Santa Monica California Real Estate Market Reality

The Santa Monica California real estate market continues to remain strong.

 Here is my latest analysis of Santa Monica real estate:

 Single Family Homes in Santa Monica 

• July 2010 sales total: 23
• Current Pending Sales: 48
• Active Listings: 114

Distressed Single Family Property Watch in Santa Monica, CA:

There are 2 single family home Bank-Owned/REOs for sale in Santa Monica

There are 3 single family Short Sales for sale in Santa Monica

This represents that 4.5% of the Santa Monica single family home real estate market is distressed properties for sale.

Active Single Family Homes for Sale in Santa Monica by price range:

Unde...

Being that the real estate climate is what it is these days, it would seem that lenders would be begging for short sales. If you ask: “why would a lender consider a short sale where they receive less than they are owed?”, I’m here to tell you there is a huge and obvious reason…they will lose more if they foreclose. A foreclosure can cost a lender an extra $40,000-$60,000 in attorney fees, trustee fees, holding costs and maintenance expense on every foreclosed property.

I won’t lie to you and tell you that short sales are easy. In fact, my experience is that they are anything but easy. It’s a very dynamic process with lost of moving parts and the lenders keep changing the rules as we go a...

On April 14^th, there was a big announcement by Fannie Mae in an effort to support overall market stability and to certainly reinforce the importance of borrowers to work with their lenders when they have difficulty repaying their mortgage. Fannie Mae has updated several policies that pertain specifically to the future eligibility of borrowers to obtain a new mortgage loan after a short sale. Fannie Mae has also updated the requirements for determining that borrowers have re-established their credit after a significant derogatory credit event. You can read about how these changes affect you if you are pursuing a short sale by clicking here.

"Home Seizures By Bank Set Records" was the title of the article published on MSN just the other day. It's really worth the read if you want to fully understand what's happening in the real estate world. This morning, I had my head in the market stats for the 10 primary areas of Los Angeles that I serve: Santa Monica, Venice, Marina de Rey, West Los Angeles, Brentwood, Westwood/Century City, Cheviot Hills, Culver City, Mar Vista and discovered that the number of foreclosures and short sales on the market has risen almost 15% in March over February.

Foreclousre is bad business for the banks. It was also evident from looking at the recent Notice of Default filings for the Westside of Los A...