Help! Help! The Prices Are Falling!

The local and national media, A.K.A. Chicken Little, continues to use sensational statistics, half truths and complete exaggerations to create fear or perhaps to validate their recent doom and gloom predictions for the Orange County residential real estate market. Recently the media reported a 600% increase in L.A. and Orange County Home Foreclosures. At first glimpse this sounds like a huge increase. However, the actual number of foreclosures last year was not very sensational, so this detail was simply left out of their report. At the extreme, the Surf City Guru anticipates only a few hundred more L.A. and Orange County homes will actually be foreclosed upon this year. This should have little impact upon home prices. Most properties with a notice of default will continue to be sold before actual foreclosure. Some of them will be sold through short-sales; however lenders are not expected to allow much discounting in the near future.