I attended the December dinner for REOMAC the other night at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown LA which was packed with people. The room was full of lenders, asset managers, real estate agents, REO specialists, Escrow Company Owners and Title Company Representatives. Topics that were discussed after dinner were the trends in the current real estate market, the marketing of REO properties and whether or not it made sense to fix up some of the properties that were coming back to the bank versus selling them "as-is'. There was also a question and answer period. The leader of the evening panel was a gentleman from Freemont Investment which I found interesting as they are no longer in the lending business and are getting back about 200 properties a month and have a total of over 2000 foreclosures at present in California. All of the panel members said that they get a lot of calls each day with people trying to purchase portfolios of properties for very low amounts on the dollar and the rep from Freemont said that it is just not going to happen. Another lender on the panel said the same thing.
Properties in California are looked at differently then ones in other states. Some first time buyers are beginning to enter the market - investors are beginning to look around but many properties are just sitting and sitting, Lenders it appears cannot and will not sell their properties at 50% discounts. And personally I don't blame them. Most banks are regulated and it makes sense that they should have to attempt to try and sell their assets for what they are worth in today's marketplace. Auctions were also discussed and one of the agents said that some LA properties had been sold at an auction in Orange County which made no sense and that she felt that she could have gotten more for the properties had she been able to list them and sell them on the open market.
I was at the last REOMAC event in Miami in October where over 1500 people attended and I found it to be a wonderful, educational event about the REO industry as a whole and where it appears that the market is headed - and yes even on the Westside of Los Angeles. For the recent event, I believe that the organization had expected an attendance of about 210 people and instead there were 460 people in attendance. Many who were non members and had just heard about the organization. REOMAC can be found online at http://www.reomac.com/ and is a national non-profit trade association for the mortgage default industry which is dedicated to the professional development of its members. My membership is pending and I am looking forward to becoming a member and more involved in their organization. I have met some great hard working people in REOMAC and have found all of their events to be educational and interesting.
