At the state level, March was a record setting month for California with over 42.7k Notice of Defaults recorded. This is a 14.3% increase over February and will help produce a jump in foreclosure sales and bank owned (REO) properties during the Summer months. When we bring these numbers down to the local level, however, we notice the biggest increase in our Single Family REOs.

Antioch, already one of the hardest hit Contra Costa cities, had over 180 Single Family REOs in March. Compare this to approximately 160 recorded in February, and you notice a 12.5% month-over-month increase. Richmond, in similar fashion, went from approximately 75 Single Family REOs in February to 90 in March - a 20% month-over-month increase. Concord and Pittsburg, although having smaller numbers of properties, actually experienced much larger month-over-month increases - 35.5% for Concord and 55.8% for Pittsburg!

Take a look at the majority of the Contra Costa cities to see how the past four months of REOs have impacted each:

If you are interested in seeing the other March foreclosure trends for Contra Costa please either give me a call (925.817.8428) or send me an email and I’d be happy to provide them to you.

I don’t have the complete numbers for February yet, but missing two or three days worth of data shouldn’t have a noticeable effect on the trends … and it is the trends that are most important to us. As you are able to see, there hasn’t been a shift in the direction of the trends over the past four months:

If you are unsure of why the trends are more important to us than specific numbers, please give me a call (925.817.8428) as I’m always happy to discuss these matters.  In addition for you real estate investors out there, if you are wondering about any cashflow positive opportunities, I would also recommend a call!

I’m in the process of evaluating different Walnut Creek (and nearby) real estate investment groups in hopes of finding one or two that will provide for the best use of my time.  Although I haven’t had the opportunity to attend meetings at each of these, the following groups are on my list:

• Contra Costa Real Estate Investment Club
  • Contact: Dennis Downing
    Telephone: (925) 933-6663
    When: 2nd Wednesday of each month, 6:30pm to 9:00pm
    Where: Financial Title Company, 1676 N. California Blvd., Ste. 117 (facing plaza), Walnut Creek
• Real Wealth Network East Bay
  • Contact: Scott R. Fuller
    Telephone: (925) 567-6720
    When: 2nd Wednesday of each month, 7:00pm
    Where: Holiday Inn off Main St., Walnut Creek
• Walnut Creek Real Estate Investment Club
  • Contact: Mike Berndt
    Telephone: (510) 435-5609
    When: 3rd Tuesday of each month, 7:00pm
    Where: Lindsay Wildlife Museum, 1931 First Ave., Walnut Creek
• Real Estate Investment Club Dinner Meeting
  • Contact: Beth Winters
    Telephone: (714) 402-9303
    When: TBD
    Where: TBD, Walnut Creek and surrounding areas
• Prosperity in Motion
  • Contact: Robert Upton
    Telephone: (925) 465-9574 (please email)
    When: 3rd Tuesday of each month, 6:30pm Registration, 7:00 Meeting
    Where: Concord Hilton, Concord
• San Ramon Investment Club (SRIC)
  • Contact: Jake Chase
    Telephone: (925) 408-2969
    When: 3rd Wedneseday of each month, 6:30pm networking, 7:00pm meeting
    Where: Residential Pacific Mortgage, 3201 Danville Blvd., Ste. 195, Alamo

If you happen to have attended meetings for any of these groups, I would love to hear about it.  Otherwise, check back over the course of the next few weeks and months to read about my findings.

Happy investing!

Real Estate absorption rates are an indication of how long it would take, at the previous month’s pace, for a market to sell off its entire inventory. This value helps us gain a better understanding of the market in which we are dealing:

• Are we in a buyers or sellers market?
• How are 3 bedroom homes selling in the Palos Verdes neighborhood versus the Saranap neighborhood?
• What impact will we have if we price a home at $605k versus $599?
• If I want the best chance at negotiating a below asking price offer, should I look in Walnut Creek or Pleasant Hill?
• etc.

Absorption rates can, and should, be calculated in a number of ways depending on your interest. At a very high level, you can look at the national, state and county numbers; however, these won’t help you buy or sell a specific property. When you are dealing at the property level, it is important to look at these numbers across price boundaries, property characteristics and local areas. In the table below, I give you the absorption rates for Walnut Creek across some high level price boundaries. Since December is historically a very slow month, I provide the rate based off of the December sold numbers as well as the 2007 average sold numbers.

	Under $500k	$500k - $999k	$1M - $1.499k	$1.5M - $1.999M	Above $2M
December	37 Weeks	28.6 Weeks	39 Weeks	43.3 Weeks	8.6 Weeks
2007 Avg	24.8 Weeks	20.1 Weeks	20.3 Weeks	26 Weeks	16 Weeks

I’ve highlighted the $2M numbers because there really aren’t enough data points in this range to determine a very accurate absorption rate.

If you are buying or selling property, you owe it to yourself to know the absorption rates at a granular level. If you don’t have access to the necessary data to calculate this number yourself, feel free to give me a call and I’d be happy run the calculations.

Following the similar post on Contra Costa’s December single family home foreclosure market, here is the condo market…

Below are a series of charts depicting the breakdown of Notice of Defaults (NOD), Notice of Trustee Sales (NOT) and Real Estate Owned (REO) condos for each city in Contra Costa County. These numbers, by themselves, don’t mean much. However, if we track them week-over-week or month-over-month, we should be able to find trends that can be leveraged to our benefit…