Text Box: A belated welcome to the second decade of the 21st century. The first ten years of this millennium were a decade that brought out the best in our economy as well as the worst. The housing market was on fire the first five years but was quickly extinguished the second five. Property values have declined to 1999 prices, even with interest rates at historic lows. So with low interests, less inventory of homes on the market at less value and the huge infusion of bailout funds to the banks, what’s stopping buyers from buying? Nowadays, you can’t simply fog a mirror to get a loan. Imagine, you actually have to prove your ability to pay back your loan by providing the lender recent pay stubs and bank statements, your certified tax returns and show you have an “above average” credit rating. Up until 10 years ago, this was the standard lending procedure. I’m all in favor of getting back to basics so we don’t have déjà vu, but now the pendulum has swung in the opposite extreme. One out of two escrows that provide conventional financing fails to close due to much tighter Federal regulations. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act was enacted to reform lending rules to protect unqualified consumers from getting in over their heads. However, the main reason one out of two escrows fail to close today is mostly due to the new appraisal regulations. Appraisal management companies (AMC) are now required in every state in order to control appraisal fraud, which was quite prevalent during the bubble. The problem is, although there are specific Federal guidelines to create these AMC’s, it’s the banks that actually own them. They not only continue to control the appraisal process, they make a profit on each appraisal now by collecting $400 to $500 from the borrower, then hire “bottom-of-the-barrel” appraisers who only charge $200 - $250. To add insult to injury, these discount, inexperienced appraisers (which we nicely refer to as geographically incompetent) drive up the hill from all over the Southern California area. Text Box: Imagine non-MLS member appraisers from Needles to Bakersfield coming to Big Bear with limited knowledge and little or no resources to gather information to determine the value of your property! Needless to say, this is a very serious concern within the mortgage and real estate industry. Think about all the lives that are affected when a single escrow fails to close due to an incompetent appraiser. Besides the buyer and seller (who are the most affected) there is the loan representative, the escrow officer, the title companies, the real estate agent(s) & brokerages all depending on the appraiser to come in at the sales price. Like I said earlier, I’m all for getting back to protecting consumers from appraiser fraud but this is the issue that must be addressed now if we expect to see any increase in home sales. This is just another example of how the banks continue to maintain control. There’s an old saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely”. It is quite obvious the banks realize their absolute control when they pay nothing for their crimes and get bailed out with our tax dollars and receive bonuses for failing. Until next month, Mike Dolan Big Bear’s Leading Realtor # 8 Prudential Agent Award 7 time PREA 100 Award 11 time Diamond Circle Award 2 time 5 Year Legend Award (909) 866-6453 (Office) (909) 936-6453 (Cell) mikedolan@bigbearproperties.com Mikedolan.com DRE License # 00752899

           The    

      Big Bear Report

 

 

 

 March 1, 2010

A Monthly Review of the Big Bear Real Estate Market

· CURRENT INVENTORY: 

    683 Homes                           

    290 Lots

    23 Condos

    10 Mobile Homes

    14 Gov’t Leases             

    67 Commercial R.E.

    10  Business Opps

· MARKET CONDIDTIONS:      Buyer’s Market

· INTEREST RATES: Stable   30 Year (5.25%)   

· NUMBER OF HOMES SOLD LAST MONTH: 60 (8.6% of Market)

West Valley

East Valley

East Valley: Big Bear City, Baldwin Lake, Erwin Lake, Sugarloaf, Lake Williams, Whispering Forest       West Valley: City of Big Bear Lake, Fox Farm, Moonridge, Fawnskin

 

Active = Existing Res Listing including Active Contingency      Pendings = Res Pending or Contingent Escrows      Solds = Closed residential units last month

Residential

“The Local’s Choice”

Prudential

Properties of Big Bear

All information deemed reliable but not guaranteed.

         Price Range

Active

Pending

Sold

 

Active

Pending

Sold

$ 0           -  $199,999

175

37

24

 

37

17

10

$200,000  -  $399,999

126

17

3

 

137

31

12

$400,000  -  $599,999

21

1

1

 

67

7

5

$600,000  -  $799,999

8

1

1

 

33

2

3

$800,000  -  $999,999

6

1

0

 

21

1

0

$1 Mil     -   $1,499,999

7

0

0

 

17

1

1

Over $1.5 Million

7

0

0

 

21

0

0

Total

350

57

29

 

333

59

31