foreclosure

There are currently 39 blog entries related to this category.

A Cloud Over 1205 23rd

Thursday, December 22nd, 2011 at 10:00pm. 156 Views, 0 Comments.

For the past month or so, a newer (2002) East MB home has been on the market and making fairly steady cuts. It's an REO newly priced at $1.378m that will begin to look compelling for an ever-larger number of buyers, even if it does back up onto Marine.

But for anyone who gets closer, there are reasons to be wary and to do some extra due diligence.

The home is 1205 23rd St. (5br/5ba, 3500 sq. ft.), which – we kid you not – has not been lived in for 5 years.

5 years, no people. In a house. There's a yellow flag.

The short version of the answer to "why?" is that the property has been caught for years in a web of litigation over an investment fraud scheme. A former owner of the house was alleged to have lured people into bogus investments and frittered away…

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Under $400k in MB?

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 11:10pm. 174 Views, 0 Comments.

Homeowners west of Sepulveda need not worry, but there is a curious development among today's price reductions.

1311 MBB #5
A bank-owned TH east of the highway and on Manhattan Beach Blvd. just cut its asking price under $400k.

That's 1311 MBB #5 (2br/2ba, 850 sq. ft.), described in the listing as the rear unit (furthest off MBB) in an "intimate" 5-unit complex.

New asking price: $393,536. (Where do they get these oddly precise prices?)

This raised 2 obvious questions.

Since it's an REO, what did someone buy it for before losing it?

The answer there: $545k in June 2006. Today's price is -$151,464 (-27.792%) off that mark.

Also, when was the last time an MB residential property sold for less than $400k?

Three answers on that one:

1466 MBB #2 (1br/1ba, 685…

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Distress Ends Quickly

Friday, July 29th, 2011 at 4:35am. 148 Views, 0 Comments.

It turns out that July was a good month to be in distress.

Not even 3 weeks ago, we mentioned 8 MB listings that were in some form of distress – REOs, shorties and homes facing foreclosure – and we discussed 6 of those in some detail. (See "The Distress List.")

Now, of the 6 we discussed, 4 are in escrow. Only 2 East MB shorties are still available.

Taken:

456 21st St. (3br/4ba, 3325 sq. ft.) was the highest-priced distressed property listing in MB, a 3br, custom-built Caliterranean overlooking the baseball fields at Live Oak Park.

It had cut from $2.8m to start (a rescue price?) to a short-sale offering price of $2.049m before finding a buyer.

Now, can they get the lenders to approve?

3108 Walnut (pictured) (4br/4ba, 3700 sq. ft.) was listed short with…

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The Distress List

Monday, July 11th, 2011 at 10:30pm. 143 Views, 0 Comments.

Taking note of The Pig over at 860 12th Ct. last week – a short sale with a very odd pic – we took to wondering how many distressed sales there are on public offer these days in MB.

Not so many, actually, at least according to the MLS.

We find just 8 coded as REOs, shorties and in-foreclosure listings, looking among all SFRs in all of MB (just 5 are west of the highway). Here are some highlights:

1750 Ruhland (5br/6ba, 4250 sq. ft.) nearly rules the roost, with an asking price just dimes shy of $2m ($1.961m).

The newer home (2006 build) was last purchased for somewhat more: $2.225m a full 4 years ago, in July 2007, at the peak. It's a short sale now at just a 10% discount from '07, not quite the same sort of rewind you find on other 2007 purchases. So worry…

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So Much for that Flip

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011 at 5:21am. 142 Views, 0 Comments.

Around Labor Day last year MBC noted not one, but two, "foreclosure flips" that were on the market. Savvy investors had bought properties from the bank and were looking to make a nice little profit on the resales. (See "2nd Foreclosure Flip in a Week.")

Here's an update on one of them: It didn't work.

801 11th (4br/3ba, 3025 sq. ft.) is a newer (2004) custom Caliterranean in a compromised location. (The home runs along somewhat busy Pacific and backs up to a commercial property, 50 yards from MBB.)

This one's been on the radar multiple times. It was offered for sale from May-August 2006 at $2.495m (pre-MBC), and again from June-August 2007 for $1.995m. (See "Figuring Out a Location Discount" from June 2007.)

