pricing? James: Most important, Realtors are not taking listi...
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K. Hovnanian closing Irvine office
2008-04-19 03:00:00
New Jersey-based builder K. Hovnanian Homes has filed a report with the state indicating that it plans to close its Southern California Coastal Region office in Irvine , consolidating its Orange County operations with the Southern California Inland Region in Ontario. As many as 60 positions are being eliminated in the two offices as well as in K. Hovnanian’s field offices from San Diego to the lower central valley, said Nicholas Pappas, the Coastal Region president in Irvine. About 30 of the employees based in Irvine will be jobless when the office closes by May 23, about a dozen of them because they are unwilling to commute to the Ontario office. “It just makes sense economically to have all of our operations in Southern California out of one regional office,” Pappas said. K. Hovnanian currently has just one active project in Orange County, Avenue One, a three-story condo project in Irvine. The company has sold out of two projects in Ladera Ranch and recently opted...
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39% see higher home prices in 2 years. Agree?
2008-04-18 22:55:00
Poll from Associated Press and AOL Money & Finance of 1,002 adults (70% homeowners) conducted March 24 to April 3 (+/- 3.1 percentage points) says … • 39% of folks polled think prices in their area will go up in next two years vs. 49% in September ‘06; 24% said headed lower vs. 18% in September ‘06. • 35% said homes in in their area were priced “about right” vs. 45% in September ‘06. Note that 47% said “overpriced” vs. 46% in September ‘06; but 11% said “under priced” vs. 5% in September ‘06. To read more, CLICK HERE! So, how did the American public do? Savvy shown by those polled is ... High Coin toss Low View Results
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O.C.’s high-rent districts suffer higher vacancies
2008-04-18 09:05:00
The numbers crunchers at Real Facts show O.C.’s high-rent areas took the biggest first-quarter hit in vacancies, while more affordable communities showed strong occupancy. As a result, Newport Beach, where first quarter rents averaged $1,965, saw vacancies hit 7.2%. Meanwhile Buena Park, where the average rent went for $1,300, had a tight market with 2.4% vacancies. (The quarterly survey was based on 123,620 units in O.C.’s 488 largest apartment complexes.) Here’s a look at Real Facts’ tabulation of local rents and vacancy rates … City Avg. Rent Avg. vacancy Anaheim $1,317 5.0% Irvine $1,908 7.0% Santa Ana $1,393 6.8% Fullerton $1,411 4.7% Tustin $1,549 5.2% Huntington Beach $1,507 5.0% Costa Mesa $1,656 16.2%* Orange $1,595 5.6% Garden Grove $1,373 4.8% Newport Beach $1,965 7.2% Lake Forest $1,546 6.3% Mission Viejo $1,486 6.1% Buena Park $1,300 2.4% Aliso Viejo $1,741 7.8% Fountain Valley $1,466 4.7% Laguna Niguel $...
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O.C. housing market gets failing grade
2008-04-18 03:00:00
O.C. real estate consultant John Burns has brought his home-market grading system to the regional level. (He current gives the national market a “D-plus.” And the first regional report card isn’t kind to his home county, with the system doling out an “F” to Orange County as well as to New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Miami, Fort Meyers, Fla. — and the Inland Empire. Dallas was star pupil, but sadly on a “C.” To see more ranking, check out the cool map at Burns’ site HERE.
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O.C. apartment vacancies hit near 13-year high
2008-04-17 20:58:00
Real Facts reports that vacancies in O.C.’s biggest apartment complexes jumped to 6.6% in the first quarter, a level that renters have not seen since 1995’s third quarter as new units hit the market amid a slowing economy. Gerald Cox, director of sales and marketing at the Bay Area-based Real Facts, says the change in O.C. was dramatic because most other markets, like San Francisco, remained strong or saw no major change in vacancies. O.C. may have been part of a SoCal malaise. Los Angeles saw a rise in vacancies to 6.2%. “The (O.C.) community took a really big hit in the financial market with the fallout from the subprime business,” says Cox, explaining one major reason for falling vacancies. Meanwhile, more apartments were coming online. Real Facts added 3,117 new units in big complexes to its O.C. survey last year. This year’s first quarter survey covered 123,620 units in complexes that range in size from 90 to 1,552 apartments. As vacancies rose la...
