San Diego foreclosures are plummeting, showing a positive sign

In the last few months San Diego foreclosures have shown a drop in their numbers. After almost two arduous years of foreclosures, finally there is a sigh of relief. Although San Diego was one of the worst affected counties in the nation, the economy and the employment scenario seem to be improving. 
Let us see, the drivers that helped in improving the situation till now. In last one year there were approximately 20000 homes that were lined up in San Diego foreclosures. As the year proceeded only about 11000 were actually listed and were put up for sale. Consequently, there could have been a possible hike of almost 150% of the inventory, had all the houses appeared in the market. 
The reason that this situation was controlled were,
• Pressure from the state and federal agencies of not flooding the market with excessive low priced homes that would lead to more panic among the citizens.
• The government under the Housing and economic recovery act 2008 helped many distressed home owners from going in for foreclosures. There was a system put in place, where a legally authorized delay of payment was allowed which in turn helped the home owners to arrange for an alternative payment or look for other possible options available.
• The above act also helped get a rebate of approximately $5000 to $8000 for the first time buyers. This helped them to save money and was an additional bonus in the already lowered price market. 
• The real estate agents also marketed their first hand new properties for lower prices even though they may have incurred losses or less profit.
The above controlled situations lead to the following circumstances. 
• The average price in San Diego foreclosures remained at $325,000 approximately from November 2009 till end December 2009. 
• The total number of houses that were sold finally came down by 25 to 30% compared to last year. 
• The prices of the houses were also increasing. 
• There were only few houses after November that was sold below the $300,000 mark.
• There was first time buyers who were willing to buy houses in the range of $450,000 to $700,000 reported a realtor in San Diego. 
Apart from the above we have also seen a recent trend of cancellations of foreclosures in the past few months. This has been possible due to banks and financial institutions initiative of helping house owners through loan modification options and short sale of properties.