Warren County Ohio Foreclosure Update: Scheduled Sheriff's Sales through 4/16/2012

Warren County Ohio Foreclosure Update: Scheduled Sheriff's Sales through 4/16/2012

Want to know how foreclosures and short sales are impacting the Warren County Ohio real estate market?  We've got all the details (maybe even more than you want!) right here.  By the end of this post you'll have our full interpretation of the current Warren County Ohio real estate market interaction with distressed properties (foreclosures and short sales).

The latest numbers show a stable foreclosure level although increased above 2011 for Warren County.  We added four additional weeks of foreclosures to this report.   

NOTE:  The chart details the number of scheduled sheriff's sales PLANNED by week for Warren County Ohio and represents a wide range of locations and price ranges throughout the county. The numbers include builders and property rental owners being foreclosed, not just private individuals occupying the homes. The data source is the Warren County Sheriff's website. The chart is primarily intended to provide you a trend on Warren County foreclosures. 

Click Warren County's Sheriff's Foreclosures for additional details to access the official list from the Warren County Sheriff's website.

On February 18th, Cincinnati MLS currently lists 1357 (UP from 1308 for the January report) homes for sale and not under contract in Warren County.   Some sellers have completed their holidays off market and are back for sale. 

Of those 1357, 74 (UP 6 from 68) are government or bank owned (now 5.45%  of Warren County homes for sale vs. January's 5.20%, so essentially stable as a portion of available sales). 

WARREN COUNTY SHORT SALES:  Now 91 (DOWN 5 from 96) homes are MARKED Seller's Lender Approval required, although there are additional homes listed as short sale candidates in the marketing remarks.  More sellers are attempting short sales and being successful.  The decrease is primarily due to the large number of short sales sold for the month, more on this later.

The distressed home categories range in price from $19,900 all the way to $597,500 dollars.  Overall, 12.16% of Warren County's homes for sale are clearly classified as distressed property.  this proportion of the Warren County market is DOWN slightly from last months 12.54%.

In regards to sales for January, 32 (was 34) bank/government owned and 14 (was 3) short sale homes closed out of 127 total homes recorded as closed.   That's a large increase in short sale success.  Of the 127 Warren County homes sold, that would mean 36.22% of January sales in Warren County were distressed properties (UP 15% from the last report's 21.64%).  This is obviously a HUGE increase in distressed homes sales percentage, but not a huge increase in overall distressed property volume.  The decrease in overall sales quantities led to a greater sales percentage impact.  Distressed Warren County home sales prices ranged from $21,251 to $935,000.  The last was a Mason short sale.  For most neighborhoods, distressed properties still aren't dictating the values, but they do have to be considered as part of the competitive landscape.

We still believe there's extensive shadow inventory being held by the banks and not released for sale.  Monthly foreclosures are continuing to exceed homes offered for sale and the completed sales, so at some point we'd expect more homes to be returned to the market.

For Warren County buyers, there continues to be a limited number of distressed property opportunities, and some distressed properties will be in less than desirable condition.  Our experience is that often these "bargains" are offset by the work needed to return them to a fully livable condition.  If you pursue a short sale, be prepared for a long wait.  The banks are NOT famous for fast response time.  Additionally, if you are banking on ONLY  buying a bank owned or short sale home, you're severely limiting your opportunity to live in some of Warren County's best communities.

For Warren County home sellers, the distressed home volume is NOT significant enough IN MOST NEIGHBORHOODS to prevent buyers from coming to your home if properly priced and marketed .  However, anytime you start getting a larger concentration of them, the new market price is influenced by them.

Real estate is LOCAL, please disregard the National news and to a certain extent even the Cincinnati and Dayton reports as they are driven by urban real estate and NOT suburban and rural properties.

DISCLAIMER: There may be additional homes offered for sale in ONLY the Dayton MLS that might include additional foreclosed homes and short sale candidates. When working with buyers for Warren County, we use BOTH Cincinnati and Dayton MLS to ensure our buyers have visibility to ALL MLS listed homes.

If you have questions regarding these sales, or other real estate related questions,
please don't hesitate to contact us!

Serving Your Warren County Residential Real Estate Needs,
Bill & Liz aka BLiz