San Diego & Riverside Counties| Real Estate Blog

Broker Arnie levine new segment on CW TV

County Properties broker Arnie Levine planning a new segment on channel 6 San Diego CW. Speaking at the TV station.

Arnie levine new segment on CW TV

www.CountyProperties.net

Interview broker of County Properties San Diego Channel 6 TV The CW

Interview with the broker of County Properties Arnie Levine. Please come and enjoy our viewing. 

 

 

   

From August5th Wed. 9:30am
 

Arnie Levine has been a licensed real estate agent since 1986, and created County Properties in 1995. 

The company was created on a need to change old fashioned real estate office protocol, where all agents compete and market themselves in the same office. They wanted to create a company that has a team concept by doing all the marketing for our agents so they can focus on serving the clients needs and concerns. 

Arnie has a college background in Electronics and Computer Technology, allowing the company to always have a cutting edge in real estate technology.  They are a family-owned business that caters to service. They keep their base of agents to a small group to allow direct hands on training, therefore giving each agent shared skills and empowerment to serve each client.

Their company's commitment and integrity focuses on their primary goal, which is to coach their clients so they can make their best choices when buying or selling a home.

Thank you!

County Properties

 

XETV l Bay City Television

XETV interview with the broker of County Properties Arnie Levine

San Diego channel 6 will be airing on San Diego Living” on August 5^th  between 8:30am and 9:30am an interview with the broker of County Properties Arnie Levine. Please come and enjoy our viewing.

Thank you!

County Properties

 

XETV l Bay City Television

New County Properties commercial on XETV 6

 

San Diego 6 would like to thank “County Properties”  for being one of our featured advertisers.  You can see “County Properties” during the top rated “San Diego 6 News in the Morning.”  If you would like to advertise on XETV 6 or have an appearance on our morning show, “San Diego Living,” please call Kayla Roof at 858-650-6011 for more information.  Thank you County Properties!

 

Thank you!

 

Kayla Roof l Account Executive/Internet Sales Specialist

XETV l Bay City Television

Looking for San Diego County Realtors ® 2009 Career Opportunity Change your future today!

Career Opportunities page on County Properties website

 

 We  are looking for loyalty, commitment, integrity and prosperity.

County Properties with 22 Years of experienced service of buying and selling in Real Estate. Our company agents are hand picked and trained to give you the most professional service in our industry. Although they are fully trained in the foreclosure & the regular real estate market, every agent has their own specialty; the agents all work together to give the best service in San Diego County. Some of these specialties include regular real estate and investment real estate.

High technologies is our logistical strategy, to forward our abilities and help clarify the buying and selling process for our clients to easily purchase or sell a home.

Why County Properties?

We are Business partners and REO listing Company for Countrywide/Bank of America, Wells Fargo & other banks.
Member of the Better Business Bureau.

You must be dedicated to excellence, service and integrity.
Have a Real Estate License with experience.
Work full time from the comfort of your home with your County Properties virtual office as a Real Estate agent.

We supply you with:

• County Properties virtual office.
• Buyer and or seller leads rotated to each of our agents on a continual basis.
• Turnkey marketing for new Buyers, Listings.
• Client email campaigns.
• Marketing, Advertising incuding TV.
• A maintained individual agent customized web site.
• Startup clientele data base.

Lots more for qualified Real Estate agents! Career Opportunities page on County Properties website

Contact Me  today your new bbroker for a confidential interview. 

County Properties Broker

Arnie Levine

SUSAN A. DAVIS Member of Congress letter to County Properties

March 18, 2009

 

 

County Properties

Mr. Arnold M. Levine

3111 Camino Del Rio North, Suite 400

San Diego, CA 92108

 

Dear Mr. Levine,

 

Thank you for sharing with me your support for including foreclosure prevention provisions in the economic recovery package.  I appreciate hearing from you and apologize for the delayed response.  Each week, I receive more than 2,000 letters, faxes, and e-mails and cannot always personally respond as quickly as I would like.

 

Like you, I believe our economy will not recover until we have addressed the underlying problems in the housing market that caused the current crisis.  I have repeatedly advocated for increasing foreclosure mitigation measures.  In January, I voted for legislation that would require at least $40-$100 billion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to be used for reducing foreclosures of owner-occupied homes.

