Orange County home prices will fall 1.3% in the next year, according to the latest forecast from real estate tracker Veros from Santa Ana.

Veros’ forecast is based on its tracking potential price changes in  mid-priced single-family homes in our market in the year ended March 2012. Says Veros’ Eric Fox:

Key variables for Orange Co. forecast are the continued supply of homes which is now higher than it was in early 2010 … low interest rates and good affordability are keeping it from being worse than the supply alone would suggest. For a turnaround, supply will have to come down consistently — and that probably means in the absence of something like a tax credit, people will buy homes and exhaust the excess supply.

Nationwide, Veros sees these markets with the best potential in the next year …

1. Anchorage, +3.8%
2. Amarillo, +3%
3. Shreveport/Bossier City, La., +2.7%
4. Buffalo/Niagra Falls, +2.4%
5. Pittsburgh, +2.3%

And the weakest ….

1. Reno/Sparks, -6.4%
2. Boise, -6.1%
3. Portland, -5.4%
4. Orlando, -5.2%
5. Las Vegas, -5.1%

Says Veros’ report: “The 12-month forecast indicates that the market is maintaining its current feeble state. Market is still in a corrective state and not fully on the road to recovery. However, signs of extreme double-digit depreciation are all but gone from the current forecast, as are any markets providing significant downward momentum, as was the norm in the forecasts of 2009.”

Forecast: O.C. home prices to dip 1.3% in year is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Highlights of DataQuick’s Orange County homebuying report. For the 22 business days ending March 14 – the latest numbers — Orange County’s real estate market saw …

• Median selling price for all residences of $418,300 – that is off 0.9% vs. a year ago.
• Total Orange County sales of 1,929 residences closed in the latest period — that is off down 13.3% vs. a year ago.
• Note: 8 of 83 Orange County ZIPs had both rising sales and prices in the period. Is your ZIP one of those neighborhoods? To see, CLICK HERE!

Here’s the breakdown of recent activity by key category; included is how the latest results compare to the average monthly sales pace from 1988 through 2010:

And more analysis ….

• $418,300 median selling price is up 2% since the year started.
• This  median  is 35% below June 2007′s peak of $645,000.
• Current price is 7.0% below 2010′s peak (May and July) of $450,000.
• The most recent median is 13% above the cyclical low hit in January 2009 at $370,000 — so the median has recouped 18% of the $275,000 price drop from the peak.
• Compared to cyclical low, single-family house median is 16% higher ($418,250 in January 2009); condo median is 13% higher ($252,000 in March 2009.) Builder prices for new homes are 18% above June 2009′s $424,000 bottom.
• The median selling price of a single-family home is 34% less than their peak pricing (June ’07). Condos sell 39% below their peak in March 2006. Builder prices for new homes are 42% below their February ’05 top.
• Single-family homes were 70% more expensive than condos in this period vs. 76% a year ago. From 1988-2010, the average house/condo gap was 57%.
• Builder’s new homes sales were 9% of all residences sold in the period vs. 4% a year ago. From 1988-2010, builders did 14% of the Orange County homeselling.

For some real estate context …

Vote in our real estate polls! Just CLICK HERE!

O.C. homebuying 13% slower than 2010 is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

For the 22 business days ending March 14 – DataQuick’s freshest stats — the Orange County real estate market had homebuying patterns showing:

• 37 of O.C.’s 83 ZIP codes with gains in their respective median selling price. Overall, buyers’ prices were -0.9% vs. a year ago.
• Taking sales volume in consideration, home-sale pricing is up in ZIPs representing 23% of the Orange County market.
• 5 of 83 O.C. ZIPs with 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 35% drop in the countywide median price!
• Current million-dollar ZIPs were 3% of all sales in the most recent period tracked.
• There were 5 ZIPs with medians under $250,000 vs. 4 a year ago. ZIPs with medians under a quarter million had 5% of all sales in the most recent period.
• 58 of 83 O.C. ZIPs had year-over-year sales declines in the period — or 70% of the market.
• Overall, countywide sales were down 13.3% vs. a year ago.
• 1 of 83 O.C. ZIPs has sales gains of 100% or more in the period at the same time as 4 had sales drops greater than 50%!
• NOTE! 8 local ZIPs had both sales gains and price gains in the period. (Highlighted in green below!) These double-gainers had combined sales volume equal to 9% of the Orange County market.
• For a detailed report on the price moves, CLICK HERE!

Below is a look at the 83 ZIPs and how they fared in terms of median selling price and total sales for this period.