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Home-sales tsunami reaches O.C. beach towns
2008-04-17 09:01:00
Analysis of DataQuick’s March homebuying report shows the county’s beach-close communities are no longer immune from the current housing slump. DataQuick identified 295 homes selling in beach cities’ ZIP codes last month, a 46% drop from a year ago. In these 17 ZIPs, last month’s median price change was off 11.9% vs. a year ago. It’s a sea change, so to speak, as last year beach towns enjoyed some breaks from housing’s rough seas. For all of 2007, there was an 18% drop in sales in beach cities’ ZIP codes vs. 30%-plus declines in the rest of the county. So, compare March at the beach to conditions in other O.C. regions … • Surprisingly, mid-county ZIPs had a smaller percentage-point sales drop than seaside towns: the 386 sales marked a drop of 41% from a year ago. In these 24 ZIPs, last month’s median price change was down 27.2% vs. a year ago. Could price cuts be key? • South inland ZIPs had 447 sales, a drop of 54% from a ye...
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Fed says West’s housing ‘exceptionally weak’
2008-04-17 06:00:00
Here’s latest thinking from Fed’s San Francisco unit about the West ’s real estate markets from the “Beige Book.” It’s a report on regional economic conditions that’s done eight times a year. O.C. is in the Fed’s 12th District, based in that hilly city by the bay. (MAP HERE) This regional real estate recap is No. 3 for 2008 (ENTIRE REPORT HERE) … “Conditions in District housing markets remained exceptionally weak during the survey period, while demand for nonresidential real estate eased a bit further. Demand for new and existing homes was very weak, and contacts reported rising foreclosure rates in parts of California, Nevada, and Arizona. Prices continued to fall noticeably in the weakest areas, and they have flattened or begun to fall in other areas that had shown resilience well into 2007, such as Utah and parts of the Pacific Northwest. On the nonresidential side, activity slowed a bit further. Contacts reported reduce...
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Builders see U.S. recession. Agree?
2008-04-17 02:59:00
The National Association of Home Builders says this. Not me, mere messenger. … NAHB’s baseline (most probable) forecast now includes a mild economic recession in the early part of this year. We’re currently pegging the peak of the cycle in December 2007 and the trough in August 2008. We expect real gross domestic product (GDP) to contract modestly in the first half of this year and the labor market to deteriorate for a somewhat longer period ― a normal timing relationship. A flurry of recent negative economic news prompted us to move a recession into our baseline forecast. This news included soaring energy prices, deterioration of our trade balance, plummeting consumer sentiment, ongoing erosion of the labor market and more negative readings on the housing market. Downward revisions to the Federal Reserve’s economic forecasts from both the Federal Open Market Committee and Fed staff also encouraged us to make the recession call. (To read more, CLICK HERE!) What do you...
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OC/LA rent hikes lowest in 8 years
2008-04-16 19:30:00
The Consumer Price Index for March provides fresh evidence that local rent increases are dramatically slowing. Rent s for a primary residence in the LA-OC-Riverside area increased at a 4.4% annual rate in March, a major slide from the 6.9% clocked in March of last year. It was the lowest year-over-year increase since November of 2000, when rents rose at a 4.3% annual pace. March was the third consecutive month annual rent increases declined. The annual rate was 5.9% in January and 5.3% in February. By the CPI math, if you were renting out your house, you could raise rents at a 3.6% annual rate in March compared to the 6.6% annual hikes in March a year ago. The last time the so-called “rental equivalent” increase for homes was this low was April of 2001, when they hit 3.5% Annual house rents hikes began softening last fall, when they dropped to 5.4% in September from 5.8% in August. This year the increase was down to 4.2% in January followed by 3.9% in February. Overall, ...