 

You may be interested to know that the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act (H.R. 1) that Congress passed includes a number of measures to help our ailing housing market.  For example, H.R. 1 includes an $8,000 housing tax credit for first time homebuyers who purchase a home before December 1, 2009.  The recovery act also includes an additional $2 billion for the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund which helps community groups convert foreclosed properties into affordable housing to reduce vacant buildings and homes.

 

Rest assured, I will continue to advocate for measures to reduce foreclosure as the stimulus moves through the legislative process.

 

Once again, thank you for contacting me.  As your representative, I both need and value your perspective.  Please sign up for my E-Newsletter on my website www.house.gov/susandavis, if you would like to receive regular updates about what is happening in Congress.

 

With warm regards,

SUSAN A. DAVIS
Member of Congress

*****************************************************

 

County Properties is on the air.

 

 

 

County Properties is now on the air with TV comercials, on channel 6 San Diego.

 

 

Posted at 07:28 PM in County Properties in the media, Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) October 31, 2008 FREE Home Buyers Seminar San Diego & Temecula Home Buyers Seminars/Workshop FREE Riverside: Temecula Public Library Thurs. Nov. 20, 2008 @ 6:30-8:00pm Click Buyer seminar for details & reservations. County Properties Real Estate Seminar San Diego Posted at 02:58 PM in Carmel Mountain Real Estate, Chula Vista Real Estate, County Properties in the media, Dictionary Hill CA Real Estate, Eastlake Real Estate, El Cajon Real Estate, Escondido CA Real Estate, Fallbrook Real Estate, Finance, Hillcrest Real Estate, Imperial Beach real Estate, La Jolla Real Estate, Lakeside Real Estate, Murrieta CA Real Estate, Oceanside California Real Estate, Otay Ranch Chula Vista Real Estate, Paradise Hills San Diego Real Estate, Real Estate news, Riverside foreclosure news, Riverside Real Estate, San Diego Foreclosure news, San Marcos Real Estate, Temecula Real Estate, Vista CA, Vista Real Estate | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) October 27, 2008 FREE Home Buyers Seminars/Workshop San Diego & Temecula Presents  FREE Home Buyers Seminars/Workshop Guests County Properties Realtors ® Wells Fargo (@ San Diego location) Countrywide Home Loans (@ Riverside location) Chicago Title and Escrow Click Buyer seminar for details & reservations.   Topics: Navigating Real Estate today Why it's a good time to buy now Buying Bank owned properties Government Financing Vs Conventional The closing process Workshop: Free loan/credit consultation Setup Free online personal home search    Real Estate Seminar Mission Valley: Scottish Rite Event Center   Wed. Nov. 5, 2008 @ 6:30-8:00pm 1895 Camino del Rio South, San Diego, CA 92108 Riverside: Temecula Public Library Thurs. Nov. 20, 2008 @ 6:30-8:00pm 30600 Pauba Rd. Temecula, CA 92592 Click Buyer seminar for details & reservations. Posted at 03:15 PM in Carmel Mountain Real Estate, Chula Vista Real Estate, County Properties in the media, Current Affairs, Dictionary Hill CA Real Estate, Eastlake Real Estate, El Cajon Real Estate, Escondido CA Real Estate, Fallbrook Real Estate, Finance, Hillcrest Real Estate, Imperial Beach real Estate, La Jolla Real Estate, Lakeside Real Estate, Murrieta CA Real Estate, Oceanside California Real Estate, Otay Ranch Chula Vista Real Estate, Paradise Hills San Diego Real Estate, Riverside foreclosure news, Riverside Real Estate, San Diego Foreclosure news, San Marcos Real Estate, Temecula Real Estate, Vista CA, Vista Real Estate | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) June 19, 2008 San Diego Reader interview with County Properties The following article includes an San Diego Reader interview with our company County Properties. City Lights Where the Pain Is By Don Bauder | Published Wednesday, June 11, 2008 What’s the difference between National City and Rancho Santa Fe? Well — er, uh — money comes to mind. Last year, median household income in National City was $44,130, according to figures provided by the San Diego Association of Governments. That was far under the county median of $68,388. But the median household income in Rancho Santa Fe last year was around $200,000. Another difference is that 70 percent of the homes currently listed for sale in National City are in distress — that is, are in foreclosure or are so-called short sales. The corresponding percentage in Rancho Santa Fe is a mere 5.2 percent, according to figures provided by Brian Yui, chief executive of HouseRebate.com, a discount real estate broker. Yui’s firm has a comprehensive website providing information on total listings, short sales, and foreclosures in San Diego’s various markets. So what’s the difference between a foreclosure and a short sale? In a foreclosure, a homeowner is unable or unwilling to make payments, and the lender takes back the house. A short sale is an attempt to avoid foreclosure. The lender agrees to take a discount on a loan balance that is due. Say, if the balance of the loan is $300,000, but the house can only be sold for $250,000, under a short sale the lender might take $250,000 as payment in full. Although the media talk all the time about foreclosures, short sales are more prevalent. Yui’s website shows that in many markets, there are three to five times as many short sales as there are foreclosures. Throughout the county, foreclosures and short sales tend to be concentrated in lower-income areas. But possibly the biggest factor leading to the distress sale has been a dangerous mortgage that was sold to a greedy or naive person by a greedy salesperson. Particularly poisonous have been loans with so-called teaser interest rates — deceptively low in the early years, but then ratcheting higher. People were told that home prices always went up and they could always refinance the