patrick.net

A reader named John sent me a bunch of data on foreclosures, which I posted here:

http://patrick.net/housing/contrib/foreclosures_percent.html">http://patrick.net/housing/contrib/foreclosures_percent.html

The data says that there are 74 houses in some stage of foreclosure in Palo Alto, or 55% of all the houses for sale.

Another reader, named Carl, object that:

The foreclosure lister at sfgate.com doesn't correlate this at all, it suggests a single foreclosure in 94301/94306 for all of 2007. The issue may be that whoever calculated your page included Palo Alto in San Mateo county, generally known as East Palo Alto, which has a huge foreclosure rate.

I forwarded the objection to John, who replied:

Hi Patrick,

I love the fact that it’s “acceptable/normal” for a home to increase its value by 100% during a five-year time frame, but it’s “unreasonable/impossible” for a home to decrease it’s value by 30-40% during a similar time frame. It’s yet another symptom of how off-kilter and in denial most (especially in this area are).

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the Chronicle and I enjoy sfgate.com, but I’m always curious as to how much of their advertising dollars derive from the NAR, homebuilders, realtors in general, etc. Please forward confirmation of the numbers below:

Palo Alto “Proper,” CA: 150 total homes for sale, of which 74 (49%) are in various stages of the foreclosure process (the range is from lenders who have filed a Notice of Foreclosure at the recorder’s office to REO properties).

East Palo Alto, CA: 189 total homes for sale, of which 106 (56%) are in various stages of the foreclosure process (the range is from lenders who have filed a Notice of Foreclosure at the recorder’s office to REO properties).

I completely understand why anyone (especially someone living in one of these areas) might have some doubt and a hard time swallowing it. With that said, we always encourage individuals who have a similar stance to physically go to their Recorder’s office and ask for all the data. We have even had some literally go from street to street to count the number of homes for sale within a specific area (that was a bit extreme, but it’s what some people need to do to extract the “truth”).

I don’t want to exacerbate anyone during what is obviously a very difficult time for many, so all I simply say is “this is my resource and if you have doubts about the data, you should absolutely go there yourself.” At that point they have no legitimate response other “okay, I will” or “no” (because they’re too lazy/unmotivated) to go.

#housing