The Home Buying Tax Credit has clearly had its impact on Logan Utah Real Estate. Unfortunately, not all of it is positive. Because many buyers moved their home purchases forward, we have seen a decrease in home sales over the normally heavy summer months. While home sales are slower than they've been recently, there has still been a high number of new home listings hit the market. This has brought us to a record high level of real estate inventory.

There are more homes for sale right now than there has ever been in Cache County. Right now 907 residential Cache Valley Homes for Sale appear on the MLS. As you can see from the graph, inventory levels dropped below 2009 levels during May, right at the end of the second home buying tax credit. Since that point they have steadily trended up. Overall, these high levels of inventory are creating a high absorption rate and will place downward pressure on home values. How low they will go, nobody knows. I just know that there are lots of homes for sale in Logan Utah.

It's a bad bad time to be a seller in Utah Right now. There are too many Utah Homes for Sale, and prices will go down.

With the way the housing market and economy are right now, it looks like it is going to be a long time until home values rise and the economy improves. We are going to see a lot more foreclosures before things really start getting better. If you are a “home owner” struggling to make payments there are a few ways to prevent foreclosure. Most default buyers don’t understand the foreclosure process, their options, and are embarrassed to ask for help. About half of all foreclosures don’t do anything to try and stop the foreclosures.

Right now, banks are swamped by the huge number of delinquent mortgages they have. There are so many foreclosures in some areas that banks don’t want to foreclose on any more homes. There is a huge back log of “shadow inventory” foreclosures that have not yet hit the market. In a best case scenario banks will avoid foreclosure, here are four different options that can yield a better result for both bank and borrower.

Sell Your House – Putting a home for sale is the simplest solution for default borrowers who have equity. Unfortunately, in the current real estate market, most distressed borrowers don’t have equity. Nearly 25% of U.S. homeowners owe more than their homes are worth. It is still possible to sell underwater homes, but to do so short sales are required.

Loan Modifications – With the state of lending, federal regulations, and the current economy, banks are often willing to renegotiate loan terms.There are some situations where lenders fradulatently administered loans and are held accountable for reconciling their errors.

Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure - With this foreclosure alternative, the distressed home owner voluntarily quit claimes their deed to the bank. For as simple as they are, Deeds in Lieu of Foreclosure are actually very rare. It is almost always financially best for banks to approve short sales, but they have a hard time getting decisions made. Banks have a hard time deciding exactly what criteria they will take to accept a short sale because every home is unique.

Deeds in lieu of foreclosures have some other issues that can make them more complicated. When a foreclosure happens, junior liens are wiped away. They receive nothing. These debts are wiped off the title. The banks who held the junior liens still have a judicial right to attempt to collect their rightful debts, but the debt is no longer tied to real estate. With a deed in lieu of foreclosure, the lender must assume the junior liens. This makes deeds in lieu of foreclosure much less common.

Forebearance – With a forebearance agreement, the lender delays his right to exercise foreclosure and gives the borrower a chance to make current their delinquent payments. The success rate for forebearances are pitifully low. Most people don’t know what is required to be qualify.

A good source of information for Salt Lake Utah Real Estate, regarding foreclosure alternatives is from HUD non profit organizations. Advise from these organizations is FREE and confidential. These organizations aren’t getting paid for providing a mortgage modification, they are simply there to help you out.  Beware of scams when seeking foreclosure alternatives, there are a lot of them out there. It is illegal for people to charge for loan modification services unless they have a mortgage license. So don’t pay anybody money to help you avoid foreclosure.

I recently heard that it's 57% of the people who receive foreclosure notices that do nothing. They could improve this, and save the banks money by seeking a foreclosure alternative instead.

It's that time of year again where the Cache County Assessor sends out "property tax" notifications. This nice letter lets you know what the county thinks your property is worth, and how much your property taxes will be going UP the next year (Okay, so property taxes don't always go up, just usually.)

