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Capital Gain Taxes Increasing 58%; Latest Audit and Tax Info

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July 2010 Orange County Stats: # Of Homes For Sale vs. Homes In Escrow

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City                      Homes for Sale                     Homes in Escrow

Yorba Linda             338                                          194

Banks are starting to cooperate with short sales… check out this article… Can short sales really become a true “short” sale?

While obstacles to short sales remain, real estate practitioners say the process is becoming more efficient. Rather than waiting six months or more to push through a deal, agents say banks are more willing to negotiate prices up front. "My gut feeling is that short sales seem to be the preferred avenue for distressed property now," says Cindi Hagley of San Ramon, Calif.-based Windermere Welcome Home. "It's cheaper for [banks] to do a short sale than go all the way to foreclosure." The short-sale process has become more manageable now that banks are willing to pre-approve prices, reach out to underwater borrowers who have listed their homes for sale, implement Web-based systems that manage the short sale process, and add staff dedicated to short sales. Additionally, the U.S. Treasury is set to implement a streamlined short sales framework and offer incentive payments of $1,500 to home owners and $1,000 to both loan servicers and second-lien holders. Borrowers also prefer short sales because Fannie Mae requires them to wait only two years to own another home or even less than that if they were not delinquent. By contrast, those who lost their homes to foreclosure have to wait five years. Source: San Francisco Chronicle

I found the following article on and thought you would be interested....

The median home price in California will rise 3.3 percent to $280,000 in 2010 compared with a projected median of $271,000 this year, according to C.A.R.’s "2010 California Housing Market Forecast," presented recently at California Realtor Expo 2009 in San Jose. Sales for 2010 are projected to decrease 2.3 percent to 527,500 units, compared with 540,000 units (projected) in 2009.

“California ’s housing market continued its strong sales rebound this year, resulting from the continued pace of distressed properties coming to market,” said C.A.R. President James Liptak . “This follows two years of double-digit sales declines in 2006 and 2007. Looking ahead, we expect sales to moderate to a more sustainable pace.

“After experiencing its sharpest decline in history, we expect the median price to rise modestly next year,” Liptak added. “2010 will mark the beginning of the ‘new normal’ for California ’s housing market. This ‘new normal’ likely will feature a steady stream of sales driven by distressed properties in the low end of the market, coupled with moderate home-price appreciation.”

“With distressed properties accounting for nearly one-third of the sales in 2010, inventory will be relatively lean, under six months during the off-season months, and a roughly four-month supply during the peak season,” said C.A.R. and Vice President Leslie Appleton-Young. “We expect the median price to decrease slightly through the remainder of 2009 and into next year, then rise before leveling off next summer. For the year as a whole, home prices are forecast to reach $280,000. The wild cards for 2010 include foreclosures, loan resets, the labor market, and the California budget crisis, as well as the actions of the federal government.”

source: dreamhomesmagazine.com

California house prices may rise in 2010 for the first time in three years as first-time buyers and investors return to the market, the state Association of Realtors said.

The median price for detached, single-family homes in the most populous U.S. state likely will rise 3.3 percent to $280,000 next year, the California Association of Realtors said in its annual housing forecast, issued today. The number of sales will probably drop 2.3 percent to 527,500, following an estimated 23 percent increase this year.

“There’s this huge demand on the part of first-time buyers and investors,” Leslie Appleton-Young, chief economist for the Realtors group, said in an interview. “The demand for properties in fairly good condition exceeds the supply.”

House prices in California fell 38 percent in 2008 and have dropped about 22 percent this year as foreclosed homes have dominated the market, the Realtors group said. Next year likely will “mark the beginning of the ‘new normal’ for California’s housing market,” James Liptak, the association’s president, said today in a statement.

California single-family home prices fell 17 percent from a year earlier in August, the latest month for which figures are available, the group said last month. Sales increased 9 percent from a year earlier. Foreclosed homes accounted for 40 percent of existing-property transactions in California in August, according to research company MDA DataQuick.

‘Significant Contractions’

“You just have to look to the significant decline in prices, and you get a little bump up,” Appleton-Young said. “It’s coming off these significant contractions. A median of $280,000, which is the forecast for next year, is still pretty affordable.”

The California Association of Realtors a year ago projected that prices would decline only 6 percent to a median $358,000 this year. That’s about 32 percent above the group’s revised forecast for this year. The association projected a 13 percent increase in home sales, less than the estimated 23 percent rise this year.

“The prices went down a lot more sharply than we anticipated, and consequently the sales went up a lot more,” Appleton-Young said.

Almost three-quarters of homes now selling in California are priced at less than $500,000, while few mansions are trading, she said.

“You had a huge rebound in the lower-end properties selling and a reduction in the market share at the high end, and that really dragged the median down.”

By Daniel Taub

Oct. 7 (Bloomberg)

A Historic Time to Buy
Young people just starting to invest and buying their first homes are potentially the winners in this recession.

First-time homebuyers, most between the ages of 25 and 45, accounted for about 45 percent of home sales from January through July 2009, according to the National Association of REALTORS®

"This is a historic time," says George Jaramillo, a 35-year-old business analyst in Atlanta, who recently bought three homes, two of them foreclosures. "It's a great opportunity to make some great gains in the future."

A study by investment company T. Rowe Price points out that investing when prices are low can result in amazing gains. For instance, between 1970 and 1990, the annualized rate of return for the S&P 500 was 11.5 percent.

"We need to be shouting from the rooftops that this is not the time to get out of the market if you're young," says Christine Fahlund, a senior financial planner with T. Rowe Price. "This is the time to be in the market."

Source: The Associated Press, Chip Cutter (10/05/2009)

Here are 21 zip codes with increase in home prices in Orange County! Find out if your city is on the list!

September 15th, 2009, 11:05 am · · posted by Jon Lansner

For calendar month August – DataQuick’s freshest stats — Orange County homebuying patterns showed:

• 21 of O.C.’s 83 ZIP codes had gains in their respective median selling price. (Highlighted in green below!) Overall, prices were -2.8% vs. a year ago.
• 5 of O.C. ZIPs had median sales prices above $1 million in the period vs. 11 million-dollar ZIPs when the county median price peaked in June 2007. Since that pricing pinnacle, there’s been a -34% drop in the countywide median price!
• 40 of O.C. ZIPs had year-over-year sales gains in the period. Overall, sales were +2.8% vs. a year ago.
• 2 of O.C. ZIPs has sales gains of 100% or more in the period.
• For a detailed report on the price moves, CLICK HERE!

Here’s a look at the 83 ZIPs and how they fared in terms of median selling price and total sales for this period:

These are the stats as of Monday July 27… This will show the number of Active inventory on the market, and those that are in currently in escrow…

Yorba Linda: 304 active listings / 149 currently in escrow

Brea: 78 active listings / 53 currenlty in escrow

Fullerton: 264 active listings / 265 currently in escrow

Anaheim Hills: 128 active listings / 108 currently in escrow

Newport Coast: 197 active listings / 31 currently in escrow

Irvine: 608 active listings / 409 currently in escrow

Placentia: 92 active listings / 96 currently in escrow

Orange: 277 active listings / 262 currently in escrow

Tustin: 273 active listings / 192 currently in escrow

Corona Del Mar: 213 active listings / 33 currently in escrow

Villa Park: 39 active listings / 15 currently in escrow