Also, want to see what kind of housing the median price buys in a specific neighborhood? Click on the ZIP code, and you’ll see current for-sale listings in the median’s “ballpark” — a range from 10% below to 10% above — in that ZIP …

Home prices up in 37 ZIPs! Yours? is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Real estate news and views from around the globe that make you go, “Really?”

• SILICON CHATEAU: A Russian billionaire paid $100 million for a French chateau-style mansion in Silicon Valley, marking the highest known price paid for a single-family home in the U.S. (WSJ) MORE HERE!
• LOANS TO LIBYA: A Libyan-owned bank drew at least $5 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve as credit markets seized up in 2008 and 2009. (Bloomberg) MORE HERE!
• DON’T HOLD YOUR BREATH: The housing recovery could be further off than you think, writes reporter Carla Fried. (CBS Money Watch) MORE HERE!
• HOUSING HORROR: A 34-year-old woman ended up being held captive at a New England home and sexually assaulted for days after following up on an ad on Craigslist. (Boston Herald) MORE HERE!
• WEIRD BUT BEAUTIFUL: The Earthship, a castle and a dune house make up some of these 10 “weird but beautiful homes.” (Choices Blog) MORE HERE!
• HAUNTED HOUSE: Take this with a grain of salt: A British family maintains they are being terrorized by poltergeists in a haunted house. (UK’s Metro) MORE HERE!
• TONGUE IN CHEEK: The top 0.1% wealthiest people in America say the recession is  “pish posh.” (OK, so this is a satire. Or is it?). (HuffPost Commedy) MORE HERE!

Really? $100 million home sale sets U.S. record is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Courtesy of Marcus & Millichap - click to enlarge

Seal Beach will pay $2 million for 6.5 acres of riverfront land, saving most of the beach-close parcel from development, Register writer Roxana Kopetman has reported.

Under the deal, the owner would be allowed to sell off 48 new home sites on the remaining portion of the land.

The 10.7-acre tract is located along the San Gabriel River at First Street and Marina Drive, just north of a beach parking lot and the River’s End Cafe. The site is one of just two large undeveloped parcels left in Seal Beach’s Old Town.  (Click on map below to enlarge).

The property came on the market for $26.5 million in August 2008. A 160-foot driveway across the land to the River’s End parking lot has been assessed at  $5 million.

“The city got it at a real bargain price,” said Ed Selich, who represents the development firm, Bay City Partners.

The current plan for the property calls for a 150-room hotel. When it came on the market in 2008, however, a broker for the owners said that the lot is big enough for a 300-room hotel or for 65 to 80 luxury homes.

The city and Bay City Partners sued each other in 2009, according to Kopetman’s story. The lawsuits were dismissed last week as part of a settlement announced Monday night.

Both sides get something from the agreement.

It ensures that the parking lot driveway and the San Gabriel River Bike Trail — both of which cross over the property — will remain open to the public. The city also gets an additional 6.5 acres of open space.

And the owner will be allowed to sell 48 home sites.

Bay City Partners plans to sell the lots to individuals and small builders, probably in the $800,000 to $1 million range, Selich said. If the lots sell in that price range, the developers will gross $38 million to $48 million.

Read the full story HERE!

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Seal Beach buying riverfront land is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Barrack

Tom Barrack’s Colony Capital is the first investor on the scene after commercial broker Grubb & Ellis announced that it was searching for new partners or a buyer for a cash infusion.

In its third Orange County venture in three years, Colony Capital LLC will make an $18 million loan to the Santa Ana-based chain and will be granted an exclusive 60-day negotiating period during which it can evaluate a potential larger strategic investment with Grubb & Ellis.

In a news release, Grubb CEO Thomas D’Arcy said:

“Colony Capital is a premier real estate investment and advisory firm with a strong track record of identifying undervalued real estate and corporate investment opportunities, and we welcome their support and the confidence they have shown in Grubb & Ellis. We will work with Colony over the next 60 days as they focus on a possible larger strategic transaction. With this show of support by Colony, our clients and partners should feel confident that our experienced team of professionals will continue to provide the same outstanding service that they have come to expect from us.”

The deal gives Grubb 25 business days to solicit competing offers should Colony Capital agree to a sale or partnership, the company said.

Barrack, Colony Capital’s chief, was one of the first big guns in real estate investing to sell off his assets in 2005 just as the slump was starting, then was one of the first to jump back into the game in the fall of 2009 by placing bets at what he saw as the bottom.

One of his first investments was arrange up to $206 million in funding for William Lyon Homes. In recent months, Colony Capital formed an alliance with Irvine’s Argent Management LLC, formed by some of SunCal Companies’ top executives, to manage $1.2 billion in delinquent loans.

