The Washoe County Assessor is required by statute to publish an Assessment List at the beginning of every new tax year, listing ownership and tax assessments for every parcel in the county. The list was published Monday, which is why the RGJ was such a fatty-boy when it hit your driveway.
Yeah, you can play public records porn with this and check out what the neighbors own and what their assessments are (my next door neighbor on an identical lot has a $10,000 less assessed land value than I do -go figure.). What grabs my attention are the large "blocks" of listings owned by the same party. These are usually developer properties that have gone through the parcel map process, and are awaiting development. Usually, the "Improvement Value" is zero, meaning just the land is being taxed. Sometimes you can go to a developer’s tract and find listings with significant improvement values – these are inventory properties (spec built, models) – fun facts. The magnitude of the properties already mapped and ready to build will knock your socks off. Over 20,000, or about a 15% increase to all existing housing units in the county.
This list pegs in time who owned what on 10 December 2008. I was curious about what the lenders, servicers and financial institutions are actually holding as REOs, so I scanned through the something like 200,000 parcels in Washoe County. 1457. Please, don’t hold me to this number exactly. On some lenders and servicers, I actually had to measure the listed properties and multiply by properties per inch (13). There are surely some small institutions I have missed, since this exercise is visual and I scan for big blocks of properties under the same ownership. Branch banks owned by the institutions would also show up in the count. I’ll post the lenders/servicers and the approximate number of REOs they hold under the fold.
There has been a lot of discussion in the blogosphere about REO "overhang" – shadow inventory of bank owned properties that are being held off the MLS to help prop prices. Of the 1457 bank owned properties in Washoe, something like 250 are vacant tracts or vacant lots that have been subdivided, dropping the total to 1200. There are currently 954 REO homes and condos listed on the MLS, leaving 350. Probable 200 of these are properties that are in the three week average limbo between foreclosure and listing on the MLS. That leaves 150 REO properties MIA, only 10% of the total number of bank owned properties. No conspiracy here – the banks are putting their properties out there.
Still, are you surprised by the sheer number of REOs still out there? Assuming a median of $220K, the banks own over $3.0B of Washoe real estate. They are foreclosing on about 275 properties per month, and selling about 175 on average. They have 10 months of inventory at the current rate of sales, and their inventory is growing. On an interesting note, both the median value at foreclosure and median sales price of REO properties have bottomed out and are trending UP for the first time since the Center for Regional Studies started tracking the statistics.
Any prognostications for 2009?
Thanks to all of you who read and comment on this blog. I can’t begin to tell you how much I have learned from our discussions over the past year and I appreciate all your interaction and input. I hope the dialogue has been informative for you, too. You all need to give Diane and Guy credit for running an incredibly open and informative blog, and I am honored that they allow me to continue to contribute to it. I seem to have been particularly adept at stepping on land mines lately, and D & G have stood behind me steadfastly when the smart money is to cut me loose and lock me out. Thanks for your trust in the value that I can add here.
I wish you all a healthy and prosperous New Year.
Mike
Financial Institutions/servicers owning Washoe County properties as of 10 December 2008 and their approximate number of holdings per Assessor’s published information:
Accredited Home Lenders – 4
American Home Mortgage – 26
Aurora Home Loans – 38
Avelo Mortgage – 5
Bank of America – 19
Bank of New York – 94
Centex Mortgage – 5
Chevy Chase Bank – 3
Citibank – 35
Colonial Bank – 5
Countrywide Bank – 25
CTX Mortgage – 10
Deutsche Bank – 192
Fannie Mae – 11
Federal Home Loan – 264
1st Horizon – 14
1st Interstate Bank of NV – 12
GMAC Mortgage – 9
Homesales, Inc. – 9
Household Finance – 18
HSBC – 71
IB Property Holdings – 3
Indy Mac – 28
Lasalle Bank – 50
Liquidation Properties, Inc – 4
National City Bank – 11
Nationstar Mortgage – 11
Nevada State Bank – 111
PHH Mortgage – 6
Residential Funding – 11
Saxon Mortgage – 9
Shelter House – 10
US Bank – 153
Wachovia – 11
WaMu – 20
Wells Fargo – 126
World Savings Bank – 2
Drive by Poster
Mike –
Is there any means of determining how 1457 REOs on December 10, 2008 compares to REOs on December 10, 2007, 2006, etc?
smarten
I find with interest Mike’s observation that, “both the median value at foreclosure and median sales price of REO properties have bottomed out and are trending UP for the first time since the Center for Regional Studies started tracking the[se] statistics.” My question is whether the MLS can be far behind?
As I’ve commented before, the next four months may prove interesting indeed.
BanteringBear
Mike posted:
“…both the median value at foreclosure and median sales price of REO properties have bottomed out and are trending UP for the first time since the Center for Regional Studies started tracking the[se] statistics.”
Smarten posted:
“My question is whether the MLS can be far behind?”
Mike posted:
“…the banks own over $3.0B of Washoe real estate. They are foreclosing on about 275 properties per month, and selling about 175 on average. They have 10 months of inventory at the current rate of sales, and their inventory is growing…”
As anyone knows, when asset prices fall, it’s hardly in a straight line. There will be brief periods of improvement, followed by longer periods of decline until, at long last, a bottom is reached. I do NOT believe the median price of foreclosures has bottomed, quite simply because the numbers are still growing. There cannot be any sort of turnaround until the inventory issue is resolved. The inventory issue cannot be resolved until the tide of foreclosures is stemmed. I look into the crystal ball which is the mortgage reset chart coupled with skyrocketing unemployment and I do not see any sign of that in the near term.
