November 92879

10 Days to Go

So much for real estate today...I'm starting to stress about Christmas shopping. Mostly because my 3 year old doesn't want to understand the concept of no you can't have a toy everytime we go to the store. Santas coming in 10 days. Santas trip down our fireplace is irrelevant to him. Today I vowed I'm never taking him to a store again until after Christmas. So don't be suprised if you run into me Christmas shopping at Target at 10pm, while he's got sugar plums dancing in his head.

Here's something nice for you for the weekend while you're wrapping those presents by a warm fire.

Heavenly Hot Chocolate

1 1/2 c. milk

1 1/2 c. heavy cream

1/4 c. sugar

1/8 t. salt

6 oz.chopped buttersweet chocolate

2 drops peppermint oil

Sweetened whipped cream, for garnish

Combine the milk, cream, sugar and salt in a saucepan. Heat over medium-low heat. When the milk and cream just begin to steam, put in the chocolate and stir until melted. Add the peppermint oil. Divide the hot chocolate, top with whipped cream and share with friends and family.

When I think of hot chocolate it takes me back to my childhood in freezing cold Wisconsin. Enjoy the pictures while I take a trip down memory lane...

This Weeks Best Buy

LOCATION: 92881

PRICE: $485,900

SIZE: 2,940 Sq Ft, 4 BDR, 3 BATHS

DESCRIPTION: BANK OWNED home JUST REDUCED with many upgraded features such as: plantation shutters throughout, granite in kitchen with oversized island, seperate family and living room with fireplace, stamped colored conrete driveway, newer roll up garage doors, double door entry rock elevation and at entry to front door! Must see.

ELIZABETH'S NOTES: This home is a great buy in a great location. This house came on the market on 10/5 at $575,000. It was reduced on 11/7 to 519,900. Then reduced again on 12/7 to $485,000. If I was in the market I'd buy this house myself. Nice, nice, nice. Call me if you'd like to see it!

From One Extreme To The Other

Yesterday was an interesting day. It started out with a visit to a lovely home in Orange County.

I'm getting ahead of myself here, let me give you some background. I work with banks listing REO properties. Yesterday I had been out to check on a few properties that are about to go into foreclosure. The first home was the lovely home in Orange County. I went up to the door and sadly I met the tenant and got to be the one to deliver the bad news that the home he had recently leased was going into foreclosure. Each time I do this it's an adventure. Unfortunately, this time I was the bearer of bad news. Most of the time when I do this no one is home. After the sweet gentleman got over the initial shock we talked about how he could purchase the property. This one may might have a sweet ending.

Then I headed east....all the way to San Bernardino, with much trepidation of my husband, who strictly instructed me not to go alone, call him before I got out of the car and to call him again when I left the house. To say it nicely, this wasn't a great area. When I got out of my car I asked 2 men if they were the owner of the blue house. The homeless man, yes you read that right, asked me if I meant the blue abandoned bus and told me someone lived in the bus...No, I mean the house I thought. Then I went up to the door. Thank God no one answered. I was praying not to be greeted my someone with something long and metal. I left my card and a note asking them to call me. After I drove away I got to wondering if they even had a phone. I called my husband of course and let him know I was still alive. Then I called my guy at the bank and when he answered the phone he asked if I had gotten out of there alive. As you can guess I told him I'd pass on that listing. No one ever said being in real estate was boring.

On a more professional note, the feds lowered the interest rates yesterday a quarter of a point. Here is a great article on how the rate cut may effect consumers.

Weekly Stats

In the last 7 days...
New Listings 101
Price Reductions 217
Back up/Pending 39
Closed Sales 11

The prices of the closed listings this week range from $133,000 to $515,000. The majority of the closings are in the $300s and $400s. 5 of the 11 are foreclosures. The serious buyers are out there Christmas shopping for homes!

This Weeks Best Buy

LOCATION: 92880

PRICE: $425,000

SIZE: 2,992 sq ft, 4 Bedrooms, 3 Baths

DESCRIPTION:

Beautiful executive home in Limonite area. Close to Eastvale shopping center and 15 freeway. Cul de sac. Family neighborhood. 7 ceiling fans. Bright and airy. Kitchen with island. Huge bonus room upstairs. Large master with dbl door entry. 3 car garage. Carpeted throughout house. Covered patio and large backyard. Great opportunity for growing family. Bedroom and bath downstairs. Nicely landscaped. Move in condition.

ELIZABETH'S NOTES:

This is a great deal for someone that's looking for something that's turnkey in the 92880 area.

The upstairs has a large bonus room and good sized bedrooms. The backyard is great. Lot's of room. Call me if you'd like more information. I wonder if we could get them to throw in the Beemer too...

President Bush Proposes Rate Freeze

The Bush administration is trying to put together a program that will freeze interest rates on sub prime loans. He's suggesting putting a freeze on certain loans for a 5 year period. It will be interesting to see if this happens. There will be having a news conference this afternoon to make an announcement. So who's to blame? We want to blame the foreclosures on someone. We blame sub-prime lenders. The lenders definitely played a role in this fiasco. They wrote sub-prime loans with huge interest rates for people who could not pay them back. Mortgage fraud also played a role and people are going to jail because of it. Here's a scary story!
Many of the people who used the sub-prime loans to buy homes wanted a home worse than anything. It is the American dream, and so they signed the papers.

During the re-finance craze I received phone calls, email, mail and post cards inviting me to refinance my home and borrow an additional 100K or so against it. I remember one solicitation offering to lend us 130% of the value of our home.

On the radio, and on television, and on the Internet and in the mail and in the newspapers and in magazines and everywhere all day long the message is borrow, borrow, borrow , borrow. It has been that way for years. I go to Mervyns, and find a jacket on sale, and decide to buy it because I am cold. They offer me a 10% discount on it if I will open a Mervyns charge and put the purchase on my new card. They not only want me to use credit for something that I planned to pay cash for, but they want me to open a new credit line too. They will make more money by getting me to use the credit card than they will by selling me the jacket.

Some stores have people right near the front door trying to get customers to sign up for a credit card as soon as I walk in the door. Everyday I get mail from the credit card companies begging me to sign up for their card so can go out and charge things on their card at a special interest rate. All day every day I am given numerous opportunities to borrow money.

It really works too because we borrow and borrow and borrow and borrow. During the refinance boom people took money out and bought cars, vacations, real estate and even college educations. Easy to do. As a nation American consumers have reached $2.46 Trillion in installment debt, not including mortgage debt as of the end of June 2007. Honestly I don't even understand a number that big.

According to the federal reserve consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 5-1/4 percent in the third quarter of 2007. In September, consumer credit increased at an annual rate of 1-3/4 percent.

So when it comes time to blame someone who do we blame for the mess we are in? Every time a consumer gets a loan he or she signs some papers. Those papers contain a great deal of information about payments, interest rates, terms and what happens if payments are not made every month. I say the consumer has some responsibility.

But, and I always have to throw those in. I know people who are not very savvy when it comes to using credit. They want what they can not afford because they saw it on TV, heard it on the radio, saw it on the Internet, received a post card advertising it and on and on it goes. So they borrow money.

Some were taken advantage of and I have met people like that. I hear their story and I understand how they got in the mess they are in and my heart goes out to them. I hear two or three sad stories every week from people who are in various stages of foreclosure. My husband can usually hear my half of the conversation if he listens to my calls and he knows how empathetic I am and how hard it is for me to listen to home owners, who are about to lose their homes. I've spent time sitting in peoples kitchens listening to them while they break down in tears. It's hard...Well, hopefully we'll get some good news today...