$245,000
1980 Shea Dr
Pinole, CA
Great 3/2 needs new owners! Make an appointment today to see this wonderful property. Bamboo floors, beautiful tile and vaulted ceilings accent this home. This home has a nice courtyard that you can access from the dining room or living room. Access to the 2 car garage is from the rear. Imagine the possibilities for this home!
More information.

$1,750,000
37 Nunes Dr.
Novato, CA
Amazing home on a cul-de-sac in the hills of Novato on approx 1.25 acres! Open kitchen w/ built-in appliances and ample storage. Formal dining room has sweeping valley views. The living room has a stunning wood-beam vaulted ceiling. The easy layout is great for entertaining. Level outdoor space - potential for a tennis court, pool & more.
More information.

$420,000
7335 Sheffield Ln.
Dublin, CA
Cute as a button contemporary home in a quiet neighborhood near schools and parks. This home has been lovingly maintained. It has an updated eat-in kitchen, formal dining room, living room with fireplace, 3 nice size bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The nicely landscaped front & rear yard.
More information.
$155,000
500 Grove Ave.
Richmond, CA
Built in 2003, this home has an open layout w/ lots of room for everyone! The spacious living room has a wood burning fireplace. The kitchen is open to the dining room. This home boasts 4 big bedrooms w/ good size closets and 2 full bathrooms. Both baths have separate showers & tubs. This home is fully encompassed by a lovely white wrought iron fence. In addition to the 1 car garage, there is off-street parking for at least 4 cars!
More information.

$175,000
560 Miflin Ave.
El Sobrante, CA
Charming El Sobrante home with a great layout waiting for a new owner! This home features a spacious living room w/ real wood burning fireplace, an open kitchen w/ beautiful granite counter tops and lots of storage & a nice size dining room that opens to the yard. The front yard has beautiful flowering trees, a rose tree and other flowering bushes. The back yard has flowering vines, a delicious lemon tree and wonderful rosemary bush!
Currently pending but contact us to make a back-up offer!
More information.

$273,000
920 39th St.
Oakland, CA
This incredible home has been lovingly cared for and is now available for a new owner! This home has a large entry that flow to the separate living and dining rooms. The main level has 1 nice size bedroom and bath. Also on this level is a small bonus room that would be perfect for an office/study or child's play room. This is a split-level home. Up a short flight of stairs is the master suite. The master suite has a very nice size bedroom and an incredible bathroom with separate shower and tub. There is interior access to the finished basement which contains a utility room, laundry area and bonus room with closet (currently being used as a 3rd bedroom). This home has awalk score of 74! 3 blocks to BART and minutes to 580, 80, 24 and 880. This is a wonderful home.
Currently pending but contact us to make a back-up offer!
More information.
U.S. Home Prices Face 3-Year Drop as Inventory Surge
Looms
By John Gittelsohn and Kathleen M. Howley
The slide in U.S. home prices may have another three
years to go as sellers add as many as 12 million more
properties to the market.
Shadow inventory -- the supply of homes in default or
foreclosure that may be offered for sale -- is
preventing prices from bottoming after a 28 percent
plunge from 2006, according to analysts from Moody’s
Analytics Inc., Fannie Mae, Morgan Stanley and Barclays
Plc. Those properties are in addition to houses that are
vacant or that may soon be put on the market by owners.
“Whether it’s the sidelined, shadow or current
inventory, the issue is there’s more supply than
demand,” said Oliver Chang, a U.S. housing strategist
with Morgan Stanley in San Francisco. “Once you reach a
bottom, it will take three or four years for prices to
begin to rise 1 or 2 percent a year.”
Rising supply threatens to undermine government efforts
to boost the housing market as homebuyers wait for
better deals. Further price declines are necessary for a
sustainable rebound as a stimulus-driven recovery
falters, said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist of
Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc., a New York economic
forecasting firm.
Sales of new and existing homes fell to the lowest
levels on record in July as a federal tax credit for
buyers expired and U.S. unemployment remained near a
26-year high. The median price of a previously owned
home in the month was $182,600, about the level it was
in 2003, the National Association of Realtors said.
Fannie Mae Forecast
Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. mortgage finance company,
today lowered its forecast for home sales this year,
projecting a 7 percent decline from 2009. A drop in
demand after the April 30 tax credit expiration
“suggests weakening home prices” in the third quarter,
according to the report.
