Have REO's taken over Long Beach?

So are banks taking over the Long Beach real estate market? Well let's see if we can find some answers to this question. All James and I seem to hear these days is it is all about the REO business. Now don't get me wrong there are properties out there owned by banks and we both expect that to increase but let's be real it isn't the entire Long Beach real estate market.

How many REO's are in Long Beach

I decided that I would search for REO properties in Long Beach and see how many where available. The graph to the left was done on the 17th of December and shows exactly how many REO's are in the MLS system as of this date.

There are 283 REO's that are available in the city of Long Beach. The amount of inventory to chose from is 1554. So 18.2% of the real estate market in the city of Long Beach is currently owned by a bank.

So the vast majority of properties in Long Beach are not owned by banks. The real question comes into play is what will happen with the 455 short sales that are currently listed for sale in the market. These have the potential to end up owned by banks if the banks don't work something out.

With all of the attention in the media about the TARP program and the bank bailout I would have thought (Maybe naively so) that this would help the people who wanted to keep their homes and were attempting a short sale. These properties hitting the market as REO could push the REO market to 50% of the Long Beach real estate market.

I don't think anyone would disagree that a market where 50% is owned by banks is a good idea. We shall see what the new year leads us to.

Related Posts

• How many condos are owned by banks?
• How many REO's & Short Sales are there in Long Beach?