One of the key factors for our market to improve and get back to “normal” is for the oversupply of foreclosure properties to be absorbed. Basically, it’s a messy real estate market out there in the Sacramento Region, and the mess has to be dealt with to move on.

Sacramento MLS allows us to analyze past sales as well as current listings to see how many properties sold as bank-owned or short sales and so on. What about future listings though? How many foreclosures will be coming to the market? Two interesting data sources for this type of information are Realquest and Realist.

RealQuest provides a free service online for anyone to view properties which are in “Pre-foreclosure” (coming soon to the market unless something happens to stop them – loan modification, catch up on payments, legislation, act of God, etc…), “Auction” (you’ve seen the commercials for the auction properties where “there are 2000 properties to sell off and they MUST sell this weekend”), and “Bank-Owned” (yes, the bank has title already).

This is what RealQuest looks like when doing a property search:

Realist is also a service of First American Core Logic and is commonly known as “Tax Records” for Sacramento Metrolist Subscribers (a paid service). Realist has a new “foreclosure activity” search feature that covers the same categories that RealQuest does. But when looking up data in both RealQuest and Realist, there is definitely a difference. Sometimes the data is very similar, but other times the figures are way off. This may be due to the way RealQuest and Realist categorize their information as well as the difference between a free service (RealQuest) and a paid service (Realist). Ultimately there could be a number of factors why the data is so different, but it’s not the purpose of this post to go into depth about that. The real thrust here is to show that there is a new wave of foreclosure properties coming and we ought to be prepared for that. Let’s continue to be full of hope as well as avoid a lifestyle of worrying, but let’s keep an eye on what is going on.

Market Data from RealQuest & Realist:

City of Folsom in Sacramento County

• Preforeclosure Properties: 296 (RealQuest) 186 (Realist)
• Auction Properties: 46 (RealQuest) 79 (Realist)
• Bank-Owned Properties: 158 (RealQuest) 262 (Realist)

City of Citrus Heights in Sacramento County

• Preforeclosure Properties: 309 (RealQuest) 435 (Realist)
• Auction Properties: 57 (RealQuest) 161 (Realist)
• Bank-Owned Properties: 134 (RealQuest) 330 (Realist)

City of Orangevale in Sacramento County

• Preforeclosure Properties: 136 (RealQuest) 145 (Realist)
• Auction Properties: 26 (RealQuest) 45 (Realist)
• Bank-Owned Properties: 126 (RealQuest) 128 (Realist)

City of Rancho Cordova in Sacramento County

• Preforeclosure Properties: 245 (RealQuest) 256 (Realist)
• Auction Properties: 32 (RealQuest) 107 (Realist)
• Bank-Owned Properties: 223 (RealQuest) 298 (Realist)

City of Fairfield in Solano County

• Preforeclosure Properties: 309 (RealQuest) 710 (Realist)
• Auction Properties: 51 (RealQuest) 283 (Realist)
• Bank-Owned Properties: 140 (RealQuest) 745 (Realist)

City of West Sacramento in Yolo County

• Preforeclosure Properties: 232 (RealQuest) 225 (Realist)
• Auction Properties: 109 (RealQuest) 114 (Realist)
• Bank-Owned Properties: 159 (RealQuest) 207 (Realist)

NOTE: The discrepancy in the data above would be very important to research and explain if the data was actually used in an appraisal report or to support value conclusions in any way. It is very important to use the best available data in an appraisal report because solid value must be based upon reliable information.

The data above was really provided as an FYI for those who may be interested. Since RealQuest provides a free service too, go spend a few minutes on their website, see what you can find, and draw your own conclusions about reliability.

If you have any questions or potential appraisal needs, please contact me at 916-595-3735 and www.lundquistcompany.com