“Mortgage rates have increased more than 100 basis points since early May, and we anticipate that trend to continue, albeit gradually, during the next year,” Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae’s chief economist, said in a report Tuesday. He also expects economic growth to slow from the, “surprising” pace seen last quarter.

Regionally, home builder confidence increased the most in the Midwest and West and more moderately in the Northeast and South. Housing starts and building permit numbers for August will be released by the Commerce Department on Wednesday.

(Read more: Map: Tracking the recovery)

—By CNBC’s Diana Olick. Follow her on Twitter @Diana_Olick.

Questions?Comments? facebook.com/DianaOlickCNBC.

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101040159

“I think it will be a pretty good report for Toll. The high-end and move-up markets is where it’s at right now,” said David Goldberg, a home builder analyst at UBS. “Pricing is improving.”

(Read More: Home Builders Get Jitters for First Time in a Year.)

Toll reported very strong earnings last quarter, with big jumps in both sales and income and a drop in cancellation rates. There had been concern that the looming “fiscal cliff” would hit Toll’s higher-end customers, but that did not come to pass.

While other home builders have seen big jumps in their stock prices over the past year, Toll is up just under 3 percent from a year ago. However, it is up nearly 25 percent from last November, when it had taken it a big dip.

(Read More: Mortgage Mess Still Mires US Housing Recovery.)

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100470583

A total of 263 notices of default were filed for Napa County
homes or condos in the third quarter, compared to 222 in the same
period the year before. It was the largest percentage increase in
nine Bay Area counties. 

However, the number of Napa County homes or condos completing
foreclosure dropped 13 percent, from 131 to 114, quarter over
quarter. 

“Napa County is not going down the tubes,” Susan Archer,
president of the North Bay Association of Realtors (NORBAR),
said. 

Archer attributed the notice of default increase to a backlog of
distressed homes that banks are still processing. 

Typically, a notice of default is filed after a homeowner is 90
days delinquent. But some homeowners might have stopped making
payments six to nine months ago — or more — and only just recently
received a notice, she said. 

Banks haven’t been able to process all the distressed properties
effectively, Archer explained. “Now they’re moving forward, causing
numbers to increase. 

“The (notice of default) jump is probably primarily from Bank of
America getting through of all these issues they’ve inherited from
Countrywide,” said Joe Brasil with Coldwell Banker Brokers of the
Valley. Bank of America purchased subprime mortgage lender
Countrywide Financial in 2008. 

“They’ve done a significant release in the last quarter,” he
noted.

According to DataQuick, the most active beneficiaries statewide
in the foreclosure process last quarter were Bank of America
(14,325), Bank of New York (11,052), and Wells Fargo (9,740).

“I also think notices of default don’t really reflect what’s
happening in the marketplace,” Brasil said. Distressed homeowners
may stave off foreclosure using some kind of work-out plan with the
bank or short sale, for example. Or, “They can pull themselves out
of foreclosure entirely.” 

“People used to want to call it ‘shadow inventory,’ but I think
banks have too much on their plate to process,” Julie Larsen of
Pacific Union International said. “Short sales are difficult,”
requiring multiple contacts with banks, lenders and other financial
institutions. 

Another reason banks are taking longer to process foreclosures
is that it takes time to evaluate the reasons for each individual
home foreclosure, she said. Some people have lost jobs and can’t
afford the mortgage payment. Others can make the payments but are
underwater and simply want to walk away from the home and start
over. 

“The banks (are) trying to muddle through that,” Larsen
said. 

Statewide, after dropping to a three-year low in the second
quarter of this year, the number of California homeowners being
pulled into the foreclosure process snapped back to prior levels
over the last three months, DataQuick reported.

A total of 71,275 notices of default were recorded at county
recorders’ offices during the third quarter. That was up 25.9
percent from 56,633 for the prior three months, and down 14.4
percent from 83,261 in third-quarter 2010, according to
DataQuick.

Last quarter’s NODs, which mark the first step in the formal
foreclosure process, jumped back to levels seen earlier this year
and late last year. Notices peaked in first quarter of 2009 at
135,431.

“Figuring out what’s actually going on when it comes to
foreclosures can be a logistical nightmare,” said John Walsh,
DataQuick president. “In each case there are at least six or seven
different legal entities contending with each other, each with a
different agenda and timeline: The original lender, the homeowner,
the current owner or owners of the loan, the servicing institution,
the outfit doing the actual foreclosing, and the county recorder’s
office.

“The way it looks right now, it’s reasonable to expect default
filings to run at a somewhat higher level than we saw earlier this
year,” Walsh added. “Obviously, some lenders and loan servicers
have begun to plow through their backlogs of delinquent loans more
aggressively.”

