On October 16 th, I wrote a post Auctions, and do they really work in which I said I would get back to on whether the Robert Mondavi former residence know as Wappo Hill did sell. Well a couple of days ago Pacific Union, the listing company, reported it did but the price was not disclosed. I will find out the price and get back to you in a future post.

Mondavi Residence Views

Here is what I said about the Mondavi residence before:

The property known as Wapoo Hill was first listed for sale June 1, 2010 for $25,000,000 and this property has remained unsold for 477 days as of today. Even with a $5,100,000 price reduction last March 15th and the renown name associated with this property, no buyer has appeared. Sealed bids may be submitted to Sheldon Good & Company of New York, NY until November 16.

Mondavi Pool

Tune back in the near future for I will write another post on what happens to these two. It will be interesting to see if the Mondavi name will be the key to selling a property at auction. One other consideration in buying at auctions, there is an auction premium of 5% normally. In my opinion, auctions do not work. It is still price, price, price today besides location, location, location.

As I read yesterday Napa Register, an article by Jennifer Huffman , Mondavi estate up for auction: Minimum bid is $13.9 million, immediately caught my. The property known as Wapoo Hill was first listed for sale June 1, 2010 for $25,000,000 and this property has remained unsold for 477 days as of today. Even with a $5,100,000 price reduction last March 15th and the renown name associated with this property, no buyer has appeared. Sealed bids may be submitted to Sheldon Good & Company of New York, NY until November 16.

Robert Mondavi House

Robert Mondavi Pool

That made me think of three other auctions of Napa Valley properties I know about which have occurred in the last year. All three had been previously listed for a much higher asking price and all three had reserve bids above the published opening bid. The opening bids were all listed in  the local MLS, marketed very heavily by a professional auction company and not one received a single bid. One which was listed by another agent in my office, 4625 Lake County Highway, was originally in 2009 listed for sale at $3,900,000, didn’t sale on the open market for $1,495,000 after over 300 days and didn’t receive one bid at the auction with the opening bid of $1,100,000. It is currently listed at $1,000,000 and is sale pending. I will let you know what it sales for.

There is one other property, 2650 Greenwood Avenue, in the Napa Valley scheduled for an up coming auction. The interesting thing with this property is it is on-line only and the auction starts November 18 and runs for usually a few days. Its starting bid is $329,000 even though the property in listed in my MLS at $669,000.

Tune back in the near future for I will write another post on what happens to these two. It will be interesting to see if the Mondavi name will be the key to selling a property at auction. One other consideration in buying at auctions, there is an auction premium of 5% normally. In my opinion, auctions do not work. It is still price, price, price today besides location, location, location.

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Thank you for reading this post. If I can ever be of help in finding you the perfect property here in the Napa Valley, please email me at Curtis@NapaValleyAddress.com.

Your Broker Extraordinaire, selling Napa Valley Real Estate from its heart, Yountville.

My website & blog: www.NapaValleyAddress.com

Two well known Napa Valley Commercial Landmarks will be sold at Napa County courthouse steps. The former Pometta’s Deli at the intersection og Highway 29 and Oakville Grade plus the former Red Hen on Highway 29 half way between Napa and Yountville will be sold at auction on October 6 th  and this Wednesday respectively.  Here is part of article from the yesterdays Napa Valley Register.

The grand plans of a developer for two Napa County commercial landmarks have collapsed, leaving the properties’ futures up for grabs. Kathy Smith made waves this past decade when she snapped up Pometta’s Deli on Oakville Grade and the original Red Hen complex on Solano Avenue north of Napa. At the Pometta’s site, Smith announced plans to build an upscale restaurant and deli to entice both locals and visitors. “I want to have a good place for people to have fun,” she said in 2005. At the 3.5-acre former Red Hen site, which once held a sprawling antique store, Smith envisioned a destination evoking Disneyland’s Main Street or a scene from the “Music Man.” 