Grubb & Ellis, which moved to Orange County just three years ago, announced last week that it hired San Francisco equity research and brokerage company JMP Securities to “explore strategic alternatives, including the potential sale or merger of the company.”

Billionaire makes 3rd real estate bet in O.C. is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

All-cash home buying is surging across the United States, including in Orange County, as lenders tighten mortgage standards, middle-class buyers are sidelined and investors see opportunity.

Nationwide, cash buyers grabbed 33 percent of all used homes sold in February, the National Association of Realtors reported March 21. The figures, based on agent reporting, do not include foreclosure auctions on courthouse steps, which are usually cash-only.

In Orange County and California real estate, DataQuick Information Systems reports similar trends based on county recordings that do not show any purchase loan.

Cash-only sales have more than doubled in Orange County, from a monthly average of 10.4 percent in the past 23 years to a monthly average of 24 percent in the past 12 months, DataQuick statistics show. In January, all-cash sales hit 28.3 percent in the county – the highest for any month since DataQuick started tracking the figure in 1988.

READ THE FULL STORY AND SEE PHOTOS OF O.C. HOMES BOUGHT WITHOUT MORTGAGE

All-cash deals reach 33 percent of home sales is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Veteran Southern California real estate analyst G.U. Krueger regularly adds his commentary on the housing market to this blog in a spot we call “Thursday Morning Quarterback.” Here’s his second installment. …

PREVIOUSLY

Orange County builders, who are always in search of finished lots, are saying that housing inventory is tight. But is it really?

Shadow-supply-siders, in contrast, point incessantly to a looming hidden supply of distresses properties. They act as if foreclosures are new housing supply. It obviously is not, because when a house forecloses it is not adding anything to housing supply, it just rotates to new ownership as it gets recycled.

In order to clear the fog, it might be useful to look at Census’ American Community Survey to do basic supply and demand accounting of Orange County housing stock. Taking 2006 as a benchmark for the bubble peak, one can look at what happened to owner and renter stock, and various vacancies from ’06 to ’09 …

• A big 21,000 decline in owner stock. This rotated into renter stock, which increased by 31,000 units.
• Deduct 4,760 new households since 2006; take out replacement demand of 9,300 due to obsolescence of aging housing stock; add the somewhat fuzzy vacancy category of 10,430 other vacant homes.
• Housing supply “excess” turns out to have been 6,660 units in 2009 — not that much and a sum that could be burnt off by replacement demand alone in a mere two years.

Looking forward, Orange County builders will build at a measured pace. Using the somewhat optimistic UCLA housing permit numbers for 2010 and their forecast for 2011, one can add 3,400 new housing units in 2010 and 2011 to the equation. If new household formation in 2010 and 2011 runs at an average 4,000 a year, this would quickly erase the Orange County housing supply excess by the end of 2011. Already apartment vacancy rates dropped from a peak of 7.8% in 2009 Q2 to 6.3% in 2010 Q4, an indication that burn off of housing supply is well under way.

So, any housing excess will be gone by the end of 2011. At that point. Orange County could quickly create another housing shortage in 2012, 2013 and beyond. In other words, the builders are more right and the shadow supply meisters are wrong.

Unfortunately, what this means is that Orange County will revisit its number one competitiveness issue of not providing enough housing for its workers. From an economic development point of view expect déjà vu of a housing affordability crisis building in 2012.

Analyst: O.C. housing shortage coming soon is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Real estate news and views from around the globe that make you go, “Really?”

• EMBARRASSED? Homeowners in the Kansas town of Salina are filing property tax assessment appeals — saying that their homes are under-assessed. (Salina Journal) MORE HERE!
• TIGER’S MEGA-YACHT FOR SALE: Golf champ Tiger Woods is seeking a $5 million increase for his 155-foot yacht — to $25 million. Annual upkeep alone costs $2 million. (Palm Beach Post) MORE HERE!
• STUDIO SALE: Financially strapped KCET-TV is in talks to sell its landmark Sunset Boulevard studio to the Church of Scientology, according to people who know about the pending deal. (L.A. Times) MORE HERE!
• CHOPPER TURBULENCE: Residents of West Hollywood West are up in arms over a plan to land helicopters at a nearby luxury hotel. (Patch.com) MORE HERE!
• STAMPING OUT HAMP: House Republicans pushed through legislation Tuesday to terminate an underachieving Obama administration program designed to reduce mortgage payments for homeowners facing foreclosure. (Associated Press) MORE HERE!
• HOUSING RX: The housing market will be just fine if unemployment goes down, foreclosures go away and more buyers take a risk. The trouble is, none of those things are happening. (U.S. News) MORE HERE!

