In our monthly unofficial and official real estate statistics blogs, I have spent a fair amount of time discussing the inventory of properties on the market. Maui has seen the number of properties listed for sale dip almost 20% since last year. This has been a trend across the board for the last 18 months. There had been rumors that inventories might get a boost via a surge of bank owned properties hitting the market this summer. The thought process was that banks had worked through the issues created by their robosigning practices. As a result, they would be able to release more of the bank owned listings that they had been withholding from the market. Anecdotal evidence from the summer suggested that the anticipated new bank owned inventory never came to fruition. I decided to go beyond the anecdotal evidence and look at the numbers. Here is what I found.
The chart above shows the number of bank owned properties coming on the market each month in Maui County between January of 2010 and last month. During 2010-2011, the new bank owned inventory ranged between 30 and 70 new listings per month. During 2012, the bank owned inventory topped out at 34 new listings per month. This summer, those number have shrunk to between 15 and 17 listings. It’s pretty clear there was no summer REO bump.
At this point, it is tough to say if and when we are going to see any upticks in bank owned inventory. Many of the properties facing foreclosure are going through the judicial process. Judicial foreclosures take a minimum of 14 months. It also appears that banks are embracing short sales as an alternative to foreclosures. Bank of America has been proactively reaching out to borrowers who are delinquent on their mortgages and encouraging short sales. They have gone so far as to offer cash incentives to help with moving expenses to facilitate sales. This is likely to curtail the total number of future bank owned properties. If we see any real upticks in bank owned activity, we will keep you posted on the Maui Real Estate Blog.