Green Homes - Real Estate Weblog

The $189 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest and most closely watched pension fund in the country, has revealed a huge hit to its real estate portfolio. Its housing related assets are down 35% to $6.1 billion as of June 30. Until recently, the big fund was still reporting double-digit increases in its real estate investments. According to a report that will be presented to the fund’s investment committee on Nov. 17, CalPERS’ overall real estate portfolio is down 11.2% for the fiscal year that ended in June.

The fund seems to have made some very basic investment mistakes, including over concentration in its once red-hot home market of California. Among its biggest disappointments is a nearly $1 billion investment in a partnership involving homebuilder Lennar, forestry giant Weyerhaeuser and private equity firms Cerberus and MacFarlane Partners. That partnership, called Land Source, is now in bankruptcy. A report prepared for the fund by independent consultant Le Pastrier Development Consulting found that high-levels of leverage contributed to the volatility of the fund’s housing investments.

CalPERS, known for agitating for corporate governance changes at big companies it invests in, is adjusting its own policies in the wake of the real estate debacle. The fund is busily restructuring its partnerships to reduce debt. In the future, real estate investments will have to pass muster with an internal review committee, an independent fiduciary and a board consultant. CalPERS is still looking for a new chief investment officer. The fund’s previous top manager, Russell Read, bailed out last spring.

You might be surprised to learn that the California foreclosure rate actually decreased by 18% in October compared to September, according to RealtyTrac’s new report. But the news isn’t necessarily good.

The state’s filings have dropped for two straight months because of a new law that requires lenders to make a number of attempts to contact homeowners and then wait 30 days before issuing default notices. This has slowed down the number of foreclosures and will likely just delay the inevitable.

Despite the drop in the California rate, foreclosures nationwide increased 5% from the previous month and 25% from Oct. 2007, RealtyTrac said.

And the worst is likely on the way. Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac's vice president of marketing, told me today that he expects a sharp increase in coming months as the economy worsens and more and more people lose jobs.

"Another wave right now is about to come, driven by the economic downturn," Sharga said.

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services, highlighted the need for a bailout program for troubled homeowners on Wednesday. But he stressed that not all borrowers should necessarily be rescued.

The Bush administration on Tuesday unveiled a new program to modify mortgages and stabilize the battered real estate market, but the plan stops short of providing direct government financial help to at-risk homeowners.

The flurry of announcements by the government and major banks that they are engaging in a massive campaign to modify mortgages that are in or are hurtling toward default and foreclosure will certainly give rise to predictions that the housing market has been stabilized and disaster averted. If only it were so.

Make no mistake, policymakers and banking executives had to launch this concerted campaign to try to stop the wave after wave of foreclosures that seems to feed on itself. As lenders foreclose on one delinquent borrower, and then sell the home at what is invariably a steep discount, that just pushes a number of nearby homeowners so far underwater that they just move out and mail their keys in, which just sets the cycle in motion again.

But anyone hoping that this synchronized effort to modify millions mortgages that are in trouble is likely to be disappointed. Because behind the splashy headlines, there are limits to what the government and banks can hope to achieve. And trying to slow the free-fall in housing markets is akin to the government trying to put its finger in the dike.

The fact is that despite the double-digit declines in housing values in most cities, housing remains significantly overvalued in many markets by all of the traditional benchmarks: One key ratio – the median cost of a new home vs. median income – suggests that home prices nationwide still need to drop another 15% to 20% on average, as you can see in this chart compiled by money manager Barry Ritholtz. And the equilibrium price is far more than that in bubble markets like southern California and Florida. According to this "fair value" calculator, one suburban neighborhood outside Washington, D.C. that I checked (Alexandria, Va., where I lived in the mid-1990s) is now 47% overvalued. Ditto for a few communities in Los Angeles that I surveyed.

Environmental remediation has been completed on the 132-acre Riverbend District, formerly known as Harrison MetroCentre, in Harrison, N.J., which will allow owner-developer Advance Realty Group to move forward with construction of infrastructure such as roads and utilities.

Viacom has decided to keep its global headquarters at 1515 Broadway in Times Square, renewing and extending its lease for 1.3 million square feet of space at the 54-story Midtown Manhattan skyscraper that is home to MTV studios and the Nokia Theater.

For years, bad loans and their aftershocks have been sending homeowners into foreclosure. Now its lost jobs that are putting troubled borrowers over the edge.

There was a great story in the Los Angeles Times yesterday about the reporter's strugles to buy a home in foreclosure. I was particularly fascinated by what appears to be some creepy dealings by the listing agent on one of the properties who never even showed the reporter's offer to the bank.

I've been poking around on my own, looking to buy bank-owned property in a Los Angeles neighborhood called Canoga Park. It's a frustrating experience no doubt. I had a close encounter with a wild dog sleeping underneath one house I visited. Fortunately he didn't bite. I've seen homes where flippers left unfinished bathrooms. I saw several houses with paint splashes on the walls, put there by owners who never even had a chance to finish painting.

Another home had perhaps fifty business cards from various real estate agents, scattered across the kitchen counter like coins in a wishing well. One Realtor told me he doesn't even bother going to visit houses anymore. "There are 6,000 houses for sale in the San Fernando Valley," he said. "I'd never have time to see them all."

The last house I went to look at was listed as bank-owned in the Multiple Listing Service and had pictures attached of a nice, empty home. When I got there the home was occupied and the hastily scribbled sign outside said "for sale by owner." A half-hour drive for nothing.

New York City’s commercial real estate market isn’t immune to the fallout caused by the economic downturn. Transactions have plummeted 61 percent from the beginning of the year through October, according to data from Real Capital Analytics Inc. In the longer term, however, the outlook for the market remains strong.