Really? Homeowners seek higher taxes is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Minkow: Pleaded guilty to securities fraud on Wednesday/Mark Rightmire, The Register

Ex-con turned fraud crusader Barry Minkow pleaded guilty in a Florida federal court today to defaming homebuilder Lennar Corp. and agreed to cooperate in the prosecution of others tied to an alleged extortion scheme, according the U.S. Attorney’s office and to a plea agreement entered today.

In exchange for Minkow’s full cooperation, federal prosecutors agree to seek a reduced sentence for Minkow, although the judge won’t be bound by the agreement.

Minkow, 44, pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

The plea agreement revealed further that Minkow’s January 2009 charge that Lennar was “a financial crime in progress” cost the homebuilder almost $584 million after its stock price crashed. The accusation included allegations that Lennar’s Orange County-based chief operating officer, Jon Jaffe, received an improper loan on his Laguna Beach home.

Minkow, a San Diego resident, is a former financial whiz kid who made a fortune two decades ago, only to end up in prison after his ZZZZ Best carpet cleaning business turned out to based on widespread securities fraud.

After prison, he became a church pastor and founded the Fraud Discovery Institute to uncover corporate wrong doing. Minkow won the FBI’s trust for his role in exposing fraud. On the other hand, he made a profit by placing stock bets against the targeted companies whose stock price fell after his revelations became public.

In today’s plea agreement, Minkow confessed that he had been hired to defame Lennar by a disgruntled business partner who was seeking money from the homebuilder. When Lennar failed to pay, the partner – identified as “Conspirator A” – sent a letter to Lennar’s board threatening to “air .. dirty little secrets” of Lennar executives if they didn’t capitulate, the plea agreement said. The agreement said further:

“When Lennar Corp. refused to capitulate to Conspirator A’s extortionate demands, Conspirator A hired Minkow to apply economic pressure on Lennar Corp. by artificially depressing the … Lennar Corp.’s capital stock.

” …Minkow and others made numerous false and misleading statements about the management and operation of Lennar Corp.”

• Did defamation fight cost builder over $37 million?
• FBI informant charged in Lennar stock scam
• Fraud crusader to plead guilty to insider trading
• Lennar sues ex-con who questions O.C. exec’s mortgage
• MINKOW PROFILE: Ex-con serves God and fights fraud

Ex-con pleads guilty to defaming builder is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Click to enlarge

Real estate tracker CoreLogic estimates that 1.8 million U.S. residences are in what’s dubbed “shadow” inventory of homes for sale — distressed properties not currently listed on multiple listing services that are seriously delinquent, in foreclosure or already owned by lenders.

This count of shadow supply — a cache of distressed properties that would take approximately nine months to sell in current market conditions –is down 10% from 2 million units a year ago.

January’s 1.8-million home shadow inventory supply breaks down to: 870,000 seriously delinquent but not in foreclosure yet;  445,000 in some stage of foreclosure and 470,000 owned by lenders. Shadow supply is believed to be a major drag on housing ability to recovery from its recent, deep slump as it adds pricing pressure — and uncertainty — to the market.

On top of the 1.8-million-home shadow inventory, CoreLogic found another nearly 2 million residences where the homes value is less than half of what is owed on the residence. CoreLogic believes that these severely “upside down” homes will likely become part of shadow supply in the near future.

Mark Fleming, CoreLogic chief economist, said” “While the trend of the shadow inventory is improving somewhat, the current level and distressed months’ supply remain very high. The short-term weakness in prices and longer-term weakness in the drivers that affect the housing market imply that excess supply will remain high for an extended period of time.”

1.8 million homes hidden in ‘shadow’ inventory is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Joan Irvine Smith is selling The Oaks, the 20-acre San Juan Capistrano farm where she’s been breeding horses for 26 years, Register staff writer Brittany Levine reports.

The Irvine-family heiress is seeking around $20 million for the property after reluctantly deciding to scale back her activities to concentrate more on her environmental and philanthropic efforts.

“The Oaks in San Juan Capistrano has brought me great joy over the years and the creation of this lovely farm has been one of my greatest accomplishments,” Smith said in a statement.

The property — site of both Smith’s home and the Irvine family office — has horse stables, training areas and 200-year-old oak trees. In its heyday the farm bred 50 to 60 American sport horses a year. Last year it bred five and this year, it plans to breed two, Levine wrote.

Smith (left)  is interested in finding someone who plans to continue to use the space for horses.