mortgage to offset the higher interest rates. Ouch. Then there were the “liar loans,” euphemistically called “stated income” loans, in which people said how much they made a year and didn’t have to provide documentation to prove it. Double ouch. The county’s problems “are mostly where entry-level housing is,” says Yui. People buying their first home got a lower-priced house and also a mortgage that they wouldn’t be able to handle as soon as the refinance game ended. The deceptive mortgages “gave people the ability to get in with nothing down, with payments artificially lowered for the first 12 to 18 months,” says Carlos Aguilar, president of AXIA Real Estate, who specializes in foreclosures. “It was a house of cards that fell apart like a Ponzi scheme the minute [home price] appreciation stopped.” The experts agree that new, so-called affordable housing developments attracted many buyers who subsequently couldn’t carry their mortgages. So homes in these developments have been dumped on the market. “With the new construction, developers were offering a lot of incentives, getting people in any way they could,” says Dennis Smith of North County’s Taylor Place Real Estate. “Now, when one property goes into foreclosure, values in the whole area drop.” Distress sales also show up heavily among condos and condo conversions, says Smith. There are many more short sales than foreclosures because homeowners want to “avoid the black mark of foreclosure on a credit report,” says Yui. The lenders, in turn, are willing to let the homeowner off the hook because they don’t want the hassle of trying to sell the home in this miserable market. Short sales involve more administrative headaches. “The banks are overloaded. Often, there are two lenders involved.” “It is not unusual to see a short sale take two or three months to get clear and another 30 days to close,” says Aguilar. Often banks won’t accept the short sale proposal. Real estate agents, therefore, would rather sell a property in foreclosure. It’s faster and cleaner. The short sales pile up in inventory, while the foreclosures move quickly into escrow. That’s another reason there are so many more short sales than foreclosures on the market. Lower-income areas featuring at least some relatively new developments have been hit the hardest. Lemon Grove median family incomes are a subpar $60,050. Prices have plummeted 33.6 percent in the last 12 months. Yui’s figures indicate 70 percent of Lemon Grove homes now listed for sale are short sales or foreclosures. Nearby Spring Valley has incomes around $70,000. Prices there have plunged 38.3 percent over the past year. A bit over 40 percent of homes on the market are short sales or foreclosures, about double the county average. “A lot of first-time buyers can’t afford La Mesa, so they go to Lemon Grove and Spring Valley,” says Arnie Levine of County Properties. Chula Vista has been hit very hard. Median incomes on the west side, where many homes were built in the 1940s, are below $60,000. The east side of Chula Vista features planned communities such as Otay Ranch, EastLake, and the Woods. Household incomes are around $100,000. But 72.6 percent of homes on the market on the east side are foreclosures or short sales, compared with about 60 percent on the poorer west side of town. Aguilar says that Chula Vista was a haven of liar loans. “In Chula Vista, the higher-income areas are hurting more,” says Zulema Maldonado of Prudential Real Estate in EastLake. She agrees that excessive liar and teaser-rate loans have hurt. “They purchased big homes and started with loans that were interest-only” or some other type in which the interest rate adjusted upward. “Otay Ranch is hurting the most. In 2003, prices were $400,000. They went up to $800,000 and are now back to $500,000.” In zip code 92057, the northeastern part of Oceanside abutting Camp Pendleton, 69 percent of homes on the market are short sales or foreclosures, according to Yui. This area includes Mesa Margarita, an older development. The area is crime-ridden, but family incomes at $71,046 are somewhat above the county median. “There were a lot of first-time homeowners there. It got into the feeding frenzy,” and people bit on the liar and teaser-rate loans, says Smith. “Prices were enticing, and there was a lot of new construction.” Other low-income areas are having troubles. In the 92027 zip code in Escondido, the median price of homes has dropped from $500,000 to $350,000 in the last two years. Median incomes are a subpar $66,284. Of homes on the market, 72 percent are short sales or foreclosures. The Encanto area has incomes that are lower still: $63,865. Home prices are down 38.6 percent over the last year. Of Encanto homes for sale, 75 percent are short sales or foreclosures. By contrast, Del Mar, with its median income of $113,407, has few homes in distress. Just 5 percent of homes on the market there are short sales or foreclosures — about the same as tony Rancho Santa Fe. The interest rates on many San Diegans’ mortgages will be reset in the next few years. So how long will the crisis last? Levine thinks it is close to bottoming now; the Federal Reserve will have to raise interest rates to defend the dollar, he believes, and buyers will come in, fearful that interest rates will go further upward. Louie Duarte of County Properties thinks it will last “three years at the max, more likely a year to two years.” Joshua Sloan of Keller Williams Realty in Escondido says the problems will go on for “the next year or even two.” Says Yui: “another 12 months.” It will be painful for those families losing their homes but a gift to San Diegans who can finally afford to buy one.   Click here for County Properties if your a buyer or seller that needs help or more  information on buying or selling a foreclosure, pre-foreclosure, short sale or regular property. Posted at 07:59 PM in County Properties in the media, Real Estate news, Riverside foreclosure news, San Diego Foreclosure news | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Next »

