Real Estate Round-Up: Beazer’s $53M Mortgage Fraud Settlement, Millennium State Bank Shut Down, Trulia Says It’s Still Successful and More

Beazer Homes to pay $53 million in mortgage fraud settlement — Beazer Homes USA agreed to pay $5 million to the federal government and $48 million in contingency payments to homeowners who used their mortgage company, Beazer Mortgage. Apparently allegations were that the mortgage company sold discounted points on mortgages but instead discounted nothing and kept the money. Nice!

Millennium State Bank shut down after $47 million in real estate losses — Saw this today and wondered why we don’t see more of these stories — then I realized, “Because they don’t want them publicized.” Either way, the Millennium State Bank in Dallas had $47 million in bad commercial loans before it was shut down by the state’s banking officials. If you’re keeping track, that’s 52 banks seized/shut down this year.

Trulia still says its audience is growing, despite huge disbelief — Trulia is claiming huge traffic and growing revenue although I, along with many others, tend to be skeptical. Perhaps it’s all the people going online to look at the price the bank set on their foreclosed home.

Mortgage rates fall slightly, no one really cares because they can’t get loans anyway – Mortgage rates nationally went down to 5.32 percent, a drop  from last week’s 5.42 percent. Now if only the banks would offer loans . . .

DataQuick: Half of All Bay Area Resales Are Foreclosures!

Love DataQuick. Really.

December’s numbers tell us that half of all Bay Area resales were foreclosed homes. Anyone surprised? Especially all of you out in East Contra Costa County? Also, prices are down to 2000 levels.

The median price paid for a Bay Area home was $330,000 in December. That was down 5.7 percent from $350,000 for the month before, and down 43.8 percent  from $587,500 for December 2007. That was the lowest it has been since March 2000 when the median was $320,500, and 50.4% below the $665,000 peak of June/July 2007.

All in all, it looks like prices, as well as mortgages are still finding equilibrium — generally something good for new home buyers and more disheartening for those who bought prior to 2008. The typical mortgage payment was $1,471 in December, down from $1,695 in November. Average mortgage payment was $2,848 in December 2007!

Weekly Real Estate Roundup

Low Mortgage Rates in Bay Area  Not Easy to Get

Bay Area mortgages have gotten all dressed up but they have nowhere to go because many prospective borrowers can’t qualify.

Average rates for home loans have plunged below 5 percent for the first time on record, Freddie Mac reported Thursday. But squeamish lenders, the credit squeeze, intensified scrutiny and shrunken staffing for the finance industry have coalesced to hamper consumers on the hunt for a mortgage.

“The meltdown in the mortgage industry has caused a knee-jerk reaction from lenders and underwriters,” said Ginny Ferguson, president of Pleasanton-based Heritage Valley Mortgage. “We are getting loans done. But they are closing at a snail’s pace.”

Sonoma Sales Up, Prices Down

Sonoma County home sales surged again in December as plummeting prices drew buyers into a market packed with properties unloaded by banks and sellers avoiding foreclosure.

The 408 sales was a four-year high for December, the ninth consecutive annual increase in the county and more than double the number from a year ago, according to The Press Democrat monthly home sales report.

Yet prices fell to a seven-year low, indicating the region’s housing downturn is far from a bottom. The median price dropped to $325,000 in December, down 30.3 percent from a year ago, because purchases continue to be concentrated at lower prices.

For the Brave, the Moment is Now

WHILE the Titans of Wall Street now tremble at the thought of buying an apartment in this faltering real estate market, an emerging group of buyers is brave enough to look the Cyclops of uncertainty in the eye and begin shopping and even sign purchase contracts.

Many of these buyers have never received a fat bonus check, so they don’t miss it now. They did not suffer huge stock market losses, because they didn’t have huge stock market investments. They aren’t mourning the loss of value in their existing co-ops or condos, because they have never owned one.

They have jobs and good credit ratings, and they are looking to buy.

And now, brokers say, these mostly first-time homeowners are taking advantage of reduced apartment prices and interest rates that have fallen to the lowest levels in a generation. They’re making deals — sometimes far below asking price — on apartments marketed for under $1 million, and especially under $500,000.

The Winery/Golf Course Blues

Yes, someone paid $500,000 for one of these homes in Patterson, Calif. (Peter DaSilva/NYTimes)

My nemesis and Seattle carpetbagger fellow Bay Area freelance writer, Kristina Shevory, wrote an interesting article about buying into Diablo Grande Winery & Resort in Patterson, Calif. It turns out, like all grand developments opened in 2007, going belly-up and sold at auction. Although one family in the article, the Gardalis, bought  a $500,000 home (I know, $500,000 in Patterson? Someone needs meds) on one of the two golf courses, the winery and golf courses have shut down. To add insult to injury, they also paid $25,000 for membership to the golf club . . . which is no longer in existence. Turns out such dealings are commonplace now:

The National Golf Foundation, a separate industry group, says there are some 16,000 golf courses of every type in the United States, including more than 3,200 that are linked to residential real estate developments. Over 50 residential courses have closed since 2006.

OK, We All Know Prices are Down.

How many stories do we need to say that, prices are down, 2009 is going to be AWFUL! and that if you can hold off buying for another six months, you are going to get a deal?

OK, here goes, from the Wall Street Journal:

In October, six metro areas showed annual price drops of more than 25%, and three — Phoenix, Las Vegas and San Francisco — posted declines greater than 30%. Dallas and Charlotte, N.C., had the best showing among the 20 cities tracked, with a 3% annual decline in the Dallas metropolitan area and a 4.4% decline in the Charlotte market.

Bay Area Average Price: $350,000 — Just Like in 2000

DataQuick came out today with their monthly sales numbers for November — nothing terribly surprising except the average price in Contra Costa County was $265,000. I think that’s affordable for most people. I guess all those $50,000 homes in Gun Point Bay Point helped.

	Sales Volume			Median Price
All homes	Nov-07	Nov-08	%Chng	Nov-07	Nov-08	%Chng
Alameda	985	1,182	20.0%	$565,000	$356,500	-36.90%
Contra Costa	879	1,423	61.9%	$528,500	$265,000	-49.90%
Marin	206	155	-24.8%	$871,000	$625,000	-28.20%
Napa	81	93	14.8%	$562,000	$406,500	-27.70%
Santa Clara	1,317	1,120	-15.0%	$678,000	$450,000	-33.60%
San Francisco	479	340	-29.0%	$814,750	$648,000	-20.50%
San Mateo	504	398	-21.0%	$780,000	$580,500	-25.60%
Solano	313	596	90.4%	$375,550	$234,500	-37.60%
Sonoma	363	449	23.7%	$470,000	$310,000	-34.00%
Bay Area	5,127	5,756	12.3%	$629,000	$350,000	-44.40%

Source: DataQuick Information Systems, www.DQNews.com

According to the story, the $350K price tag is the same as September 2000. Wow! you say. That’s not the half of it: