More feedback on Surf City buying foreclosures

December 16th, 2008, 4:00 pm · 4 Comments · posted by Marilyn Kalfus, real estate reporter

The Huntington Beach City Council voted Monday night to start a program to buy, fix up and sell foreclosed homes to residents who qualify for affordable housing.

Here are more takes on the idea from people in the real estate industry:

Norm Bour, lender and radio talk show host:

“One thing I never see mentioned is education. Everyone wants to throw money at the problem, and what assurance is anyone making that the same problem will not return? Almost half of all loan modifications go delinquent within 90 days after the mod, so is it an exercise in futility?

“Making homes ‘available’ to low income borrower is a nice gesture, but do there potential borrowers understand money and cash management? I have a three hour class on money management that I am offering the banks so that they can make sure their borrowers know how to make it work.”

Kerry Vandell, finance professor and director of the Center for Real Estate at UCI:

“I think it’s commendable that the community is trying to take a proactive stance in this (but) the whole way that is structured is very important. You’re bringing in households who really can’t afford the units, you’re sort of perpetuating the problem instead of allowing the properties to go back into inventory. They’re having to trade those sorts of things off. The devil is in the details. There are a lot of marketwide effects often not contemplated at the time (that governments do these things.)

“I would caution deliberation and some real thought, where they really do not just create policy but do float this by a number of housing economists and folks involved in all aspects of the market and are familiar with all types of alternative intervention policies.”

Related:

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Surf City home "mood ring"

For the 22 business days ending Oct. 16 -- DataQuick's freshest stats -- we tap into Surf City's homebuying mood with how local ZIPs fare vs. a year ago! ZIPs with GAINING median prices and sales are GREEN while MIXED trends are YELLOW and FALLING prices and sales are RED!

ZIP	Price	Ch.	Sold	Ch.
92646	$477,000	-14%	59	+40%
92647	$530,000	-3%	32	+10%
92648	$693,500	-6%	46	-4%
92649	$668,500	+14%	31	+7%

Overall O.C. home trends are HERE!

Mr. Wonderful says:

December 17, 2008 at 9:50 am

Ha HB is flipping houses.

This will be a disaster of epic proportions.

Mara says:

December 18, 2008 at 2:03 pm

All I can say is lets make a ghetto out of HB…….

This does nothing to solve the problem. So, you want to take the homes and sell them to another person who really can’t afford it either?

Vicious circle is it not?
I have to agree with Mr. Wonderful

December 18, 2008 at 2:06 pm

Let’s stop reacting and get proactive here with a plan that will work.
Grabbing at straws and tax $$ here is going to bite back in the end.

Bill Cramond says:

December 20, 2008 at 1:15 pm

I would think plenty of people would be interested in buying a foreclosed home in HB if the price was affordable. If unaffordable now, how will the city purchase a foreclosure, put $50,000 into upgrades, and make the property affordable without taking a loss? It seems a lot easier for the city to offer low cost home improvement loans on foreclosed homes within the city. Maybe they could make a list of homes available on their website.