She floated plans for two restaurants, retail stores, a possible 50-room hotel, even a carousel. “I have a lot of dreams for it,” Smith said in a 2005 interview. Those dreams are now dashed. In an attempt to satisfy a civil court judgment against Smith, the former Pometta’s Deli lot will be sold at auction on the Napa County courthouse steps on Oct. 6. There is no minimum bid amount. 

The former Red Hen site has entered foreclosure proceedings and is scheduled to be auctioned off Wednesday at the courthouse. There is no minimum bid amount. The default amount is listed as $4.1 million. 

In addition, Smith has lost the Napa Smith Brewery property near the Napa County airport and is in the process of losing three Upvalley homes.

I can remember eating at the original Red Hen in the late seventies which served fried chicken in those red plastic baskets. It was very tasty and quite reasonable. As for Pometta’s Deli, it too was another favorite site for many locals. It is sad to see them end up this way. Maybe a sign of the times and maybe a sign of the down turn for commercial real estate I keep reading about?

While reading posts on the approximately 20 blogs I subscribe to, I came across a post By Jeff Brown on Bloodhoundblog.com that made my blood boil and I am certain yours will do so also after viewing this. The video is the work of  ThinkBigWorkSmall who I will subscribe to when I am done with this post. Here is a quote from Jeff Brown’s article which will give you a sense of the deal, maybe it should be called theft, One West Bank received when it purchased Indymac Bank from the FDIC in March 2009.

I know the FDIC went out of its way to issue a Press Release, denouncing the guys at Thing Big Work Small.  I know those guys fairly well (had a few beers with them at the CAMB convention this summer).  The FDIC denounced the video as “factually incorrect”, a day after it came out…then…

One West Bank, who bought the IndyMac portfolio for $1.55 Billion, earned 1.57 billion in its first year of operation.  Now Jeff, youi’re a bright guy…what kind of bank earns 100% ROI in one year?

Here is the video from Jeff Brown’s post, but you can click on ThinkBigWorkSmall links above and go directly to their site.

* We will require a deficiency note on the loss-theres no option to just opt out.  We will review on individual basis and try to assist as much as needed to make it affordable.

As I was posting this week’s “Yountville weekly real estate update“, the fact there were 32 active listings is very significant. This is the highest number of listings I have ever seen in 25 years of selling real estate here and since the previous week, the first time this number was ever in the 30+ range. In the past, this number would be normally be around 20. But since this real estate slow-down started in earnest here about 10 months, this number has been constantly creeping higher and higher. Interesting what the number for the most listings will finally be. On a good note, it is now one less for we did have one sale pending this week so far.

If you read the first part of this post, “Napa Valley Real Estate, a Tale of Two Times Two Markets“, you can probably figure out where this continuation is heading. Yes, there are two distinct markets for Napa Valley real estate. Much as it is in other parts of Califonia and the country, lower priced, reasonable valued homes are getting multiple offers, some as many as 20. Now you may get turned off by the fact this is for homes priced under $400,000 here in the Napa Valley, but that is just the fact nof life living here. The upper end is a different creature, nothing is moving and the months of inventories on the market are soaring.

To prove the point, one only need to look at the graphs below from Treadgraphix. I choose the City of Napa and American Canyon for they represent about 95% of all distressed sales. For the upper end, I looked at Yountville, St. Helena and Calistoga. It was no surprise but the months of inventory have come down steadily from January to June 2009  for Napa (8.3 to 5.5) and American Canyon (6.2 to 1.5) and varied in the extremely high range for Yountville (13 to 20+), St. Helena (15 to 74), Calistoga (9.5 to 58+) for the same time period. For Napa County as a whole, months of  inventory has also decreased steadily from 9.5 to 6.1 mainly due to the huge percentage of all sales being in Napa and American Canyon. Remember, 5-6 months of supply is considered to be a balanced market between buyers and sellers and much less or more skews the market in favor of one or the other. And yes, being there are so few sales for the higher priced homes which is 90%+ of the market place in the up Valley areas, it may take a very long time to sale your home in this market especially if it is over-priced. In faact that could be 2-3 years if things don’t change.