There were 4 million homes listed with brokers for sale
as of July. It would take a record 12.5 months for those
properties to be sold at that month’s sales pace,
according to the Chicago- based Realtors group.
“The best thing that could happen is for prices to get
to a level that clears the market,” said Shapiro, who
predicts prices may fall another 10 percent to 15
percent. “Right now, buyers know it hasn’t hit bottom,
so they’re sitting on the sidelines.”
About 2 million houses will be seized by lenders by the
end of next year, according to Mark Zandi, chief
economist of Moody’s Analytics in West Chester,
Pennsylvania. He estimates prices will drop 5 percent by
2013.
‘Lost Decade’
After reaching bottom, prices will gain at the historic
annual pace of 3 percent, requiring more than 10 years
to return to their peak, he said.
“A long if not lost decade,” Zandi said.
Prices dropped in 36 states in July from a year earlier,
CoreLogic Inc., a Santa Ana, California-based real
estate and financial information company, reported
today. Its housing index showed the biggest declines in
Idaho, Alabama and Utah. Maine, South Dakota and
California had the largest gains.
Working through the surplus inventory varies by markets
and depends on issues such as local employment and the
amount of homeowner debt, said Sam Khater, chief
economist for CoreLogic. Nevada has the highest
percentage of homes with mortgages more than the
properties are worth, while New York state has the
lowest, according to the company.
8 Million
Douglas Duncan, chief economist for Washington-based
Fannie Mae, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview last
week that 7 million U.S. homes are vacant or in the
foreclosure process. Morgan Stanley’s Chang said the
number of bank-owned and foreclosure-bound homes that
have yet to hit the market is closer to 8 million.
Sandipan Deb, a residential credit strategist for
Barclays in New York, said prices will drop another 8
percent -- to 2002 levels -- before beginning a recovery
in 2014.
“On a national level, you have never seen a decline of
this sort,” Deb said in a telephone interview. “I would
caveat that by saying you also have not seen an increase
on a national level like we saw from 2002 or 2003 to
2006.”
In addition to the as many as 8 million properties
vacant or in foreclosure, owners of another 3.8 million
homes -- 5 percent of U.S. households -- said they are
“very likely” to put their properties on the market
within six months if there is improvement, according to
a survey</a> by Seattle-based Zillow.
“This has the potential to create a sawtooth pattern
along the bottom,” Stan Humphries, Zillow’s chief
economist, said in a telephone interview. “Homes begin
to sell and a few sidelined sellers rush into the
marketplace and flood the marketplace.”
Gains Versus Inflation
If the market doesn’t fall to its natural bottom, price
gains in the next five to 10 years won’t keep pace with
inflation as the difference is made up “on the backend,”
said Barry Ritholtz, chief executive officer of
FusionIQ, a New York research company. Price increases
that fail to at least match inflation are the same as
reductions in value, Ritholtz said.
The Obama administration’s effort to help mortgage
holders, the Home Affordable Modification Program, or
HAMP, is another source of future inventory as owners
with new loan terms re- default, Ritholtz said. About
half of the modifications done in 2009 were behind in
payments by the first quarter of 2010, according to the
Treasury Department.
‘Day of Reckoning’
“The belief has been: if we stimulate sales with a tax
credit and delay foreclosures with modifications, the
market would stabilize,” said Ritholtz, author of
“Bailout Nation.” “We’re just putting off the day of
reckoning and drawing out the pain by not letting the
housing market hit its bottom.”
Government policy contributed to a recent stabilization
in prices that may have been an “illusion,” said Zach
Pandl, an economist at Nomura Securities International
Inc. The S&P/Case- Shiller index of home prices in 20
U.S. cities rose 4.2 percent in June from a year
earlier. The measure is a three-month moving average,
which means data in the month were still influenced by
transactions that may have benefited from the tax
incentive.
Even if modifications fail, keeping foreclosures off the
market is worth the risk of a delayed recovery, Pandl
said.
“It’s too painful and too damaging to let it happen all
at once,” Pandl said from New York.
Owners of about 11 million homes, or 23 percent of
households with a mortgage, owed more than their
property was worth as of June 30, according to
CoreLogic. Another 2.4 million borrowers had less than 5
percent equity in their houses and probably would lose
money on a sale after paying broker fees and closing
costs, CoreLogic said Aug 25.