Last year the experts at the property valuation department raised the property values of almost all homes in Cache Valley, even though in reality home prices in Cache County declined. This caused a lot of controversy, and kept the appeals department very busy. I got dozens of request from people who wanted CMA's done, so they could appeal their property tax. I personally appealed the assessed tax value on two of my properties, and got both of them, plus my property values lowered.

Well this year, Cache County decided to wise up. Rather than increase the amount of property taxes because "property taxes went up" they actually lowered property values, but just let you know that if the "proposed budget" is passed, your property taxes will go up anyways. This way we can't get our property taxes lowered by pointing out their errors. From the two notices I have received so far, my Logan Homes decreased in value by about 6%. My Logan Duplex that had an estimated Tax Value of $200,000 before my appeal last year, is now valued at $169,000.

This was a smart move by the Cache County Assessors. It will save them lots and money and time, by eliminating tax value appeals. In addition, home values really are down about 5-6% for Cache County Real Estate

Ways To Ensure That Your Listed Home Won't Sell

There are all kinds of articles out there giving advice on how to sell real estate . But what if you don't actually want your house to sell? If you want to keep your home from selling, here are seven tips used by the experts, from observation of viewing thousands of Utah Homes for Sale.

1. Make sure your home is not easily shown-- If nobody ever walks through your home, then your chances of it not selling are pretty good. The best way to do this is to not hire a Realtor, but instead have your home for sale by owner. Then, don't answer your phone, and better yet, don't have voice mail either. If you never answer, they will never make an appointment, and with no appointment, there will be no showings, and no selling.
2. Overprice Your Home – Most people look on the internet for Kennesaw GA homes for sale before they ever try to make a showing appointment. Your home should be much more expensive than other homes that are of similar size and age.
3. No Online Pictures - A picture is worth a thousand words. They want as many details and pictures as possible to help them decide if making a showing is worth their time. If you don’t add ANY photo’s, they will just skip your listing without even looking at the other details.
4. Make Sure Your Home Has Foul Odors – Nothing will detract a potential buyer from considering Everett Washington Homes more than a foul smell. One of the easiest way to develop that potent smell you're looking for to drive potential buyers away is by having lots of animals living in your house. If the smell is putrid enough, buyers may not even have to open the door to realize your house is not for them.
5. Keep Your Home Cluttered and Messy – If your home has a great floor plan, you can totally detract from this by having stuff, especially garbage, everywhere. Clutter will distract buyers from seeing the positive points your house has to offer. Home lookers will be so distracted by junk, that they won't even realize there are positive features. Baffle these potential buyers minds as they ponder how anyone could live in such filth.
6. Have Broken Items – Buyers generally want a well maintained home. When buyers can see obvious neglect on household repairs, they can be most confident that there are also many underlying defects that aren't visible, that they probably don't want to deal with. One way to help detract this is to make sure there are plenty of broken items buyers will notice while viewing your home. Consider cracked or broken windows, constant running toilets, holes in walls, stains on carpet, and doors and windows that don't open.
7. Have Bad Curb Appeal -- Creating a bad first impression can make a huge difference in ensuring that your home won't sell. The simplest way to create a bad first impression is with negative curb appeal. Don’t mow your lawn, or even better allow it to die. Let weeds overtake all planters and garden areas, and don't have any flowers. Make sure that the outside paint, doors, and trim look beat up. Unsightly chipped paint, preferably on older houses, is a great way to scare off those who fear lead poisoning.To add to the negative first impression, make sure you have a door bell out of order sign.

These seven steps are proven to be most effective ways to not sell your Cache Valley Homes.

This is a fairly comical article I stumbled upon that I thought I would repost.