“This is not the world where a buyer comes in and wants to scrape it and turn it into a development with houses and apartments,” Sheri Grady-Merkle, president and general manager of The Oaks, told Levine. “We’re looking for a wealthy individual that would want to bring horses to the facility.”

Read the full story HERE!

Joan Irvine Smith selling farm for $20 million is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Are hotel discounts thing of the past? The lodging experts at Colliers PKF report that Orange County hotels in January saw room rates rose 6.1% in a year (that’s a $7.91 a night jump to $137.57!) Meanwhile, hotel owners enjoy fewer empty rooms as 2011 started with 58.7% of their rooms filled in January vs. 55.8% the year earlier.

Also …

• As benchmark: Orange County room rates fell 0.4% in 2010 after tumbling 13% in 2009. Hotel occupancy ran 70% in all of 2010 and 67% in 2009.
• All told, countywide “Revpar” — a key hotel cash-flow measure tracking rates and occupancy — was up 11.4% for January vs. a year ago.
• For this latest month, the pricest rooms were in Surf City while North O.C. offered on average the cheapest nights.
• Fewest vacancies in the county were in Airport area while Anaheim had the emptiest hotels on average around the county.
• By region, 7 of the 7 slices of the county PKF tracks had year-over-year room rate gains; 7 of the 7 slices had occupancy gains; and 7 of the 7 has “RevPar” increases.

Note: Chart at right shows the month’s average room rate; year’s change in rates; occupancy (occ.) and year’s change; plus the year’s change in “revpar” (Rev. ch.)

O.C. hotel room rates jump 6% is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

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O.C. property owners are raising the prices they want for their properties as the spring selling season begins, according to HousingTracker.net.

That’s interesting because what’s selling seems to be of the cheaper variety. Note that DataQuick’s latest Orange County homebuying report — for the 22 business days ending March 7 – saw the median selling price for all residences off 1.2% vs. a year ago vs. a year ago — and that modest discounting meant sales closed were off 11.5% vs. a year ago.

So what can we learn about Orange County sellers’ thinking from HousingTracker, which watches trends in asking prices from brokers’ MLS system of homes for sale. HousingTracker also breaks down its data into a pair of neat markers — the 25th and 7th percentiles that let us see how the market’s upper crust and more modest abodes are faring.

From the March report we see:

At the 25th percentile — the median of the lower half of the price spectrum of local homes for sale…

• Selling price was $299,000 – that is up 1.06% vs. the previous month. This is the 2nd consecutive month-to-month gain in pricing at the lower end.
• The latest 25th percentile price is down 5.6% vs. a year ago. This is the 4th consecutive year-over-year cut in asking prices for these more “affordable” homes.
• Over two years, there’s been a 6.6% increase change in prices set by sellers of these more affordable local homes.

At the 75th percentile — the median of the upper half of the price spectrum of local homes for sale …

• Selling price was $648,447 – that is up 1.15% vs. the previous month and down 11.9% vs. a year ago.
• This is the first gain since June and the 12th consecutive year-over-year cut in asking prices for these more “affordable” homes.
• Over two years, prices asked are down 11.8% on homes in this slice of upper-crust Orange County homes.

Also …

• The gap between these two price points was 117% — flat vs. the previous month nut below 132% a year earlier. The gap peaked at 167% in June and July 2009.
• The overall Orange County median listing price, by this math, was $419,975 – that is 0.2% vs. the previous month and down 6.9% vs. a year ago. Over two years, there’s been an 1.8% drop.
• Supply of Orange County homes for sale in March averaged 13,990 – 16.7% increase vs. a year ago and 0.9% jump vs. same month two years back.

O.C. homeowners raising asking prices is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Real estate news and views from around the globe that make you go, “Really?”

• MEGAMANSION: A five-acre property in Los Angeles’ Benedict Canyon is being developed into a compound with 85,000 square feet of living space — including two mansions with 43,000 and 27,000 square feet apiece. (AOL Real Estate and L.A. Times) MORE HERE and HERE!
• WORLD’S WORST MARKET: Ireland has the worst housing market on the planet, with home values down almost 11%. The U.S.? Seventh worst. (Business Insider) MORE HERE!
• CARDS TRUMP HOUSE PAYMENT: Americans are more likely to pay their credit card bills than their mortgages, a study says. In the fourth quarter of 2010, 7.24% paid their credit cards but not their mortgages vs. 3.03% who did the opposite. (Chicago Breaking Business) MORE HERE!
• TAX COLLECTIONS DROP: U.S. property-tax collections dropped in the last three months of 2010 by the most since home prices peaked more than four years ago. (Bloomberg) MORE HERE!