Nevada, New York
In Nevada, 68 percent of homes were underwater in July,
with mortgage loans statewide totaling 120 percent of
home values, according to CoreLogic. Only 7.1 percent of
properties in New York state were underwater, with the
total loan-to-value equivalent of 50 percent, the
company said.
Brandi Miner, director of marketing for the Georgia
Association of Realtors, is holding back on selling her
one- bedroom condominium in Atlanta’s Buckhead district
because she has an underwater mortgage. She paid
$155,000 for the property in 2005.
“I’m stuck,” Miner said. “I thought it was a stepping
stone to a house.”
Miner pays about $1,100 a month for her mortgage plus
$225 in condo dues, a higher price than she would spend
for a three- bedroom house in a good Atlanta-area
neighborhood at today’s prices, she said. Selling now
would cost her $10,000 to $15,000, Miner estimated.
“I’m not $200,000 in the hole, thank God,” she said.
“But the quarter of the country that’s underwater --
that’s me.”
Positive Equity
Detroit, Las Vegas and Fort Myers, Florida, will take
until at least 2020 to return homeowners to positive
equity, CoreLogic said in a March report that compared
prices in 10 metro areas. Atlanta, Dallas and
California’s Riverside and San Bernardino counties will
need until 2016. The Washington, D.C., area will take
the least amount of time, with negative equity
disappearing around 2015, CoreLogic said.
The slide in values and record-low interest rates may
offer some bargains for property hunters. Prices have
returned to historically affordable levels, said Karl
Case, professor emeritus of economics at Wellesley
College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and co-creator of
the S&P/Case-Shiller index. He estimates a bottom for
prices in six months.
“It doesn’t take a tremendous number of people to turn
the housing market, because only about 5 percent of the
stock trades in a given year,” Case said in a telephone
interview. “There’s still a lot of people who are
employed, many of whom have been looking for the
opportunity to buy.”
Cooperstown A-Frame
Case is an example of a homeowner waiting to sell
because of low demand. He’s seeking to sell the A-frame
on 15 acres near Cooperstown, New York, that he bought
for $190,000 in 2005.
“I want to keep it if I can’t get what I want,” he said.
“It’s a terrific little getaway and I’m not going to
give it away.”
Some indicators show the real estate market has begun to
turn a corner. Pending sales of existing houses
increased 5.2 percent from June to July, the National
Association of Realtors reported Sept. 2. Economists had
estimated a 1 percent decline, according to the median
of 37 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey.
“The market is starting to show some signs of
stabilization,” Nicolas Retsinas, director emeritus of
Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies,
said during an Aug. 31 interview on Bloomberg
Television’s “InsideTrack.” “But a robust recovery is a
long time away.”
Fewer Foreclosures
The number of U.S. homes in default or foreclosure fell
to 7.04 million as of July 31 from a high of 8.12
million in January, Lender Processing Services Inc., a
Jacksonville, Florida-based mortgage servicing company,
reported Sept. 2.
Defaulted mortgages as of July took an average 469 days
to reach foreclosure, up from 319 days in January 2009.
That’s an indication lenders -- with the help of the
government loan modification programs -- are delaying
resolutions and preventing the market from flooding with
distressed properties, said Herb Blecher, senior vice
president for analytics at LPS.
“The efforts to date have been worthwhile,” Blecher said
in a telephone interview from Denver. “They both helped
borrowers stay in their homes and kept that supply of
distressed properties on the market somewhat limited.”
The slide in U.S. home prices may have another three
years to go as sellers add as many as 12 million more
properties to the market.
Shadow inventory -- the supply of homes in default or
foreclosure that may be offered for sale -- is
preventing prices from bottoming after a 28 percent
plunge from 2006, according to analysts from Moody’s
Analytics Inc., Fannie Mae, Morgan Stanley and Barclays
Plc. Those properties are in addition to houses that are
vacant or that may soon be put on the market by owners.
“Whether it’s the sidelined, shadow or current
inventory, the issue is there’s more supply than
demand,” said Oliver Chang, a U.S. housing strategist
with Morgan Stanley in San Francisco. “Once you reach a
bottom, it will take three or four years for prices to
begin to rise 1 or 2 percent a year.”