Mike posted:
“Any prognostications for 2009?”
A terrible situation with double digit unemployment, a further deterioration in home prices, and the worst economic period in any of our lives. Happy Holidays.
MikeZ
On an interesting note, both the median value at foreclosure and median sales price of REO properties have bottomed out and are trending UP for the first time since the Center for Regional Studies started tracking the statistics.
Your “UP” link is broken.
It’s missing an “f” at the end.
Sully
I wouldn’t put a lot of faith in a list that was compiled from the County Assessors office, as I have been following the house I was 24hrs from buying in August. It was bank owned, sold shorty after I backed out. Never did show up on the 2008 Sales list, now it doesn’t even show up in the 2008 foreclosure list. There are a couple of other properties that I have followed that aren’t showing up on the foreclosure list also.
This slight incline in prices could very well be engineered, as the Ticor chart showed a big jump in October (the last month on the “UP” chart).
With approx. 3 billion in REO and about 4 million in property taxes due per year, I would think fire sales are coming soon!
Also, all the loan modifications are starting to come in at a 50% failure rate, which puts them back on the market.
We still have a way to go, so these numbers from Center for Regional Studies are just that – numbers, nothing more.
Controlled data can make any result come true.
billddrummer
Mike,
Thanks for the data (your data-mining skills are awesome!), but I’m wondering whether the uptrend could be higher value homes entering the foreclosure/NOD process compared to last year. If the Option-ARM phenomenon you identified with the 889 Tyner property are just now starting to be recognized in Reno/Sparks, then there’s a chance that people who used the Option-ARM to buy their climax house are now finding the new recast payment is $800-$1000 higher than the teaser payment was.
Those folks probably don’t have the extra money in theif budgets, and won’t be able to refinance out because values have dropped, but their mortgage balance rose.
Just a thought.
Anyway, Happy New Year to everyone. Too bad about the fireworks–I was looking forward to them this year.
billddrummer
And to Sully,
As you all may know, my house went through foreclosure in May 2007, was auctioned in October 2007, and sold out of foreclosure in June 2008. The last transaction the Assessor shows is the October 2007 auction, and it wasn’t added to the property sales history until recently.
There are probably a lot more NOD properties out there than the assessor’s list shows.
Tom
Billdrummer, I too regret the decision on the New Year’s Eve fireworks. The cancelation of the fireworks was a step in the wrong direction by the city fathers and the downtown casino merchants. In hard times, you need to promote an area more, not less. Cutting back only causes growing drop-offs of visitors and area interest, leading to further cut-backs. It soon becomes a snowball going downhill, and a self-fulfilling prophesy. Note that the Fremont Street Experience group has not dropped their fireworks show for tonight, and they have also reduced payroll at their members’ properties.
billddrummer
To Tom,
I agree with you. It’s really hard to promote the advantages of living or visiting here if the community continually cuts back on promotional activities.
I wonder if the Balloon Races will still be held?
GreenNV
Thanks for the heads-up on the link. It’s fixed now, and I’ll update it when the November figures get released.
I’m certainly not calling any sort of bottom – I think things will get a lot worse before they get better. December foreclosure stats are all up from November’s (644 NODs, 410 NOSs, 263 TDs so far). I subscribe to billddrummer’s theory that the median foreclosure value is trending up because more expensive properties are tubing, and they will continue to.
There is no way to track the REOs in bank inventory for 2006 and 2007. You could get into the ballpark by multiplying the 779 2007 TDs and 127 2006 TDs by 52%, the ratio for 2008 (1457 REOs/2738 TDs). And if you play with those TD numbers, 2008 is up 351% over 2007 and 2156% over 2006!
KB
I am suprised to see NV State Bank with so many REO properties. I wonder how many of those are foreclosed spec homes from the subdivision loans that NV State made. I know they were the lender on Landmark Homes Sun Mesa Project in Sun Valley. I worked for a subcontractor who was building those homes in fall of 07 when the loans were pulled for the homes that were under construction and they sat unfinished which I believe continues till today. Does anyone have any updated info on that failed development.
GreenNV
My recollection is that the majority of Nevada State Banks’ REOs are from a couple of developments they backed that went bad on them. If you have the hard copy of the Assessment Roll, you will find huge groupings of similar parcel numbers and many improvement values of $0 – vacant lots.
So here is the year end posting on foreclosures. Format is 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, % increase 2005-2008:
NOD – 837, 1327, 3036, 6555, +783%
NOS – 82, 415, 1486, 4169, +5084%
TD – 53, 127, 779, 2744, +5177%
Times have certainly changed.
Grand Wazoo
Wow, just wow.
inclinejj
https://www.nsbank.com/online/property.jsp#more
DownButNotOut
I too thought that the decision to cancel the fireworks wasn’t in the best interest for Reno, but after being there and reading today’s RGJ’s editorial, I’ve changed my mind and think it was the best decision. Hopefully it will be a one time deal, as it’s a lot of fun and something to come downtown for. But paying the community bills far outway’s 20 minutes of fireworks, even if we all love seeing them.
KB
Thank you InclineJJ, i did not see the specific subdivision i was looking for but it does look like most of their issues are developers going bust..
Happy New Year to all