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Builders cut O.C. townhome prices 21%
2008-04-16 09:09:00
Costa Mesa-based Hanley Wood Market Intelligence reports that Orange County’s builders dropped prices almost 21%, as measured by the median contract price, vs. a year ago on townhomes and small mulit-unit complexes to get purchase contracts signed in February. Median contract pricing actually increased 2.6% in February on orders for new condos; and dropped just 3.8% for new single-family houses, Hanley Wood reported. Overall, the median price of for all housing types — or price at the midpoint of all contracts — fell 17.2% in February, Hanley Wood’s figures show. The number of new home contracts fell by 60% or more for all housing types from the year before. DataQuick reported Tuesday that closed sales of new homes fell 56.2% in March and the median price fell 17.4%. While Hanley Wood’s figures are for contracts that have yet to close, they provide more detail than DataQuick (which lumps all new home types into a single category) and hint at what DataQu...
More About: Builders , Townhome , Prices

O.C. houses may face another 14% price dip
2008-04-16 03:01:00
Chapman University’s Anderson Center for Economic Research thinks Orange County home prices could fall by at least 13.7% by mid-2009, coming on the heels of a 13% price drop for this past year. If true, the median price of an existing single-family home here would drop to $520,000 or less, a price not seen in Orange County since October 2003. The estimate, released today, is the result of a study designed to gauge how much lower home prices could theoretically drop based on historic affordability rates. For the sake of this study, Chapman didn’t take into account other variables that affect home prices such as changes in mortgage rates, jobs, income or inventory of homes for sale. “This is just one slice, and assuming nothing else changes, (this shows) how low it could go to get to the historical mean,” said Esmael Adibi, director of Chapman’s Anderson Center. (more…)
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March home sales rise in just 2 O.C. ZIPs
2008-04-15 21:04:00
Want to see the breadth of the homebuying slump? DataQuick’s March stats show that only two of 83 major ZIP codes (Anaheim 92805 and Orange 92865) had sales above the year ago level. In February, seven ZIPs were ahead of the ‘07 sales pace; in January, it was four. All told, sales were down 47% vs. year ago. Here’s what else we’ve uncovered about O.C. housing’s market in March … • BUYING: Off 59% vs. history. Details are HERE! • PRICING: Worst in four years. Learn more HERE! (Click on chart for bigger version) • FORECLOSURES: Down again. Matt Padilla’s got the scoop. Click on THIS! • THE REGION: How did SoCal do? CLICK here for the ugly details. • OUR ZIPS: How did your town do? Sortable chart is HERE! • BROKERS: O.C. sales dollars down 49%. CLICK here for Jeff Collins’ take. • VOTE! Tell us if O.C. housing hit a bottom yet by visiting this PAGE! (As of noon, 1,100 votes cast!)
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SoCal’s March home buying off 41%
2008-04-15 21:01:00
Orange County’s ailing housing market is no island. The home slump is a very regional condition, by DataQuick’s math. There was apparently no March Madness for house hunters to make deals. Says DQ: “The onset of spring did little to thaw Southern California’s semi-frozen housing market: The seasonal boost in sales between February and March was less than half its normal level and a record low. The weak start to the home buying season also saw another record dive in the median sales price, the result of depreciation, slow sales for higher-priced abodes and growing sales for discounted homes fresh out of foreclosure.” Read more HERE! Key March stats by SoCal county … Price Vs. ‘07 Sales Vs. ‘07 Los Angeles $440,000 -18.5% 4,263 -49.0% Orange County $506,000 -19.6% 1,663 -46.9% San Diego $306,250 -27.1% 2,691 -26.9% Riverside $265,000 -28.2% 1,534 -38.0% San Bernardino $395,000 -19.4% 2,108 -34.5% Ventura $430,000 -24.1% 5...