Rising supply threatens to undermine government efforts
to boost the housing market as homebuyers wait for
better deals. Further price declines are necessary for a
sustainable rebound as a stimulus-driven recovery
falters, said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist of
Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc., a New York economic
forecasting firm.
Sales of new and existing homes fell to the lowest
levels on record in July as a federal tax credit for
buyers expired and U.S. unemployment remained near a
26-year high. The median price of a previously owned
home in the month was $182,600, about the level it was
in 2003, the National Association of Realtors said.
Fannie Mae Forecast
Fannie Mae, the largest U.S. mortgage finance company,
today lowered its forecast for home sales this year,
projecting a 7 percent decline from 2009. A drop in
demand after the April 30 tax credit expiration
“suggests weakening home prices” in the third quarter,
according to the report.
There were 4 million homes listed with brokers for sale
as of July. It would take a record 12.5 months for those
properties to be sold at that month’s sales pace,
according to the Chicago- based Realtors group.
“The best thing that could happen is for prices to get
to a level that clears the market,” said Shapiro, who
predicts prices may fall another 10 percent to 15
percent. “Right now, buyers know it hasn’t hit bottom,
so they’re sitting on the sidelines.”
About 2 million houses will be seized by lenders by the
end of next year, according to Mark Zandi, chief
economist of Moody’s Analytics in West Chester,
Pennsylvania. He estimates prices will drop 5 percent by
2013.
‘Lost Decade’
After reaching bottom, prices will gain at the historic
annual pace of 3 percent, requiring more than 10 years
to return to their peak, he said.
“A long if not lost decade,” Zandi said.
Prices dropped in 36 states in July from a year earlier,
CoreLogic Inc., a Santa Ana, California-based real
estate and financial information company, reported
today. Its housing index showed the biggest declines in
Idaho, Alabama and Utah. Maine, South Dakota and
California had the largest gains.
Working through the surplus inventory varies by markets
and depends on issues such as local employment and the
amount of homeowner debt, said Sam Khater, chief
economist for CoreLogic. Nevada has the highest
percentage of homes with mortgages more than the
properties are worth, while New York state has the
lowest, according to the company.
8 Million
Douglas Duncan, chief economist for Washington-based
Fannie Mae, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview last
week that 7 million U.S. homes are vacant or in the
foreclosure process. Morgan Stanley’s Chang said the
number of bank-owned and foreclosure-bound homes that
have yet to hit the market is closer to 8 million.
Sandipan Deb, a residential credit strategist for
Barclays in New York, said prices will drop another 8
percent -- to 2002 levels -- before beginning a recovery
in 2014.
“On a national level, you have never seen a decline of
this sort,” Deb said in a telephone interview. “I would
caveat that by saying you also have not seen an increase
on a national level like we saw from 2002 or 2003 to
2006.”
In addition to the as many as 8 million properties
vacant or in foreclosure, owners of another 3.8 million
homes -- 5 percent of U.S. households -- said they are
“very likely” to put their properties on the market
within six months if there is improvement, according to
a survey</a> by Seattle-based Zillow.
“This has the potential to create a sawtooth pattern
along the bottom,” Stan Humphries, Zillow’s chief
economist, said in a telephone interview. “Homes begin
to sell and a few sidelined sellers rush into the
marketplace and flood the marketplace.”
Gains Versus Inflation
If the market doesn’t fall to its natural bottom, price
gains in the next five to 10 years won’t keep pace with
inflation as the difference is made up “on the backend,”
said Barry Ritholtz, chief executive officer of
FusionIQ, a New York research company. Price increases
that fail to at least match inflation are the same as
reductions in value, Ritholtz said.
The Obama administration’s effort to help mortgage
holders, the Home Affordable Modification Program, or
HAMP, is another source of future inventory as owners
with new loan terms re- default, Ritholtz said. About
half of the modifications done in 2009 were behind in
payments by the first quarter of 2010, according to the
Treasury Department.
‘Day of Reckoning’
“The belief has been: if we stimulate sales with a tax
credit and delay foreclosures with modifications, the
market would stabilize,” said Ritholtz, author of
“Bailout Nation.” “We’re just putting off the day of
reckoning and drawing out the pain by not letting the
housing market hit its bottom.”