Really? Prince plans 85,000-square-foot house is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Minkow: Expected to plead guilty to securities fraud this week/Mark Rightmire, The Register

Lennar Corp. CEO Stuart Miller implied during an earnings conference call today that the Miami-based homebuilder spent more than $37.5 million defending its reputation against accusations that included an Orange County-based executive.

Miller referred to the filing of a federal securities fraud charge last week against ex-con turned anti-fraud crusader Barry Minkow.

Minkow had issued statements and news releases in January 2009 calling Lennar “a financial crime in progress.” He also accused Lennar’s No. 2 man, Orange County-based Chief Operating Officer Jon Jaffe, of accepting an improper loan on his Laguna Beach home.

Miller stopped short of claiming vindication in today’s call, but emphasized that people at Lennar “place the highest premium on integrity and work diligently to make sure that when we speak, every word can be trusted.”

Lennar also reported that it received a $37.5 million settlement stemming from litigation involving an undisclosed “third party” in the case.

Details of the settlement were confidential, Miller said. But, he added, “The ($37.5 million) recovery repays some of the dollars that have been spent defending our reputation and demonstrates the conviction of our company when its reputation is attacked.”

Miller said further:

“Immediately following … Minkow’s accusations against Lennar, we countered with facts and figures to highlight that these claims were false. At Lennar, we place the highest premium on integrity and work diligently to make sure that when we speak, every word can be trusted, not as spin, but as truth. We hope we have earned your respect in the way that we report our numbers each quarter and year by the way that we deal with customers, partners and investors alike.”

Minkow’s allegations prompted the FBI to launch a criminal investigation into Lennar, according to a federal document. However, no wrongdoing on the company’s part has been reported. Lennar’s defamation lawsuit is pending against Minkow.

Miller said that Minkow is expected to plead guilty to the charge this week, adding that the federal investigation is continuing into “other parties.”

Did defamation fight cost builder over $37 million? is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

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Home prices in Los Angeles and Orange counties — as measured by the S&P/Case-Shiller indexes for January — fell for the sixth consecutive month on a year-over-year basis and for the second consecutive month on a year-to-year measurement. Overall, 18 of the 20 big markets tracked by this math reported year-over-year losses, causing one analysts to feat that housing may suffer a recessionary relapse.

According to the S&P January report:

• LA/OC prices were down 0.6% between January and December. The latest time prices were rising, by this math, was last July — just as key tax incentives for buyers were ending.
• Regional home pricing fell 1.8% in the year ended in January. The last time local prices were falling at a faster annual rate was November 2009. Of 20 major markets tracked by the S&P indexes, San Diego and D.C. were the only two with positive year-over-year changes for January.

Additionally, S&P noted:

• 20-city composite index fell 3.1% from January 2010.
• From peak in mid-2006, 20-city composite is down 31.8%.
• 20-city index is 1.1% above April 2009 low.

S&P’s David Blitzer: “Keeping with the trends set in late 2010, January brings us weakening home prices with no real hope in sight for the near future … These data confirm what we have seen with recent housing starts and sales reports. The housing market recession is not yet over, and none of the statistics are indicating any form of sustained recovery. At most, we have seen all statistics bounce along their troughs; at worst, the feared double-dip recession may be materializing.”

Analyst: Housing nears ‘double dip’ recession is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

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Homebuilder Lennar Corp. reported today that it started 2011 with $27.4 million in net profits, marking its fourth consecutive quarter in the black despite decreased home sales.

But company CEO Stuart Miller said in this morning’s conference call with analysts that the housing market “is still soft.” Said Miller:

“While traffic has at times felt promising and pointed to a potential start of a recovery cycle, it has been more in the nature of a head fake and has lacked any sustained substance that might define a clear upward trend. The state of the market is still generally soft with pockets in micro markets that are stabilizing.

” … We continue to believe that the housing recovery will take time and patience and will be inconsistent and uneven from submarket to submarket.”

Other executives speaking during this morning’s conference call mentioned Orange County as a bright spot for the company. Chief Financial Officer Bruce Gross reported that the restructuring of loans to the Great Park Neighborhoods development at the former El Toro Marine base boosted Lennar’s bottom line by extinguishing debt. Chief Operating Officer Jon Jaffe also described Orange County and San Diego as the best markets in California.

Other highlights:

• The $27.4 million in first quarter net earnings was up from a net loss of $6.5 million in the first quarter of 2010. However it was down from net profits of $32 million in the fourth quarter. The company reported net profits ranging from $30 million to $40 million during the previous three quarters.
• The company’s gross margin on home sales was 20%.
• The company reported that buyers signed 2,267 purchase contracts during the first quarter, down 12%.
• It closed escrow on 1,923 homes, down 4%.

