Will Foreclosures Increasing Housing in Real Estate Market?

Tenants and landlords across the nation are faced with an eviction moratorium in August. But, will new legislation extend that? That along with information about loan forbearance and finding out what the heck a Climate Risk Report is, on this month’s Durango Real Estate Update. It’s August 4, 2021. And boy, does it feel good outside? The afternoon rain showers have doused our region almost everyday in July, which has made for a stellar outdoor summer right here in Durango. The cooler temps at night can’t quinche the red hot market that continues to thrive in La Plata County still today. Not much has changed. July’s monthly market’s statistics continue the trend we’ve been seeing all year. Active listings are down 63%, when you look across all residential property types, with the average and median sales price for single family homes at 45 and 42% respectively. The County single-family home prices are up a whopping 130% from July 2019. So hopefully these late Summer and early Fall new listings will continue to alleviate demand, and we’ll see some normalcy return to the market come Winter. We shall see. Something that keeps coming up in conversation with clients is the question of how the eviction moratorium and loan forbearance programs might affect the market. Before I give you my 2 cents. Let’s talk about what each of these programs are. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the eviction moratorium was legislation passed through the CARES Act that restricts landlords from evicting a tenant for non-payment of rent. The law was set to end on June 30th of this year, but was pushed out one month by the CDC to July 31st. On August 1, it all came to a head, but the CDC yet again extended the moratorium to October 3rd for any areas that are experiencing high or substantial Corona virus transmission levels. For some clarity on that, the CDC is defining such levels as 50 to 99 or more cases per 100,000 residents in the last seven days. It seems that La Plata County does not fall under this extension. As of August 3rd, our case rate was at 28.6 per 100,000. If you were a tenant or landlord experiencing financial hardship and cannot pay your rent or mortgage due to the Corona virus pandemic, you can check out the links in the comment section below for some options on continued routes to relief. That’s a good segue into the next topic, that is permeating all of your chats. Mortgage forbearance. There are handful of people awaiting this apparent tsunami of foreclosures that could follow after the end of the mortgage forbearance program in September. The reality is some people could indeed lose their homes to foreclosure this year. But, a wave of new listings by way of foreclosure that some might expect probably won’t happen. First, let me define what mortgage loan forbearance is. Forbearance does not mean loan forgiveness. But it does allow you to pause or reduce your payments for a limited period of time. Forbearance does not erase what you owe, but people who accept the assistance will have to repay in any missed or reduced payments in the future. So, if you’re able to keep up with your payments, keep making them. If you’re having difficulty making your mortgage payments, every Mortgage Servicer in the country right now is required to have a way for you to apply. So go to your lenders website and find the button that reads something to the effect of “Apply for Assistance Here.” More links to help you navigate this are in the comment section below. But long story short, I don’t anticipate this wave of inventory hitting the market, like some hopeful buyers would like to see. The issue is that due to the high demand and short supply, anyone in a bind financially still has plenty of equity in their home to weather the storm. On average, a huge percentage of homeowners have at least 20% of equity. So for now, it seems the new listings naturally trickling onto the market will continue to relieve the pressure through the Fall with all of the things remaining the same. The last item I’d like to touch on today, is a new phenomenon being used by some of the bigger online brokerage companies these days. It’s called ClimateCheck. The ClimateCheck Report is an online rating system for a communities’ environmental risk factors. The website quantifies the risks related to climate change through a proprietary risk assessment and report software. I have not fully investigated the website for accuracy or data sourcing, but I can tell you that’s a slick platform that some of the biggest companies in the business are using right now as part of their listing disclosure. Could this be the new normal for assessing areas to live? Only time will tell. And with all the fires burning around the country, I think we’ll continue to see more and more entities like this surface. That is all the time we have for this month’s real estate update. If you have any questions or would like to suggest content for the show, I’d love to hear from you. So please feel free to put your comments in the section below. Or you can reach me directly at Dan@AlpenglowProperties.com. Or on any of our social media channels @DurangoBrokers. Enjoy the rest of your Summer and see you next time. Thank you for watching.

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