Home Buyers Seminars/Workshop

FREE Riverside: Temecula Public Library
Thurs. Nov. 20, 2008 @ 6:30-8:00pm

Click Buyer seminar for details & reservations.

County Properties Real Estate Seminar San Diego

Presents 

FREE Home Buyers Seminars/Workshop

Guests
County Properties Realtors ®

Wells Fargo (@ San Diego location)

Countrywide Home Loans (@ Riverside location)

Chicago Title and Escrow

Click Buyer seminar for details & reservations.

---

Topics: Navigating Real Estate today Why it's a good time to buy now Buying Bank owned properties Government Financing Vs Conventional The closing process Workshop: Free loan/credit consultation Setup Free online personal home search

---

 Real Estate Seminar

Mission Valley: Scottish Rite Event Center   Wed. Nov. 5, 2008 @ 6:30-8:00pm
1895 Camino del Rio South, San Diego, CA 92108

Riverside: Temecula Public Library Thurs. Nov. 20, 2008 @ 6:30-8:00pm
30600 Pauba Rd. Temecula, CA 92592

Click Buyer seminar for details & reservations.

The following article includes an San Diego Reader interview with our company County Properties.

City Lights

Where the Pain Is

By Don Bauder | Published Wednesday, June 11, 2008

What’s the difference between National City and Rancho Santa Fe? Well — er, uh — money comes to mind. Last year, median household income in National City was $44,130, according to figures provided by the San Diego Association of Governments. That was far under the county median of $68,388. But the median household income in Rancho Santa Fe last year was around $200,000.

Another difference is that 70 percent of the homes currently listed for sale in National City are in distress — that is, are in foreclosure or are so-called short sales. The corresponding percentage in Rancho Santa Fe is a mere 5.2 percent, according to figures provided by Brian Yui, chief executive of HouseRebate.com, a discount real estate broker. Yui’s firm has a comprehensive website providing information on total listings, short sales, and foreclosures in San Diego’s various markets.

So what’s the difference between a foreclosure and a short sale? In a foreclosure, a homeowner is unable or unwilling to make payments, and the lender takes back the house. A short sale is an attempt to avoid foreclosure. The lender agrees to take a discount on a loan balance that is due. Say, if the balance of the loan is $300,000, but the house can only be sold for $250,000, under a short sale the lender might take $250,000 as payment in full. Although the media talk all the time about foreclosures, short sales are more prevalent. Yui’s website shows that in many markets, there are three to five times as many short sales as there are foreclosures.