Just look at the graphs below and you will see how they prove the above. The graphs are all the properties listed in my MLS, BAREIS (which represents approximately 95% of all sales here) which are For Sale, Pending (have an accepted offer) and Sold in each of these cities/town (Yountville is a Town) and for the Napa Valley. YES THERE ARE DEFINITELY TWO MARKETS HERE and the moral of this story, you better price your home correctly in this market.

Napa County For Sale, Pending & Sold

American Canyon For Sale, Pending & Sold

Napa For Sale, Pending & Sold

Yountville For Sale, Pending & Sold

St. Helena For Sale, Pending & Sold

Calistoga For Sale, Pending & Sold

Some additional interesting fact from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) “Home Buyer and Seller Survey” for 2008.

The percentage of buyers who purchased a home in foreclosure jumped to 6 percent of transactions in the 2008 survey from 1 percent in 2007. Another 38 percent of buyers considered purchasing of a home in foreclosure but did not, primarily because they could not find the right home.

cartoon from immobilienblasen blog

If you have read this blog for any time, you will remember some of my first posts about getting a deal at a foreclosure auction. I haven’t been to one in  the last couple of months but I track enough sales to maintain my warning to buyers about doing your homework prior to buying a home in foreclosure. There are a few more true deals out there, but very often prices are full retail and there is no disclosure plus an onerous real estate contract much in favor of the seller/lender. Below are links for those wishing to read more:

http://www.napavalleyaddress.com/hello-world.html   Can You Get A Deal At An Auction?

http://www.napavalleyaddress.com/caveat-emptor-the-continuing-saga-on-real-estate-auctions.html Caveat Emptor – The continuing saga on real estate auctions

Another interest survey fact:

The Survey shows that 81 percent of home buyers and 84 percent sellers used a real estate professional, comparable to 2007.

To obtain the data below, NAR mailed an 8 page questionnaire in August 2008 to a national sample of 133,000 home buyers and sellers who purchased their homes between July 2007 and June 2008. It generated 10,053 responses.

Northern California home sales have been difficult for the last six months and many of us are hoping for some signs of relief. Unfortunately, this is not to be found in last month’s statistics according to the latest DataQuick News. Here are highlights from the DQNews.com story:

La Jolla, CA.—-Bargain hunting dominated the Bay Area housing market last month as the purchase of foreclosure properties accounted for more than half of all resales for the first time. Sales patterns also reflected continued problems for buyers looking to finance purchases in the upper half of the market’s price range, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 6,889 new and resale houses and condos were sold in the nine- county region last month. That was up 19.7 percent from 5,756 in November, and up 36.0 percent from 5,065 for December 2007, according to MDA DataQuick.

While sales were well below the 8,807 average for all Decembers going back to 1988, they were no longer at the record low levels of late 2007 and the first half of 2008.

The median price paid for a Bay Area home was $330,000 in December. That was down 5.7 percent from $350,000 for the month before, and down 43.8 percent from $587,500 for December 2007. That was the lowest it has been since March 2000 when the median was $320,500, and 50.4% below the $665,000 peak of June/July 2007…..

Homes that were foreclosed on accounted for 50.0 percent of December’s resale activity, up from 46.8 percent in November, and up from 14.0 percent for December a year ago. Foreclosure resales ranged from 12.4 percent in San Francisco last month to 67.7 percent in Solano County.

Mortgage modification fails to slow state, Inland foreclosures

The number of California households receiving notices of default — the first step in the foreclosure process — rose 122 percent between November 2008 and December 2008, following a three-month decline, according to RealtyTrac.

Some real estate analysts believe a California law that required mortgage lenders to provide customers with 30 days notice, before filing a default, only postponed the foreclosure, but did not resolve the challenges associated with loan defaults.  

 

I showed property yesterday, a 3 year old custom home which has been on the market for 548 days originally listed at $1,550,000,  now down to $975,000. This property has endured 3 failed sales due to the extremely slow response by the short sale lender and represents the frustration many of us are feeling during these times. Granted, there are some great buys out there, but until people see prices stabilize, it is hard to get many buyers to pull the trigger. My buyers who say this property were impressed at the value here and are talking it over. I will let you know how it goes. Hopefully, there will be better news for next month.

