The number of short sale listings in Logan Utah continues to rise as home prices decline. Nationwide, the average median home sales price is now at 2002 levels, it’s not that low in Logan, but over the last three months the median sales price of $156,250 is the lowest Cache County has seen since 2007. The current average list prices are the lowest they’ve been in even longer.

Cache County currently has 64 short sale listings in Cache Valley, or 8.82% of the 726 Logan MLS listings. The number of short sale homes is rising, because people who bought homes between 2007-2010 that need to sell now, are often upside down. They purchased their homes for far more than they can sell their homes for now. Expect this trend to continue until home prices stabilize.
via Logan Utah Real Estate Market Conditions: Short Sales Rising as Home Prices Declining.

Real Estate Inventory in Cache Valley Utah continues to drop. There are now just 699 MLS listings in Cache Valley.

This is the lowest Logan real estate inventory levels have been in more than a year. Traditionally, there are more listings at the end of February than the beginning. This year the trend has reversed as at the beginning of the mont there were 704 Logan homes for sale. This is a positive sign that the housing market might return to balanced levels near the end of the year.

The number of listed short sale homes in Cache County has declined one home, but with less homes for sale, the percentage of short sales actually rose. 8.58% of the active home listings are short sales including 29 properties in Logan, and 35 homes in the outlying Cache Valley communities.

via Logan Utah Real Estate Market Conditions: Less than 700 Homes for Sale in Cache Valley.

With home prices declining, and more people who bought during the housing boom that need to sell now, the number of short sale homes in Logan, UT is rising.

If more homes don’t start selling, and if home prices don’t start going up soon the number of foreclosures in Cache Valley will also see increases in the near future.

via Logan Utah Real Estate Market Conditions.

While overall real estate inventory is on the decline as the Winter Months begin, the number of short sale homes is up. Decreased home prices in Cache County are leading to more underwater homeowners, and more Logan Short Sales.

There are 828 residential homes for sale in Cache County right now. 51 (6.16%) of these homes are short sales. One interesting trend is that the number of short sales in Logan city itself has substantially risen. Logan has 21 short sales, up from 14 last month. The smaller cities in Cache Valley have 30 short sale listings, down from 35 last month.

via Logan Utah Real Estate Market Conditions: Short Sale Numbers Up in Logan.

It looks like the number of short sales and foreclosure homes are on the rise in Cache County Utah. Right now 5.2% of the current homes for sale in Logan UT,  are listed as short sales. This is up nearly a percent and a half from July when just 3.62% of the homes for sale in Cache Valley were short sales. Logan itself has 12 short sales while the rest of Cache Valley has 34.

Compared with the rest of Utah, the number of short sale homes in Cache Valley are still very low. The Logan area has about 3 times less short sales than the next metro area. The further South you go, the higher the percentage of short sale homes you find. In the Ogden Real Estate market, 14.1 of the homes listed are short sales. 16.1% of the homes in Davis County are short sales as are 19.8 percent of Tooele Utah Real Estate listings. Salt Lake Real Estate has 22.4% of listed homes short sales, and Utah County is slightly worse with 22.5%.

The St. George area has the highest percentage of both short sales and foreclosures. One out of every four Southern Utah Homes for Sale is a short sale.

The high number of short sale homes is real evidence of how much home prices have gone down. It also makes the home buying process significantly more difficult.

If you are a Utah home buyer fed up with looking at and making offers on short sale properties, Cache Valley is the area where you may want to shop for real estate.

After months and months of complaining that the time required for short sales is too long, it looks like change has actually happened. According to the Campbell study, the average time short sales are on the market during July was 15.8 weeks. this is down nearly 5 weeks compared with February when the average short sale was on the market for 20.5 weeks.

The number of offers submitted before a short sale was actually completed was also down. The average short sale sold during June had 2.7 offers compared with 3.2 offers in June.

Still, major banks like Bank of America take about four months for a short sale to be approved. But, this is much improved from last year when it took nearly a year before bank of America would approve a short sale.

via Good News, The Average Time for Short Sale Approval Is Down | Short Sales.