More About: Buying , Home

March home price ($506,000) is a 4-year low
2008-04-15 18:34:00
DataQuick’s final count of Orange County home-buying activity last month shows the median selling price for all residences at $506,000 — the lowest since March ‘04 and off 19.6% from a year ago. Buyers grabbed 1,663 homes last month down 46.9% from a year ago. It’s the 30th consecutive month where total sales failed to beat the year-ago level. (ZIPS: How did your town do? CLICK HERE!) It’s been a dramatic market reversal. Look at how far median prices in key categories fell from their respective peaks … • Single-family home prices: -20.8% since April ‘07. • Condos: -20.2% since March ‘06. • Newly built: -40.2% since February ‘05. • Overall market: -21.6% since June ‘07. And here’s a wrap-up up of last month’s activity … Slice Price Vs. ‘07 Sales Vs. ‘07 Single-family $570,000 -18.0% 1,072 -42.8% Condo $375,000 -18.5% 408 -51.3% New $516,500 -17.4% 183 -56.2% All O.C. $506,000 -...
More About: Home , Year

March home sales 59% below history
2008-04-15 18:18:00
Homebuying in March , by DataQuick’s math, hit its 30th consecutive month where sales failed to beat the year-ago level. History shows us that last month’s buying was 47% below a year ago and 59% below the average March since 1988. March’s median selling price was $506,000, down 19.6% vs. a year ago. In typical years, March marks the start of the high shopping season, enjoys a historical buying surge vs. a typical February of 44% since ‘88. This year, though, the March bounce was only 13%.  (ZIPS: How did your town do? CLICK HERE!) Year-to-date, O.C. homebuying is down 61% vs. the 20-year average activity for a year’s first three months. Since August when the credit crunch hit with full vengeance and made mortgages hard to get, homebuyers have failed to buy 2,000 homes for seven straight months. Before August, a month with less than 2,000 sales had been seen in O.C. only three times since 1988 (January and February ‘95 and February ‘91.) H...
More About: Sales , Home

Value of home resales fell 48.6% in March
2008-04-15 09:15:00
Numbers from the Southern California Multiple Listing Service show that total proceeds from existing home sales last month amounted to just over half of what home sellers reaped in March 2007, the Pacific West Association of Realtors reports. Orange County homebuyers paid $927 million to buy 1,409 homes purchased through the MLS last month, compared to $1.8 billion in total proceeds paid in March 2007, SoCal MLS figures show. That’s a decrease of 48.6%. The average price of an Orange County home was 11.5% lower last month than the year before, while the number of homes sold fell 42%. Buyers paid $712 million for detached homes (down 45%) and $215 million for condos, townhouses and other types of attached homes (down 58%). Although the total number of O.C. homes sold through the MLS was down 42% from the year before, March sales were at the highest level since August, when the credit crunch pinched buyers’ ability to get home loans.
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Economic slowdown hits O.C. office market
2008-04-15 03:05:00
Voit Commercial Brokerage says economic uncertainty hit the O.C. office market in the first quarter, with vacancies rising into double-digit territory while lease rates and construction declined. (CLICK HERE for the full report.) Among the highlights: The vacancy rate was 13.82%, up 63% from the first quarter of 2007, when rates were a near-record low of 8.47% Only 735,000 square feet of new office space came onto the market compared to last year when offices were going up at a pace of 1 million square feet a quarter 1.1 million square feet less office space was occupied during the first three months of this year compared to the first quarter of 2007 — a reflection of the hard-hit mortgage and real estate industries. Average leases were $2.73 a square foot, up 3.8% from a year ago, but down 4 cents a square foot from the fourth quarter of 2007, which was a record high. “It’s very much back to where we were in 2002,” says Jerry J. Holdner Jr., Voit&rsq...