Throughout the county, foreclosures and short sales tend to be concentrated in lower-income areas. But possibly the biggest factor leading to the distress sale has been a dangerous mortgage that was sold to a greedy or naive person by a greedy salesperson. Particularly poisonous have been loans with so-called teaser interest rates — deceptively low in the early years, but then ratcheting higher. People were told that home prices always went up and they could always refinance the mortgage to offset the higher interest rates. Ouch. Then there were the “liar loans,” euphemistically called “stated income” loans, in which people said how much they made a year and didn’t have to provide documentation to prove it. Double ouch.

The county’s problems “are mostly where entry-level housing is,” says Yui. People buying their first home got a lower-priced house and also a mortgage that they wouldn’t be able to handle as soon as the refinance game ended. The deceptive mortgages “gave people the ability to get in with nothing down, with payments artificially lowered for the first 12 to 18 months,” says Carlos Aguilar, president of AXIA Real Estate, who specializes in foreclosures. “It was a house of cards that fell apart like a Ponzi scheme the minute [home price] appreciation stopped.”

The experts agree that new, so-called affordable housing developments attracted many buyers who subsequently couldn’t carry their mortgages. So homes in these developments have been dumped on the market. “With the new construction, developers were offering a lot of incentives, getting people in any way they could,” says Dennis Smith of North County’s Taylor Place Real Estate. “Now, when one property goes into foreclosure, values in the whole area drop.” Distress sales also show up heavily among condos and condo conversions, says Smith.

There are many more short sales than foreclosures because homeowners want to “avoid the black mark of foreclosure on a credit report,” says Yui. The lenders, in turn, are willing to let the homeowner off the hook because they don’t want the hassle of trying to sell the home in this miserable market. Short sales involve more administrative headaches. “The banks are overloaded. Often, there are two lenders involved.”

“It is not unusual to see a short sale take two or three months to get clear and another 30 days to close,” says Aguilar. Often banks won’t accept the short sale proposal. Real estate agents, therefore, would rather sell a property in foreclosure. It’s faster and cleaner. The short sales pile up in inventory, while the foreclosures move quickly into escrow. That’s another reason there are so many more short sales than foreclosures on the market.

Lower-income areas featuring at least some relatively new developments have been hit the hardest. Lemon Grove median family incomes are a subpar $60,050. Prices have plummeted 33.6 percent in the last 12 months. Yui’s figures indicate 70 percent of Lemon Grove homes now listed for sale are short sales or foreclosures. Nearby Spring Valley has incomes around $70,000. Prices there have plunged 38.3 percent over the past year. A bit over 40 percent of homes on the market are short sales or foreclosures, about double the county average. “A lot of first-time buyers can’t afford La Mesa, so they go to Lemon Grove and Spring Valley,” says Arnie Levine of County Properties.

Chula Vista has been hit very hard. Median incomes on the west side, where many homes were built in the 1940s, are below $60,000. The east side of Chula Vista features planned communities such as Otay Ranch, EastLake, and the Woods. Household incomes are around $100,000. But 72.6 percent of homes on the market on the east side are foreclosures or short sales, compared with about 60 percent on the poorer west side of town. Aguilar says that Chula Vista was a haven of liar loans.

“In Chula Vista, the higher-income areas are hurting more,” says Zulema Maldonado of Prudential Real Estate in EastLake. She agrees that excessive liar and teaser-rate loans have hurt. “They purchased big homes and started with loans that were interest-only” or some other type in which the interest rate adjusted upward. “Otay Ranch is hurting the most. In 2003, prices were $400,000. They went up to $800,000 and are now back to $500,000.”

In zip code 92057, the northeastern part of Oceanside abutting Camp Pendleton, 69 percent of homes on the market are short sales or foreclosures, according to Yui. This area includes Mesa Margarita, an older development. The area is crime-ridden, but family incomes at $71,046 are somewhat above the county median. “There were a lot of first-time homeowners there. It got into the feeding frenzy,” and people bit on the liar and teaser-rate loans, says Smith. “Prices were enticing, and there was a lot of new construction.”

Other low-income areas are having troubles. In the 92027 zip code in Escondido, the median price of homes has dropped from $500,000 to $350,000 in the last two years. Median incomes are a subpar $66,284. Of homes on the market, 72 percent are short sales or foreclosures. The Encanto area has incomes that are lower still: $63,865. Home prices are down 38.6 percent over the last year. Of Encanto homes for sale, 75 percent are short sales or foreclosures.