The number of homes listed as short sales has risen in Logan over the past month. While the total number of Cache County real estate listings is nearly identical to a month ago, the percentage of these homes requiring bank approval has increased. 4.75 percent of the listed homes in Cache Valley are short sales.

via Logan Utah Real Estate Market Conditions: Short Sale Numbers Up in Logan.

The increased number of short sales could be partially attributed to homes that were under contract, that now are not. The long term effect of more short sales is result of lower home prices and a poorer economy.

So I just ran the numbers to see the latest trends for Logan Utah Short Sales, and unless the MLS changed the way short sales are calculated, short sale numbers in Logan are way down. Of the 812 homes listed for sale right now, just 29 Logan Real Estate listings are short sales. This is nearly 33% less than last time I ran the numbers a month in a half ago.

Just 3.59% of the homes listed for sale in Cache County are listed as Short Sales. This is substantially down from the stable trend over the past six months.

This is really good news for the health of the Logan Real Estate market. Fewer short sales likely indicates fewer future foreclosures.

A recent stat shows that 23.3% of all US homes are underwater, meaning that the owners of these properties owe more on their home than what it is actually worth.  If these homeowners need to sell, they generally have to do it by means of Short Sales. Unless they have reserves of Cash stashed away, which thy usually don’t, this is about the only option to avoid foreclosure.

Because of the high numbers of short sales, banks are losing a ton of money. In my recent America First Credit Union annual newsletter, it was made apparent that the 2009 loss from bad loans was substantially worse than the year before.

Mortgage Insurance was created to insure banks losses from default home loans. However, the Mortgage Insurance providers are going out of business because they never anticipated losses would be this bad.

In effort too salvage some money, and make up for the lack of funds covered by mortgage insurance, Bank of America is attempting to collect promissory notes from the owners requesting short sales. One of our Cornerstone Agents is working with a client who owes more than $300,000 on a house. They currently have a short sale offer on it for $200,000. The bank is willing to approve the short sale, IF the owner will sign a 20 year promissory note for $55,000. This would give the default borrower a payment of about $250 for the next 20 years.

This is a good move by Bank of America, but the problem is that for borrowers like the one in this example, short sales are less appealing than just letting the home foreclose.  At this point the borrowers credit is already shot, and the only thing they would be saving is the term “foreclosure” on their credit report. Is it worth $55,000 to avoid that term? Not for these borrowers.

From Bank of Americas standpoint, by not approving the short sale they are going to lose even more money by having to pay the legal fees associated with foreclosure. Then, after the foreclosure, they still have to sell the house at a price that is nowhere near worth what the owners borrowed against it.

While it is a good move to try and make the default borrowers more accountable, they have to do it in a way that will actually make sense. Making the guidelines too strict will just make things worse for all parties involved.

I am always trying to stay on top of the national real estate news, and right now the big subject of topic is with Foreclosures and “Shadow Inventory.” Shadow inventory is essentially default homes that will eventually foreclose. Many national economists and housing experts are predicting that the foreclosure problem is only going to get worse. Many banks have held back on releasing foreclosure properties to the real estate market. When these foreclosures do start flooding the market as additional, undervalued properties, US home prices will continue to decline.

Nationally, around 30% of all home sales are distressed short sales or foreclosed properties right now. About 6% of the total housing market is “distressed.”Since 2006, national home values have declined by 30%, and according to Barclay’s, are likely to decline an additional 3-5% over the next few years.

Living, and practicing real estate in Logan Utah is really good news. Our short sale, distressed and foreclosure numbers are nowhere near the national averages. Our average home values have remained fairly stable.

Currently less than 6% of the homes for Sale in Cache Valley are short sales. Short sale properties make up a good portion of the future “shadow inventory”. If the short sales sell, they will never actually become foreclosures. Less than 2% of the homes for sale in Cache County are Foreclosures. According to Foreclosure.com, there are just 26 “preforeclosure” or default properties in the Logan area right now.

Unless things drastically change, increased foreclosure rate and “shadow inventory” shouldn’t really make much of an impact on the Logan Utah Real Estate market.