Of the state’s larger counties, mortgages were least likely to
go into default in Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties. The
probability was highest in Sacramento, Madera and Stanislaus
counties.

Trustees Deeds recorded statewide, or the actual loss of a home
to foreclosure, totaled 38,895 during the third quarter. That was
down 8.4 percent from the prior quarter, and down 14.3 percent year
over year. The all-time peak was 79,511 in third-quarter 2008. The
state’s all-time low was 637 in the second quarter of 2005,
DataQuick reported.

There are 8.7 million houses and condos in the state.

Foreclosure resales accounted for 34.2 percent of all California
resale activity last quarter. Short sales — transactions where the
sale price fell short of what was owed on the property — made up an
estimated 17.8 percent of statewide resale activity last
quarter.

At formal foreclosure auctions held statewide last quarter, an
estimated 29.7 percent of the foreclosed properties were bought by
investors or others who don’t appear to be lender or government
entities. That was up from an estimated 28.3 percent the previous
quarter and up from 22.7 percent a year earlier, according to
DataQuick.

Article source: http://napavalleyregister.com/business/notices-of-default-up-foreclosures-down-in-third-quarter/article_aaf39192-fe0c-11e0-b39d-001cc4c03286.html

Given that real estate is seasonal, you’ll learn more by comparing year-over-year performance than month-over month. Another thing to consider: even in a town as large as Novato (contextually speaking; with a population of roughly 50,000, Novato is the second-largest city in Marin County), one month of data reveals only a Hemingway-esque iceberg tip.

When I say that single-family home prices fell 7.8 percent month-over-month in August, I’m not really telling you much. Same goes for the fact that sales activity jumped almost 25 percent last month. It could mean nothing more profound than the possibility that more people went on vacation in June than in July.

Unfortunately, it is when we compare numbers from past years that we learn some distressing truths about local real estate.

General wisdom says that 2009 and 2010 represent the nadir of the housing market. It was early in 2009, you might remember, that the after-effects of the October, 2008, stock market crash brought housing to almost a complete standstill. Well, in August, 2009, the average single-family home in Novato sold for $667,593 – 14 percent more than it fetched two years later. One caveat is that the market had begun moving again by summer, 2009.

One year later the story was that real estate had spent the past year making incremental gains, only to see them wiped out by a mid- to late-summer swoon. In 2010, Novato clocked in with a mark of $624,125, a 6.5 percent drop from 2009 but still 8.2 percent higher than last month’s figure of $572,915. Activity dropped from 39 sales (2009) to 31, a number matched this year.

Condo sales jumped to 20 in 2011 after languishing at 16 and 11 in 2009 and 2010. Condo values, however, fell to $247,920, a loss of 12.7 percent from 2010.

Circling back, maybe August was just a bad — but busy — month. Maybe there was a run on distressed properties (their share of the overall market is up 5 percent since this time last year). Or maybe we should compare August not to August 2010 or July 2011 but to the entire calendar year beginning in January.

Novato began 2011 on a low note. January and February posted average values around $500,000 — numbers no local homeowner wants to see. Activity remained brisk, however, unlike in most Bay Area cities. For all of 2011, Novato’s entry-level status has pumped up its market. Even though values are lower than we’d like, the city has posted stout monthly sales figures. So far Novato has topped 30 single-family sales in five of eight months, led by April’s 36 sales.

Home values have not followed suit. They’ve hung around the mid-$500s, topping $600,000 only in March and July, though approaching that mark also in June ($594,441) and April ($589,652). For the year, the average single-family home sold for $568,698, within 1 percent of August’s $572,915. An average of 29 homes has sold each month, two less than August’s 31.

August as Everymonth? It could be. It is the weakest of what looks to have been a strong summer but completely in line with 2011’s overall performance.

So the story in Novato isn’t booming optimism or relentless pessimism, with values down from 2010 but up from early 2011. What happens next will be determined by two factors: the city’s ability to ramp up during real estate’s hot season — autumn — and the future of its inventory of distressed and low-end properties. As long as these bargains are driving the market, activity will remain high but prices will remain suppressed.

Some good news: as of Sept. 26, active inventory was down 37 percent year-over-year and days on market (the number of days a property remains active before going into contract) was down 21 percent, to 63.

Putting it bluntly, Novato hasn’t rebounded the way San Francisco, Burlingame, Mill Valley, Palo Alto and the rest of the “above the fold”  Bay Area has. Its real estate profile is different — more distressed homes, more entry-level properties and it’s difficult to imagine any of the celebrated “new tech money” making its way to northern Marin County. With this in mind, the local market’s summer 2011 performance is a glass half-full.