Fastest job growth

Here are the counties with the highest percentage job growth (2000-2009). Rank County Towns include Job growth % 2000-2009 1 Lincoln County, SD Sioux Falls 67.00% 2 Williamson County, TX Cedar Park, Round Rock 58.90% 3 Hays County, TX San Marcos 56.40% 4 Douglas County, CO Highlands Ranch 56.20% 5 Fort Bend County, TX Houston, Missouri City, Sugar Land 55.70% 6 Webb County, TX Laredo 54.10% 7 Collin County, TX Allen, Carrollton, Dallas, Frisco, Garland, McKinney, Plano 53.00% 8 Broomfield County, CO Broomfield 50.10% 9 Hamilton County, IN Carmel, Fishers 43.20% 10 Cache County, UT Logan 42.60% 11 Utah County, UT Orem, Provo 39.20% 12 Christian County, MO Springfield 39.00% 13 Wake County, NC Cary 35.30% 14 Dona Ana County, NM Las Cruces 34.50% 15 Benton County, AR Rogers 32.10% 16 Maricopa County, AZ Avondale, Chandler, Goodyear, Gilbert, Glendale, Mesa, Peoria, Phoenix 32.00% 17 Prince William County, VA Dale City 32.00% 18 Davis County, UT Layton 31.50% 19 Faulkner County, AR Conway 30.40% 20 Williamson County, TN Franklin 29.80% 21 Houston County, GA Warner Robins 28.70% 22 Washington County, AR Fayetteville, Springdale 27.10% 23 Suffolk, VA Suffolk 25.00% 24 Johnson County, IA Iowa City 22.70% 25 Canadian County, OK Oklahoma City 22.40%

Pretty impressive. 3 Utah Counties rank in the top 25 areas for Job Growth. Cache County ranks #10, Utah County #11, and Davis County Ranks #18 nationally with 31.5% job growth over the last decade.

 

U.S. Foreclosure Market Data for Top 10 States - Jan-Jun 2010

Rate Rank	State Name	Total Properties with FC Filings	%Housing Units	1/every X HU	%Change from Jul-Dec 09	%Change from Jan-Jun 09
--	U.S.	1,654,634	1.28	78	-5.14	8.26
1	Nevada	64,429	5.72	17	-13.2	-6.23
2	Arizona	91,484	3.36	30	-1.6	1.88
3	Florida	277,073	3.15	32	-8.61	3.36
4	California	340,740	2.54	39	-15.25	-12.99
5	Utah	18,058	1.91	52	2.03	33.8
6	Georgia	71,949	1.79	56	11.08	27.59
7	Michigan	78,509	1.73	58	7.99	29.16**
8	Idaho	10,799	1.68	59	-9.46	35.80
9	Illinois	85,223	1.61	62	-0.87	23.63
10	Colorado	30,177	1.4	71	-9.11	13.60

 

 

U.S. Foreclosure Market Data for Top 10 States - Q2 2010

Utah has joined the "Big 5" in terms of foreclosure filings, right behind the perrennial leaders Nevada, Arizona, Florida, and California. Utah now ranks 5th nationally in foreclosure numbers. One in every 52 Utah Homes received some sort of foreclosure notice over the past six months. This is not positive news for the recovery of the housing market, increased foreclosures will add continual downward pressure on home values.

While the number of total home listings in Cache Valley are up, at a record high actually, the number of Cache Valley Short Sales for sale are actually down. Just 3.62% of the active residential homes for sale in Cache Valley are listed as short sales. Right now Cache County has 885 total residential real estate listings. Among these are 32 short sales. 11 of the short sale listings are found in Logan while the remaining 21 are in the other communities within Cache County.

The lack of short sales is a positive sign that Cache Valley Real Estate hasn't seen a large drop in home prices. With inventory the way it is, home prices will probably decline and then we will likely see the percentages of short sales increase.

Salt Lake City Real Estate has actually fared pretty well during the first half of the year. It appeared that Real Estate in Salt Lake had fully recovered, and that the real estate market was headed towards a balanced market. June home sales turned that theory around quickly. During June Salt Lake City home sales were down.

Prices of Salt Lake Real Estate are clearly down, and appear as if they will continue to decline. The median price of single family homes in Salt Lake City was down 5.47% during the second quarter compared with the second quarter of last year.