Government policy contributed to a recent stabilization
in prices that may have been an “illusion,” said Zach
Pandl, an economist at Nomura Securities International
Inc. The S&P/Case- Shiller index of home prices in 20
U.S. cities rose 4.2 percent in June from a year
earlier. The measure is a three-month moving average,
which means data in the month were still influenced by
transactions that may have benefited from the tax
incentive.
Even if modifications fail, keeping foreclosures off the
market is worth the risk of a delayed recovery, Pandl
said.
“It’s too painful and too damaging to let it happen all
at once,” Pandl said from New York.
Owners of about 11 million homes, or 23 percent of
households with a mortgage, owed more than their
property was worth as of June 30, according to
CoreLogic. Another 2.4 million borrowers had less than 5
percent equity in their houses and probably would lose
money on a sale after paying broker fees and closing
costs, CoreLogic said Aug 25.
Nevada, New York
In Nevada, 68 percent of homes were underwater in July,
with mortgage loans statewide totaling 120 percent of
home values, according to CoreLogic. Only 7.1 percent of
properties in New York state were underwater, with the
total loan-to-value equivalent of 50 percent, the
company said.
Brandi Miner, director of marketing for the Georgia
Association of Realtors, is holding back on selling her
one- bedroom condominium in Atlanta’s Buckhead district
because she has an underwater mortgage. She paid
$155,000 for the property in 2005.
“I’m stuck,” Miner said. “I thought it was a stepping
stone to a house.”
Miner pays about $1,100 a month for her mortgage plus
$225 in condo dues, a higher price than she would spend
for a three- bedroom house in a good Atlanta-area
neighborhood at today’s prices, she said. Selling now
would cost her $10,000 to $15,000, Miner estimated.
“I’m not $200,000 in the hole, thank God,” she said.
“But the quarter of the country that’s underwater --
that’s me.”
Positive Equity
Detroit, Las Vegas and Fort Myers, Florida, will take
until at least 2020 to return homeowners to positive
equity, CoreLogic said in a March report that compared
prices in 10 metro areas. Atlanta, Dallas and
California’s Riverside and San Bernardino counties will
need until 2016. The Washington, D.C., area will take
the least amount of time, with negative equity
disappearing around 2015, CoreLogic said.
The slide in values and record-low interest rates may
offer some bargains for property hunters. Prices have
returned to historically affordable levels, said Karl
Case, professor emeritus of economics at Wellesley
College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and co-creator of
the S&P/Case-Shiller index. He estimates a bottom for
prices in six months.
“It doesn’t take a tremendous number of people to turn
the housing market, because only about 5 percent of the
stock trades in a given year,” Case said in a telephone
interview. “There’s still a lot of people who are
employed, many of whom have been looking for the
opportunity to buy.”
Cooperstown A-Frame
Case is an example of a homeowner waiting to sell
because of low demand. He’s seeking to sell the A-frame
on 15 acres near Cooperstown, New York, that he bought
for $190,000 in 2005.
“I want to keep it if I can’t get what I want,” he said.
“It’s a terrific little getaway and I’m not going to
give it away.”
Some indicators show the real estate market has begun to
turn a corner. Pending sales of existing houses
increased 5.2 percent from June to July, the National
Association of Realtors reported Sept. 2. Economists had
estimated a 1 percent decline, according to the median
of 37 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey.
“The market is starting to show some signs of
stabilization,” Nicolas Retsinas, director emeritus of
Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies,
said during an Aug. 31 interview on Bloomberg
Television’s “InsideTrack.” “But a robust recovery is a
long time away.”
Fewer Foreclosures
The number of U.S. homes in default or foreclosure fell
to 7.04 million as of July 31 from a high of 8.12
million in January, Lender Processing Services Inc., a
Jacksonville, Florida-based mortgage servicing company,
reported Sept. 2.
Defaulted mortgages as of July took an average 469 days
to reach foreclosure, up from 319 days in January 2009.
That’s an indication lenders -- with the help of the
government loan modification programs -- are delaying
resolutions and preventing the market from flooding with
distressed properties, said Herb Blecher, senior vice
president for analytics at LPS.
“The efforts to date have been worthwhile,” Blecher said
in a telephone interview from Denver. “They both helped
borrowers stay in their homes and kept that supply of
distressed properties on the market somewhat limited.”
Source: Click to read this article from the original source on Bloomberg.com