By contrast, Del Mar, with its median income of $113,407, has few homes in distress. Just 5 percent of homes on the market there are short sales or foreclosures — about the same as tony Rancho Santa Fe.

The interest rates on many San Diegans’ mortgages will be reset in the next few years. So how long will the crisis last? Levine thinks it is close to bottoming now; the Federal Reserve will have to raise interest rates to defend the dollar, he believes, and buyers will come in, fearful that interest rates will go further upward. Louie Duarte of County Properties thinks it will last “three years at the max, more likely a year to two years.” Joshua Sloan of Keller Williams Realty in Escondido says the problems will go on for “the next year or even two.” Says Yui: “another 12 months.” It will be painful for those families losing their homes but a gift to San Diegans who can finally afford to buy one.

  Click here for County Properties if your a buyer or seller that needs help or more

 information on buying or selling a foreclosure, pre-foreclosure, short sale or regular property.

FREE Home Buyers Seminar San Diego & Temecula

Home Buyers Seminars/Workshop

FREE Riverside: Temecula Public Library
Thurs. Nov. 20, 2008 @ 6:30-8:00pm

Click Buyer seminar for details & reservations.

County Properties Real Estate Seminar San Diego

FREE Home Buyers Seminars/Workshop San Diego & Temecula

Presents 

FREE Home Buyers Seminars/Workshop

Guests
County Properties Realtors ®

Wells Fargo (@ San Diego location)

Countrywide Home Loans (@ Riverside location)

Chicago Title and Escrow

Click Buyer seminar for details & reservations.

---

Topics: Navigating Real Estate today Why it's a good time to buy now Buying Bank owned properties Government Financing Vs Conventional The closing process Workshop: Free loan/credit consultation Setup Free online personal home search

---

 Real Estate Seminar

Mission Valley: Scottish Rite Event Center   Wed. Nov. 5, 2008 @ 6:30-8:00pm
1895 Camino del Rio South, San Diego, CA 92108

Riverside: Temecula Public Library Thurs. Nov. 20, 2008 @ 6:30-8:00pm
30600 Pauba Rd. Temecula, CA 92592

Click Buyer seminar for details & reservations.

San Diego Reader interview with County Properties

The following article includes an San Diego Reader interview with our company County Properties.

City Lights

Where the Pain Is

By Don Bauder | Published Wednesday, June 11, 2008

What’s the difference between National City and Rancho Santa Fe? Well — er, uh — money comes to mind. Last year, median household income in National City was $44,130, according to figures provided by the San Diego Association of Governments. That was far under the county median of $68,388. But the median household income in Rancho Santa Fe last year was around $200,000.

Another difference is that 70 percent of the homes currently listed for sale in National City are in distress — that is, are in foreclosure or are so-called short sales. The corresponding percentage in Rancho Santa Fe is a mere 5.2 percent, according to figures provided by Brian Yui, chief executive of HouseRebate.com, a discount real estate broker. Yui’s firm has a comprehensive website providing information on total listings, short sales, and foreclosures in San Diego’s various markets.

So what’s the difference between a foreclosure and a short sale? In a foreclosure, a homeowner is unable or unwilling to make payments, and the lender takes back the house. A short sale is an attempt to avoid foreclosure. The lender agrees to take a discount on a loan balance that is due. Say, if the balance of the loan is $300,000, but the house can only be sold for $250,000, under a short sale the lender might take $250,000 as payment in full. Although the media talk all the time about foreclosures, short sales are more prevalent. Yui’s website shows that in many markets, there are three to five times as many short sales as there are foreclosures.

Throughout the county, foreclosures and short sales tend to be concentrated in lower-income areas. But possibly the biggest factor leading to the distress sale has been a dangerous mortgage that was sold to a greedy or naive person by a greedy salesperson. Particularly poisonous have been loans with so-called teaser interest rates — deceptively low in the early years, but then ratcheting higher. People were told that home prices always went up and they could always refinance the mortgage to offset the higher interest rates. Ouch. Then there were the “liar loans,” euphemistically called “stated income” loans, in which people said how much they made a year and didn’t have to provide documentation to prove it. Double ouch.

The county’s problems “are mostly where entry-level housing is,” says Yui. People buying their first home got a lower-priced house and also a mortgage that they wouldn’t be able to handle as soon as the refinance game ended. The deceptive mortgages “gave people the ability to get in with nothing down, with payments artificially lowered for the first 12 to 18 months,” says Carlos Aguilar, president of AXIA Real Estate, who specializes in foreclosures. “It was a house of cards that fell apart like a Ponzi scheme the minute [home price] appreciation stopped.”