Article source: http://novato.patch.com/articles/looking-at-housing-climate-year-by-year-glass-is-half-full

But others will be closing their doors next month, despite the movie-rental chain’s last-minute reprieve from liquidation.

A $229 million deal to turn Blockbuster over to a group of hedge funds and Blockbuster bondholders was agreed to by a New York bankruptcy judge, after disgruntled creditors, including movie studios and Yahoo, signed on to a revised deal.

That means 17 Blockbuster stores out of 24 listed in the inner Bay Area will stay open, at least for a while longer. “We’re fine, we’re fine,” said a sales clerk in the Alameda store.

Of those scheduled to shut their doors in April, three are in San Francisco – on Church Street, Geary Street and 16th Street in Potrero Hill – and one each in Albany, San Leandro and Alamo.

But there could be more. The company, once the world’s largest movie-rental outlet, with 9,100 stores, reported a loss of $64.8 million in the last quarter. Under the purchase agreement signed with the hedge fund group last month, Blockbuster said 609 of its remaining 3,300 U.S. stores were to be shut as part of an “initial liquidation.”

A sales clerk at the Daly City Blockbuster, not currently on the list, said she’d been told hers might close in November. On the other hand, the Pinole store, which is on the list, might be re-evaluated, a sales clerk there had heard.

To what extent the new owners are re-evaluating remains to be seen. Having made what is called a “stalking horse” bid for the Dallas company, they might be looking to flip the property for a higher price.

Asked what she’s going to do in April, a sales clerk at the Church Street store replied, “Stand on a street corner, hope people feel sorry for me and give me money.”

Coincidence?: Turns out the scheduled auction of the Westin San Francisco, which we noted in Thursday’s column, is off. The creditor seeking the foreclosure suddenly got the $22 million loan owed by the hotel’s owners, a Goldman Sachs real estate entity and a Dallas private-equity firm.

“The borrower paid off the loan in full (Wednesday) night,” said an attorney for the Carlton Group, a foreclosure and debt restructuring firm, after it had posted the auction notice that morning on behalf of its client, Deutsche Bank.

All this occurred after we made inquiries – which got the silent treatment – and a small item appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

News of the payment was e-mailed to interested parties Thursday morning, and showed up in bold capital letters on the Carlton Group’s website, over the original notice of the auction.

Dare we say The Chronicle gets results?

Cold decaf: Remember how hard Peet’s Coffee Tea tried to buy Diedrich Coffee, the Castroville (Monterey County) roastery and chief supplier to the fast-growing single-cup coffee market?

The Emeryville chain thought it had the $226 million deal closed in November 2009, when along came Green Mountain Coffee, known for its Keurig single-cup coffee dispensers and K-cup portion packs, and snatched it out of Peet’s hands with a better offer.

Adding insult to injury, the Vermont company on Thursday signed a partnership deal with Starbucks, under which the latter’s coffee (and its Tazo tea) will be sold in Green Mountain’s K-cups portion packs at Starbucks’ 11,000 outlets, plus supermarkets, drugstores and other retail establishments throughout North America.

Instant reaction: Green Mountain shares up 41 percent at the close of trading Thursday; Starbucks up 10 percent.

Peet’s, down 11.5 percent.

Good trade: Nice numbers for California’s exporters. They had the best January ever, according to trade figures released Thursday by the U.S. Commerce Department.

The state’s $11.75 billion worth of exports marked a 14.5 percent increase over January 2010, driven by both manufactured goods, and especially raw materials and agricultural products. This was in line with U.S. exports which rose to record levels. But other states did even better, with California’s share of the nation’s export pie falling, according to an analysis of the Commerce Department data by San Rafael’s Beacon Economics. (sfg.ly/iiE5jW)

Future prospects may depend on the price of oil, said Jock O’Connell, Beacon’s international trade expert.

“Economies tend to go wobbly and global supply chains start experiencing serious palpitations whenever oil futures float much over the $100 a barrel mark,” he said.

Job grievance: It’s not exactly hi-ho, hi-ho, and off to work we go these days in the Golden State.

According to a just-released survey of “work environment well-being” in the nation’s 50 states, California dropped from sixth to 21st place. No. 1: South Dakota, followed by Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. Unsurprisingly, “work environment well-being” was down nationally.

“Healthy behavior” and “emotional health” improved, however, while “physical health” stayed about the same in the latest Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which measures good feelings in a number of categories.

The most well-being state overall, according to its rolling survey of 1,000 Americans: Hawaii. Other states feeling pretty good include Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota and Utah. California comes in at No. 18. (sfg.ly/hPBymj).

Blogging: www.sfgate.com/ columns/bottomline. Facebook page: sfg.ly/doACKM. Tweeting: @andrewsross. E-mail: bottomline@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page D – 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/10/BU5C1I7HHK.DTL