Salt Lake County Real Estate increased the number of homes sold as a whole when comparing the second quarter of 2009 with 2010.  Price of homes in the Salt Lake Valley have declined though, with median in the low 200s and average in the mid 200s.

Salt Lake County Condos followed a very similar trend as the number sold increased but price of condos in the SL Valley decreased and remain in the 100s.

Bluffdale Utah: Median sold price barely changed at all as the number of Bluffdale homes sold decreased 20%.  While that sounds like a lot, it was only a difference of 6.

Cottonwood Heights Utah: With an increase from 39 to 64, Cottonwood Heights houses sold jumped 64%.  Median price slipped $12,500 and average price decreased $19,869.

Draper Utah: Draper was the opposite of Cottonwood Heights.  Sold Real Estate in Draper declined 17% but both median and average prices increased by about 3%.

Herriman Utah: Herriman was one of the few to see decreases across the board.  Real Estate in Herriman sold at prices of about $10,000 less, yet 34.5% fewer homes sold.

Holladay Utah: While homes sold and average sold price both decreased, median price of Holladay homes increased $28,000.

Kearns Utah: Median sold price went down 3% and average sold price decreased 6%.  The number of homes in Kearns sold increased by 12 units, or 26%.

Magna Utah: Sales numbers didn’t really change much but the number of Magna homes sold jumped 80% from 56 to 101.

Midvale Utah: Sold Real Estate in Midvale practically doubled to 50.  With about twice that many homes currently for sale, inventory is high at 11 months.

Murray Utah: 8 more homes sold but Murray Real Estate saw sales price decline.  Median price was down 5% and average price slipped 13%.

Riverton Utah: Like most other cities in the county, Riverton Real Estate sold more homes but at decreasing prices.  Current prices are in the upper 200s.

Salt Lake City Utah: The capital sold 47 more homes, only causing an increase of 6%.  Salt Lake homes sold for 5.5% less, down to $212,700 from $225,000.

Sandy Utah: Interestingly enough, Sandy homes sold decreased 6%, median price decreased 6%, and average sold price decreased 6% as well.  Inventory is at 6.7 months and there are around 600 homes currently listed.

South Jordan Utah: Median sold price took a big hit, dropping almost $40,000.  That being said, South Jordan homes experience a decent increase in the number of homes sold, up 12%.

Taylorsville Utah: Homes sold at an $11,500 decrease generally but that wasn’t enough to cause sales to rise.  Taylorsville houses sold decreased 13%.

West Jordan Utah: Prices stayed in the low 200s but still decreased by about $10,000.  Besides Salt Lake, more West Jordan homes sold than any other city, increasing 11%.

West Valley Utah: A 7-10% decrease in price allowed West Valley homes sold to increase a welcomed 36%.

Overall the second quarter saw increases in home sales but a big decrease in prices. Just since the expiration of the home buyer tax credits we have already seen and increase in the sold price of homes in Salt Lake. First time home buyer percentages were at all time highs during the second quarter, so home values didn't really drop this much, there were just a lot more starter homes being purchased than normal.

It looks like the recovery of the real estate market in Utah County, Utah is on hold. The improvement we saw over the past few months look like they were mostly caused by the government stimulus. June home sales were down, list prices dropped, and there is currently more real estate inventory than any other time this year.

Homes sales during June were down by 18.4% compared with June of last year, and were down 7.8% compared with last month. In total, 438 residential homes in Utah County sold.

It doesn’t appear that home sales are going to be improving over the next few months, even though summer is traditionally the strongest season for Utah County Real Estate. The number of under contract homes in Utah County  are down 10.5% compared with last month.

Utah County Real Estate inventory is currently at its highest point of the year. There are currently 4,224 residential homes for sale. At June’s sales pace, this represents an absorption rate of 9.58 months .

It looks like the real estate trends with price changes, and sales was pretty consistent throughout the Wasatch Front. Clear evidence that the home buying tax credits did have an impact.