Noelle Knox
USA Today
The Most Expensive GEM Partners is selling this ranch house on 85 acres bordering the San Bernardino National Forest. Price: $4.9 million Bedrooms: 2 Bathrooms: 2 full baths, 1 three-quarter bath Size: 3,800 square feet Features: 4 additional small houses and 3 mobile homes lie on a small portion of the property; 2 small lakes; 3wells with water tank; a small stream runs through the property.
Median-price Home This single-story house, built in 1953, is on the market. Price: $328,900 Bedrooms: 3 Bathrooms: 1 Size: 1,348 square feet Features: Recently remodeled kitchen and bathroom; kitchen has granite counters and new appliances; covered patio; shed; large backyard.
The most striking trend in the San Bernardino real estate market is the surge in foreclosures. Lenders filed close to 24,000 notices of default last year, up nearly 150% from 2006, to alert delinquent borrowers that the foreclosure clock was ticking. And 7,727 homeowners lost their homes through foreclosure — roughly one in 20 sales and up nearly 720% from the previous year, according to DataQuick Information Systems.
“Foreclosures have been growing at a rapid pace for all of 2007, and we anticipate almost an avalanche in 2008,” says Rich Cosner, president of Prudential California Realty.
His agents are telling owners who need to sell within the next five years to put it on the market now because prices are projected to fall further. For buyers, though, interest rates are the lowest in years, and there’s a 15-month supply of homes to choose from.
Price declines are hitting every neighborhood, Cosner says, though the Rancho Cucamonga area, on the western edge of the county, is holding up best because it’s closer to the job markets of Los Angeles and Orange counties.
During the real estate bubble, this market was on fire, with prices of resale homes soaring more than 167% from 2000 to 2005, according to DataQuick. But affordability problems, overbuilding and the mortgage meltdown have forced the housing market into a full correction. “I’ve been in this business for 35 years,” Cosner says, “and I don’t believe I’ve seen a more difficult market for homeowners.”
He hopes the recent drop in interest rates, and the federal government’s economic stimulus plan, will help stabilize real estate in San Bernardino, but, “We are not anticipating any significant turnaround until mid-2009.”