The experts agree that new, so-called affordable housing developments attracted many buyers who subsequently couldn’t carry their mortgages. So homes in these developments have been dumped on the market. “With the new construction, developers were offering a lot of incentives, getting people in any way they could,” says Dennis Smith of North County’s Taylor Place Real Estate. “Now, when one property goes into foreclosure, values in the whole area drop.” Distress sales also show up heavily among condos and condo conversions, says Smith.

There are many more short sales than foreclosures because homeowners want to “avoid the black mark of foreclosure on a credit report,” says Yui. The lenders, in turn, are willing to let the homeowner off the hook because they don’t want the hassle of trying to sell the home in this miserable market. Short sales involve more administrative headaches. “The banks are overloaded. Often, there are two lenders involved.”

“It is not unusual to see a short sale take two or three months to get clear and another 30 days to close,” says Aguilar. Often banks won’t accept the short sale proposal. Real estate agents, therefore, would rather sell a property in foreclosure. It’s faster and cleaner. The short sales pile up in inventory, while the foreclosures move quickly into escrow. That’s another reason there are so many more short sales than foreclosures on the market.

Lower-income areas featuring at least some relatively new developments have been hit the hardest. Lemon Grove median family incomes are a subpar $60,050. Prices have plummeted 33.6 percent in the last 12 months. Yui’s figures indicate 70 percent of Lemon Grove homes now listed for sale are short sales or foreclosures. Nearby Spring Valley has incomes around $70,000. Prices there have plunged 38.3 percent over the past year. A bit over 40 percent of homes on the market are short sales or foreclosures, about double the county average. “A lot of first-time buyers can’t afford La Mesa, so they go to Lemon Grove and Spring Valley,” says Arnie Levine of County Properties.

Chula Vista has been hit very hard. Median incomes on the west side, where many homes were built in the 1940s, are below $60,000. The east side of Chula Vista features planned communities such as Otay Ranch, EastLake, and the Woods. Household incomes are around $100,000. But 72.6 percent of homes on the market on the east side are foreclosures or short sales, compared with about 60 percent on the poorer west side of town. Aguilar says that Chula Vista was a haven of liar loans.

“In Chula Vista, the higher-income areas are hurting more,” says Zulema Maldonado of Prudential Real Estate in EastLake. She agrees that excessive liar and teaser-rate loans have hurt. “They purchased big homes and started with loans that were interest-only” or some other type in which the interest rate adjusted upward. “Otay Ranch is hurting the most. In 2003, prices were $400,000. They went up to $800,000 and are now back to $500,000.”

In zip code 92057, the northeastern part of Oceanside abutting Camp Pendleton, 69 percent of homes on the market are short sales or foreclosures, according to Yui. This area includes Mesa Margarita, an older development. The area is crime-ridden, but family incomes at $71,046 are somewhat above the county median. “There were a lot of first-time homeowners there. It got into the feeding frenzy,” and people bit on the liar and teaser-rate loans, says Smith. “Prices were enticing, and there was a lot of new construction.”

Other low-income areas are having troubles. In the 92027 zip code in Escondido, the median price of homes has dropped from $500,000 to $350,000 in the last two years. Median incomes are a subpar $66,284. Of homes on the market, 72 percent are short sales or foreclosures. The Encanto area has incomes that are lower still: $63,865. Home prices are down 38.6 percent over the last year. Of Encanto homes for sale, 75 percent are short sales or foreclosures.

By contrast, Del Mar, with its median income of $113,407, has few homes in distress. Just 5 percent of homes on the market there are short sales or foreclosures — about the same as tony Rancho Santa Fe.

The interest rates on many San Diegans’ mortgages will be reset in the next few years. So how long will the crisis last? Levine thinks it is close to bottoming now; the Federal Reserve will have to raise interest rates to defend the dollar, he believes, and buyers will come in, fearful that interest rates will go further upward. Louie Duarte of County Properties thinks it will last “three years at the max, more likely a year to two years.” Joshua Sloan of Keller Williams Realty in Escondido says the problems will go on for “the next year or even two.” Says Yui: “another 12 months.” It will be painful for those families losing their homes but a gift to San Diegans who can finally afford to buy one.

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