Bay Area home sales median has sunk to a new 8 year low and 47.6% of all sales have been foreclosed on sometime over the last 12 months according to the new DQNews.com data released today.

Bay Area home sales decelerated in November but beat the year-ago mark for the third consecutive month. The allure of discounted foreclosures continued to drive sales in affordable inland markets, which helped push the median sale price down to its lowest point since former President Bill Clinton was in the White House.

The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos combined in the nine-county Bay Area fell to $350,000 last month. That was down 6.7 percent from $375,000 in October and down a record 44.4 percent from $629,000 in November 2007, according to MDA DataQuick, a San Diego-based real estate information service.

The November median sale price – the point where half of the homes sold for more and half for less – stood at its lowest since it was $350,000 in September 2000. It was 47.4 percent below the peak median of $665,000 reached last year in June, July and August.

The median has fallen on a year-over-year basis for 12 consecutive months, yanked lower by several factors: price depreciation; a shift toward more sales in the less-expensive inland markets; slower high-end sales; and buyers’ preference for lower-priced foreclosures.

Last month 47.6 percent of all homes that resold in the Bay Area had been foreclosed on at some point in the prior 12 months, up from 44.0 percent in October and 10.1 percent a year ago.

At the county level, foreclosure resales last month ranged from 10.0 percent of resales in San Francisco to 63.6 percent in Solano County. In the other seven counties, November foreclosure resales were as follows: Alameda, 44.4 percent; Contra Costa, 63.0 percent; Marin, 22.6 percent; Napa, 40.8 percent; Santa Clara, 38.9 percent; San Mateo, 21.8 percent; Sonoma, 51.6 percent.

My sense is this is true for Napa County as well even though the statistics show the home sales for previously foreclosed homes to be 40.8%. In one recent MLS search for a first time home buyer with a maximum purchase price of $250,000, 19 of 37 homes and condos in the City of Napa were previous foreclosures, 51.1% and another 13 were short sales, a 86.5% total for all distressed sales. And as a Realtor working in the trenches every day, I haven’t seen any sign of this changing yet. I will keep you informed when I do.

In July, this home on Pacific Avenue showed all the obvious signs of a foreclosure and quick abandonment by the family that lived there. Napa County saw 209 foreclosures between March 10 and August 6, nearly all in the cities of Napa and American Canyon. J.L. Sousa/Register

On a tree-lined street in central Napa, green lawns in front of modest 1940s-era homes paint the typical picture of middle class suburbia.

All seems in order — except for the one house with furniture dumped on the lawn and boxes of clothing and other detritus scattered on the driveway. An old garage sale sign hangs on the trunk of a shady tree, covered with a second, hastily scrawled sign that reads “Free.”

The two-bedroom, one-bath home on Pacific Street foreclosed on June 30. To a passerby, it seems the residents attempted to make few bucks as an eviction date drew near, then gave up as the deadline passed.

Unfortunately, the trouble isn’t isolated to Pacific Street.

But declining values have meant tough times for some homeowners, including a number on Harrison Avenue in Napa.

This Westwood street of about 60 homes built in the early 1940s is just two blocks long. Back in late 2004 and early 2005, a number of the typically 800-square foot homes on Harrison Avenue sold in the low-to-mid $400,000s.

Between March and July 2008, five of those homes foreclosed. Another three are in pre-foreclosure, meaning the owners must renegotiate their debt or make arrangements to stave off loss of the properties to banks and other lenders.

In the past 12 months, the median price of a Napa County home has fallen approximately $200,000, according to Trendgraphix, Inc. In June 2007 the median price for a Napa County home was $660,000. As of June 2008, the median was $446,000. 

A foreclosed home in the Rancho Del Mar neighborhood of American Canyon is just one example. Three years ago, the three-bedroom, one-bath home at 211 Carolyn Dr. sold for $465,000.

The current listing price: $219,900.

“Historically Napa has shown the ability to bounce back from economic downturns,”

“My opinion is that the worst is over, especially locally.”

“Good times are ahead.”