Bank-owned properties or Real Estate Owned (REOs) and short sales represent an opportunity for those who’d like to benefit from today’s mortgage mess … just shy of 20% of all single-family sales in the past six months in Marin were either short sales or bank-owned properties (181 out of 990 closed sales). As to the condo listings, 86 of the 231 condos on the market in Marin are short sales … compared to Sonoma with 136 short/REO sales out of the 209 active listings. 

Several readers have asked about short sales and bank-owned properties in Marin …. Today’s focus … San Anselmo and Fairfax … so here for you to pour over are some MLS statistics … statistics that are interesting … but perhaps not totally reliable? … use your discernment ….

In the last six months, 14 of the 83 sales in San Anselmo were bank-owned properties, 8 were short sales … approximately 25% … the statistics are fascinating, telling, interesting … worthy of consideration …. your thoughts? … really, I’d like to know what you think … Fairfax had three bank-owned sales, 42 total sales and no short sales … less than 10%.

Other towns? Mill Valley had five bank-owned sales and eight short sales out of a total of 128 sales; Tiburon had three bank-owned sales and no short sales out of the 53 total reported; Novato had 31 bank-owned sales and 40 short sales out of their total of 214 sales; Belvedere had 15 sales, none reported as short or bank-owned … so you can see, there aren’t that many distressed sales .. so you see, the impacted sales vary from town to town.

Back to San Anselmo …

The San Anselmo bank-owned properties sold for $354 per-square-foot, as opposed to the non-bank-owned properties which sold at $459 per square-foot. Lots could be said here as well … talk to me! … market time (days on the market) is about the same for normal, non-mortgage based sales. REOs tend to sell quickly (low prices) with multiple offers while short sales gobble up time and sometimes take many months to close.

But the opportunities are there …. So let’s go shopping! ….

Tomorrow … a different view of home values … a little research and just for you, prices have changed …. The question, How Much?

Posted by:  Tom Verkozen