(Update: Post revised to add more detail concerning Miller’s statement and regarding comments about Orange County.)

Big builder sees continued market weakness is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Arrested development -- click to enlarge

City staffers are on the verge of recommending that Tustin go it alone rather than replace master developers who pulled out of a project to build homes and businesses at the city’s former Marine Corps Air Station.

And builders are “knocking down our doors”  to help them do it, said Assistant City Manager Christine Shingleton.

“We’ve been inundated with interest from residential builders,” she said.

City staffers will recommend that the city act as master developer itself, building infrastructure and selling the land directly to developers, Shingleton said last week at a Building Industry Association conference in Costa Mesa.

Shingleton said a plan is nearing completion to carve up the remaining 820-acre portion of the base into smaller parcels and sell them off to individual builders. By selling tracts ranging from 18 to 100 acres apiece, the city stands to get more money than if it sold the land wholesale to one developer, Shingleton said.

“The larger the package you sell to a developer, the greater the wholesale discount,” she said. “The smaller the segment, the higher the value.”

Undeveloped portion is in blue -- click to enlarge

The Tustin City Council will have final say. But if the council approves the plan, Shingleton guessed that roads would be finished by 2013 and homebuilding could start by 2014.

The based closed in 1999, and Tustin laid plans for an ambitious development that would include 4,200 housing units and nearly 10 million square feet of commercial development.

The 820-acre segment is the biggest project at the 1,600-acre air base. Originally, plans included 2,105 housing units, up to 6.7 million square feet of office, retail and industrial space and a 500-room hotel. The project includes a pedestrian-oriented mixed-use “urban community core.”

That’s in addition to about 1,680 homes now built on the former base and the The District shopping center.

But the housing slump set the project back on its heels. Last spring, two units of J.F. Shea Co. pulled out as master developer. The company was to pay the city $236 million for the 820-acre tract, plus spend $250 million to install roads, utilities and other infrastructure.

Shea maintained at the time that the property’s value had dropped to “near zero.”

“This asset is not worth zero,” Shingleton asserted during the BIA meeting last week. “It has tremendous value.”

The city is moving ahead on developing infrastructure itself, especially near the already-developed portion of the former base, Shingleton said. The city recently approved the $24.7 million plan to extend Tustin Ranch Road through the heart of the former base, connecting Walnut to Warner avenues. Work is set to begin in July.

Shingleton said the project will be divided into eight to 12 segments, developed in a logical and phased sequence, so it won’t be hopscotching.

“We’re not going to mortgage the future of this site through some quick fixes,” Shingleton said.
(Update: Post revised to correct city in which BIA conference was held. The meeting was in Costa Mesa.).

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Builders clamoring to develop Tustin base is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Real estate news and views from around the globe that make you go, “Really?”

• BE RIGHT DOWN! A man who recently purchased not one, but two, penthouses in a luxury condo building in New York found a novel way to connect his two units. He created his own indoor fun zone by connecting the units with a slide. Why not a fireman’s pole? (Curbed) MORE HERE!
• BOOB TUBE: A Hamptons tycoon has set off a dispute among his neighbors by proposing to build a 10-foot-tall, $200,000 television screen in the yard of his $9 million mansion. (N.Y. Post) MORE HERE!
• WOMAN IS SMARTER: That’s right, the woman is smarter,the calypso song goes. Turns out, Rasmussen finds, men exaggerate about almost everything, including real estate values. (AOL Real Estate) MORE HERE!
• EMPTY NESTS: The national vacancy rate crept up to just over 13% according to last week’s census report. That’s up from 12.1% in 2007. In O.C., 5.4% of homes were vacant last year, up 64% in a decade, according to the U.S. Census. (CNNMoney.com) MORE HERE!
• GOOD TIME TO BUY: Forget stocks. Don’t bet on gold. After four years of plunging home prices, the most attractive asset class in America is housing, senior editor says. (Fortune) MORE HERE!
• SIGN OF A BOTTOM: It’s not usually welcome news when the landlord hikes your rent. But for the housing market, rising rents may be one of the most hopeful signs in years. (U.S. News) MORE HERE!

Really? Slide connects NYC penthouses is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Can you solve the real estate puzzle?

Not the economics. We mean a real actual word search puzzle.

To break up the routine of new housing data — then debate the trend’s meaning — we’ve decided to toss in a little mind challenge: Find 25 housing related words hidden in a grid of letters.