No deals.

In April 2010 it came back as a short…

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New Tree REO

Monday, January 31st, 2011 at 8:58pm. 142 Views, 0 Comments.

In our local market's go-go years, if you were an investor (or group), your dream was to grab a high-priced property in MB and let it go again shortly thereafter for a tidy profit.

That is what happened at one point to 1604 Poinsettia (5br/4ba, 3125 sq. ft.). Upon its completion in late 2004, investors paid $1.8m for the home, and soon had tenants moved in.

By July 2005, with a wondrous surge of real estate optimism all around, the owners were ready to cash in. (Even if it had been only 6 months.) The property came to market at $2.495m (+$695k/+39%).

That astonishing markup may look delusional now, but guess what they got for it?

In December 2005, a resale of the same property closed at $2.2m (+$400k/+22%). Even with 5% costs of sale deducted, that's still a…

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Failed Auction Home Returns on Palm

Friday, January 21st, 2011 at 7:23pm. 151 Views, 0 Comments.

Sometimes it seems that certain homes just can't stay out of the news.

A listing comes, it goes, it comes back. In the not-quite 4 years since MBC launched, we've had the opportunity to cover the sales, and then resales, of several properties.

Looks like we'll have another chance, this time with 2509 Palm.

You may recall that 2509 Palm (5br/4ba, 3200 sq. ft.) was one of the last speckies developed by one particular builder in the last cycle. Facing a torrent of issues, he put up 5 unsold speckies for auction back in November 2008. None sold, and 2509 Palm wound up foreclosing.

(For a refresher, see MBC's first post on the auctions, "Name Your Price?", the post on Palm foreclosing, "Back to the Bank," or the recent wrapup story on the auctions' results,…

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REOs East and West (WoS)

Wednesday, December 29th, 2010 at 5:36am. 172 Views, 0 Comments.

MB has mostly been spared the foreclosure carnage visited on other parts of California. That's one reason our market was recently called "the most stable housing market in the Los Angeles metro area." (See "Stability, Bullishness.")

But rules always have exceptions.

Two active listings in very different areas west of Sepulveda cry out to buyers with bargain prices for foreclosed/bank-owned properties.

The first that draws our notice here officially launched in early December, though it had a sign in front and was available as early as October.

1508 Oak (4br/2ba, 1775 sq. ft.) is as far east as you can get but still be west of Sepulveda, and it's got all the liabilities you might worry about.

It's on the "wrong" (commercial-adjacent) side of Oak and adjoins…

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Recent Sales Wrapup

Wednesday, December 8th, 2010 at 5:15am. 144 Views, 0 Comments.

Some of the most interesting sales these days are going on off-market.

We'll get you some details here at MBC over the coming days and weeks as we get the OKs to discuss pending deals.

Meantime there are a few recent sales that hit our radar as being interesting in one way or another:

801 11th (4br/3ba, 3025 sq. ft.), the Hill Section "foreclosure flip" near MBB, has a deal. The home is a 2004 build that failed in a couple of resale attempts in recent years, went back to the bank and came right back to market.

Turns out an investor saw profit potential, grabbing it for $1.320m in July. (See "2nd Foreclosure Flip in a Week. ")

The home was priced at $1.599m at first, but after a cut to $1.499m, it posted a deal just before Thanksgiving.

3011 Valley (4br/4ba,…

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Foreclosures, Moratoria and MB

Friday, October 15th, 2010 at 4:02pm. 129 Views, 0 Comments.

About 10 years ago, when your blog author first went house-shopping in MB, one of the first questions we asked a prospective agent was whether he could help us look into some foreclosures.

"Foreclosures? There are no foreclosures in Manhattan Beach," said the agent.

We didn't quite believe him. Though foreclosure-search technology and data were hard to come by then (and our modem was a dial-up), we had access to some data about homeowners in distress and actually knew someone whose business was to "rescue" such folks and resell their houses for a profit. Certainly there were some foreclosures in MB.

We never found a good foreclosure (though we did buy a distressed property that we found ourselves). Still, that agent's response always hung with us.

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