More About: Office , Market , Economic , Hits

O.C. 3rd in U.S. for least affordable rents
2008-04-14 20:30:00
The National Low Income Housing Coalition ranks Orange County as the third most expensive metropolitan area in the U.S. in terms of wages needed to afford the fair market rent. The coalition’s Out of Reach 2007-2008 report (CLICK HERE) estimates that 58% of tenants here can’t afford rents based on their income. An O.C. household needs one full-time job paying $30.67 an hour — an annual income of $63,794 — to afford the fair market rent of $1,595 for a two-bedroom. (The so-called “housing wage” is based on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s estimate of rent being 30% of income.) Only Stamford, Conn. with a housing wage of $31.58 an hour ($65,686 annually) and Honolulu at $31.35 an hour ($65,208 annually) are more expensive. The national average housing wage is $17.32 ($36,026 annually). For California, it is $24.01 ($49,940 annually). Other O.C. renter affordability factoids: HUD estimates the median household income of...

Are home prices firming in O.C.’s top half?
2008-04-14 09:02:00
HousingTracker’s O.C. data suggests such a trend. This online price tracker’s twist on pricing trends is watching the typical local asking price for the 25th percentile (median of bottom half) and 75th percentile (median of the top.) Here’s what I see O.C. sellers are seeking … • At the 25th percentile, coming in at $385,000 as of April 7, sellers ask 23% less in a year. This marker for the market’s less-expensive housing has fallen month-to-month every month since May ‘07. • Compare that to the 75th percentile, at $825,000 as of April 7. This marker for O.C. upper crust is off 10.5% in a year and rose in February and March and is up again in early April. That followed 10 straight months of decline. Whether sellers can get buyers to bite on such pricing tactics is the big question.
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Real estate makes O.C. worst U.S. job market
2008-04-14 09:00:00
My latest column for The Register deals with a new federal report that placed Orange County with the biggest job loss amongst major U.S. counties in the third quarter … Local finance bosses cut 13,000 jobs (9.8 percent loss) in a year; construction employment fell by 6,000 (5.5 percent.) Worse, this is good-paying work gone away: finance jobs pay roughly 50 percent more than the county average salary; construction is 11 percent above average. That’s likely why countywide average paychecks, by this federal math, grew only 2.6 percent in a year vs. nationwide gains of 4.3 percent. All told and loosely speaking, the rest of the local economy was flat, jobs-wise, at least. To (Chapman U. economist Essie) Adibi, it’s very worrisome that no other industry is really picking up the slack. Current job creators, such as government or healthcare, will unlikely be able to significantly boost payrolls in coming months. As the slowdown simmers, Adibi hears of retailers – and ...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Market , Real

New units will push up Irvine/Newport ‘08 apartment vacancies
2008-04-14 00:00:00
The USC Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast says the nearly 4,300 new apartments coming on line in Irvine from 2007 to 2008 will nudge vacancies up in that city and in neighboring Newport Beach. Irvine added 2,103 units last year and is expected to see 2,181 more come on the market in 2008 — fully 85% of all the new apartments in the county in the last two years. Delores Conway, director of the Casden study, says the “shadow market” of condos and homes that have been converted into rentals during the real estate downturn also might be contributing to apartment vacancies. Pressure from all the additional units on the market is beginning to show up in the numbers. About 4.6% of Irvine’s apartments were vacant in the fourth quarter of last year, up from 3.8% in the same period in 2006. Meanwhile, the county’s overall vacancy rate barely moved from 3.5% at the end of 2006 to 3.8% in the fourth quarter of last year. Newport Beach saw the biggest increase...
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Insider Q&A hears home slump keeps turnaround expert busy
2008-04-12 09:03:00
Getting real estate companies out of their financial pickles is a popular job these days. We chatted with Marc Berger, who helping turnaround specialists XRoads Solutions Group of Santa Ana build up its real estate practice … Us: You must be busy? Marc: Very Busy . There is tremendous amount of pressure on borrowers — mostly homebuilders, for the moment. Second wave coming soon — and lenders. Builders are facing violations of the covenants in their borrowing agreements mainly tangible net worth and liquidity provisions. Lenders are very resource stressed from having enough people to deal with all the problems hitting at once. Us: How does real estate business look around here? Marc: Southern California’s hit very hard on the residential side. We are going to see the second wave trickle trough the residential real estate food chain. Vendors that supply the builders from the grading contractors to the framers. Commercial side is under siege from a lack of liqui...
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