So CLICK HERE for Housing Puzzle March 2011 and the first to email a scanned copy of the correct answers to your blogger Jon at jlansner@ocregister.com will win a copy of Lansner’s book, “How Money Works.”

Is housing market that puzzling? is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Has the building freeze finally ended? California had the largest construction gain in the nation in February — adding 15,500 jobs, or 2.7 percent, from January, says an Associated General Contractors of America analysis of state employment data from the U.S. Labor Department.

Following California in fast-growing construction jobs was Georgia, (5,000 jobs, 3.7 percent); North Carolina (4,500 jobs, 2.7 percent); and Florida (4,400 jobs, 1.3 percent). Construction employment jumped in 30 states between January and February; 18 states lost jobs; three were unchanged.

Curiously, Texas lost the most construction jobs in February (4,300, or an 0.7 percent drop). Next came New York (4,100 jobs, or 1.4 percent); Colorado (2,700 jobs, or 2.4 percent); and Arizona (2,600 jobs, or 2.4 percent).

Construction employment declined in the year ended in February in 32 states. California added 6,400 jobs in the past year — 6th best in the nation. Texas was best (up 31,500); followed by Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and Michigan.

AGCA economist Ken Simonson: “These are certainly some of the best state-by-state numbers the industry has seen in quite some time … But it is too early to tell whether this is the start of a positive trend or the rebound that comes with a February thaw.”

Calif. tops in new construction jobs is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Question: Where’s homebuying on the rise as the traditional homebuying season starts?

Answer: At the beach!

For the 22 business days ending March 7 – freshest numbers from DataQuick — our region-by-region analysis of local real estate trends finds Orange County homebuying slicing up by geography this way …

• There were 504 homes sold in Orange County’s north-inland ZIP codes in this most recent period, -6% from a year ago. Median selling price? $419,000 in these 22 ZIPs. This most recent median price change was -6.4% vs. a year ago.
• Mid-county ZIPs — median selling price $346,750 – had 586 sales, -25% from a year ago. In these 25 ZIPs, the median price change was +0.7% vs. a year ago.
• Combined, total homes sales in ZIPs in the north and mid-section of Orange County were -17.5% vs. a year ago as homebuying the rest of the county ran -7.9% vs. 12 months earlier.
• North/mid-county homes accounted for 51% of residences sold in the most recent period vs. 54% a year ago.
• 419 homes sold in beach cities’ 17 ZIP codes in the most recent period, +5% from a year ago — only region with a gain! Median selling price? $638,500 in these 17 ZIPs. Median price change was -4.9% vs. a year ago.
• South inland ZIPs — median selling price $470,000 – had 627 sales, -15% from a year ago. In these 19 ZIPs, median price change was +0.4% vs. a year ago.
• All told, countywide sales were -11% vs. a year ago. The median selling price was -1% in the past year.
• How did your neighborhood fare? Check our ZIP-by-ZIP data HERE!
• Vote in our latest real estate poll HERE!

For some real estate context …

Beach towns are O.C. housing’s hot spot is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

Click to enlarge

Orange County homes sold through the broker-run multiple listing service generated just under $860 million last month, down 9.5% or $90.4 million from February 2010.

Declining home sales and prices accounted for the decline, Southern California Multiple Listing Service figures show.

The trend is similar to those documented in recent weeks by both DataQuick Information Systems and the California Association of Realtors. Both groups also reported that home sales and prices dropped in February.

Specifically, the SoCal MLS figures show:

• Orange County MLS sales of homes generated $859,923,360 in total revenue in February, dollars that were divided between the sellers and their agents, escrow officers and lenders.
• That’s down from $950 million generated by local home sales in February 2010, a $90.4 million decrease.
• Last month’s cash was down 22% from the February average of $1.1 billion during the previous six years.
• Home sales dropped 6.2% to 1,687 deals through the MLS last month. That compares to a 4.2% sales drop reported by DataQuick for all housing types and a 7.7% drop for single-family homes reported by the state Realtors group.
• The average price of a home sold through the MLS was $509,735, down 3.6%. That compares to a 1.7% price drop reported by DataQuick and a 7.1% drop reported by the Realtors.
• Revenue generated by home sales fell in January as well, but only by 0.1 of a percentage point. Taken together, O.C. home sales volume this year so far totaled $1.8 billion, down 3.1% from the first two months of 2010.

(Update: The first paragraph of this post revised to reflect that revenue was up 9.5% or $90.4 million from February 2010, correcting a typo in the original version.)

A little context …
MARKET TRENDS	INDUSTRY NEWS

Home sales generate $90 million less cash is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate