In an analysis of a sample of nearly one million Redfin.com users searching for homes across 75 metro areas in the first three months of 2017, it was found that one in five (19.8%) searched mostly for homes outside their home metro. Among them, about half searched exclusively in other metros. Three trends dominated the migration patterns seen in Redfin.com user searches last quarter:

1. Movement of Bay Area residents to more affordable metro areas dominated the nation’s migration patterns in the first quarter.
2. Metro areas in the South attracted migrants from the coasts.
3. Chicago, Boston and Seattle had perhaps the most dedicated residents, with more than nine out of 10 local users planning to stay in the area.

Trend #1: California Leavin’
Redfin’s Taylor Marr writes: We found that some of the most expensive metros had the largest net outflow—the number of local users searching for a home in a different metro minus the number of users from another metro searching for a home in the subject metro. The San Francisco Bay Area topped the list of places with the largest net outflow, followed by New York and Los Angeles.

But some metros had residents that seemed to be staying put: Across the 75 metropolitan areas included in our analysis, four out of five people were looking primarily within their home metro. Chicago topped the list of places where people prefer to stay close to home, with a whopping 92.5 percent of local users searching only in the Chicago area. Likewise, more than nine out of 10 home buyers in Boston, Seattle and Nashville searched for houses close to home.

For full article click here.

Tesla Motor’s Elon Musk said the need for lower-cost batteries for autos and power storage means there will need to be hundreds of “gigafactories” like the one the carmaker is planning to build.

But for the time being Tesla Motors Inc. is narrowing its search for the much coveted and ballyhooed $5 billion electric battery factory down to a final pick within two or three months. “We are approaching a down-select stage in the process, which will likely see two locations emerge,” said Alexis Georgeson, a spokeswoman for the Palo Alto, California-based electric car maker.

Tesla wants to down-select two sites before it picks a final winner for the 10 million-square-foot plant. This should intensify the bidding war between the two remaining states.

The electric-car company based in Palo Alto, California, anticipates the battery factory will reduce the cost of lithium-ion cells by more than its initial guidance of 30 percent, Musk said when he spoke recently at the World Energy Innovation Forum, an annual conference hosted by Tesla board member Ira Ehrenpreis.

Tesla is getting close to deciding where it will build the first such proposed facility, which Musk has said will cost as much as $5 billion and involve partner companies such as Panasonic Corp. Last week he said groundbreaking at one of at least two potential sites could happen as early as June.

Along with supplying cheaper batteries for Tesla’s electric cars, the plant is to also supply stationary power storage devices to SolarCity Corp., another Musk-affiliated company. Those power storage devices will be needed by other solar power providers and to store wind power, he said, without identifying specific companies. Musk currently gets his batteries from Panasonic and an Asian supply chain.

Tucson, Pinal County, Buckeye, San Antonio, Reno, Albuquerque and California have all been in the mix for the Tesla plant. Tesla assembles its cars in Fremont and recently leased industrial space near Stockton.

The plant has been met by some Wall Street and supply skepticism and today was slapped with a junk credit rating by Standard & Poor. Reason given: “considerable uncertainty” about its long-term prospects.

The unsolicited B-ranking, six levels below investment grade, reflects a business “constrained by Tesla’s niche and independent market position,” S&P, the world’s largest credit-rating company, said Tuesday in a statement. “Palo Alto, California-based Tesla has a smaller scale relative to peers, a narrower product focus, and limited demand for its products, said S&P, which said its outlook on the rating is “stable.”

The youngest publicly traded U.S. automaker has tapped debt markets without a ranking from any of the major ratings companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Tesla raised about $2.3 billion in March selling convertible debt to fund a battery factory to make more affordable models. “We believe there is considerable uncertainty in Tesla’s long-term prospects,” S&P analysts Nishit Madlani, Dan Picciotto and Joseph Lin wrote in the report. Compared with larger, more established automakers, the company is less likely “to successfully adapt to competitive and technological displacement risks over the medium to long term,” they said.

The gains in Tesla shares slowed this year after the company reported first quarter Model S sales this month that fell below top-of-the-range analyst estimates. Shares have risen 41 percent for the year to $211.56.

Bank Repossessions Decrease 4% to Lowest Level Since July 2007 Foreclosure Starts Increase More Than 50 Percent Annually in MD, CT, NJ, CA

IRVINE, Calif. — RealtyTrac® released Thursday its U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™ for January 2014, which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 124,419 U.S. properties in January an 8 percent increase from December but still down 18 percent from January 2013. The report also shows one in every 1,058 U.S. housing units had a foreclosure filing during the month.

January marked the 40th consecutive month where U.S. foreclosure activity declined on an annual basis, but the annual decline of 18 percent was the smallest annual decline since September 2012, and the 8 percent monthly increase was the biggest month-over-month increase since May 2012.

“The monthly increase in January foreclosure activity was somewhat expected after a holiday lull, but the sharp annual increases in some states shows that many states are not completely out of the woods when it comes to cleaning up the wreckage of the housing bust,” said Daren Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac. “The foreclosure rebound pattern is not only showing up in judicial states like New Jersey, where foreclosure activity reached a 40-month high in January, but also some non-judicial states like California, where foreclosure starts jumped 57 percent from a year ago, following 17 consecutive months of annual decreases.”

High-level findings from the report:

• A total of 57,259 U.S. properties started the foreclosure process for the first time in January, up 10 percent from the previous month but still down 12 percent from January 2013 — the 18th consecutive month where foreclosure starts have decreased annually.

• Counter to the national trend, January foreclosure starts increased from a year ago in 22 states, including Maryland (up 126 percent), Connecticut (up 82 percent), New Jersey (up 79 percent), California (up 57 percent), and Pennsylvania (up 39 percent).

• Scheduled foreclosure auctions (which are also foreclosure starts in some states) increased 13 percent in January compared to the previous month but were still down 8 percent from a year ago — the 38th consecutive month where U.S. scheduled foreclosure auctions have decreased annually.

• Counter to the national trend, scheduled foreclosure auctions increased from a year ago in 27 states, including Oregon (up 326 percent), Connecticut (up 223 percent), Maryland (up 113 percent), New York (up 73 percent), and Nevada (up 73 percent).

• Scheduled foreclosure auctions in New York were at the highest monthly level since October 2010 — a 39-month high — and scheduled foreclosure auctions in Nevada were at the highest level since February 2012 — a 23-month high.

• There were a total of 30,226 U.S. bank repossessions (REO) in January, down 4 percent from the previous month and down 40 percent from January 2013 to the lowest level since July 2007 — a 78-month low.

• Counter to the national trend, 12 states posted annual increases in REO activity in January, including New York (up 118 percent), Oklahoma (up 93 percent), Connecticut (up 75 percent), New Jersey (up 26 percent), and Maryland (up 11 percent).

• States with the highest foreclosure rates in January were Florida, Nevada, Maryland, Illinois, and New Jersey.

• Among the nation’s 20 most populated metropolitan statistical areas, the highest foreclosure rates were in Miami, Tampa, Chicago, Baltimore and Riverside-San Bernardino in Southern California. Only four of the 20 largest metro areas posted annual increases in foreclosure activity: Baltimore (up 119 percent), New York (up 40 percent), Washington, D.C. (up 38 percent), and Philadelphia (up 14 percent).

Local broker quotes
“Ohio’s foreclosure rate increased 23 percent for the month of January 2014 compared to December of 2013, but the added inventory is being absorbed quickly in the market due to low available inventory of single-family home listings,” said Michael Mahon, executive vice president/broker at  HER Realtors, covering the Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton, Ohio markets.  “Despite this increase in foreclosure activity, all signs in Ohio point to continued, positive growth of appreciation in single-family home prices as well as homeowner equity for 2014.”

“Foreclosure activity in Oklahoma is continuing to wind down,” said Sheldon Detrick, CEO of  Prudential Detrick/Alliance Realty covering the Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla., markets.  “I wouldn’t say it’s over, but it’s definitely winding down, which has resulted in multiple offers on every REO that is listed with many of them selling for higher than the listing price.”

Florida, Nevada and Maryland post top state foreclosure rates
Florida foreclosure activity in January increased 19 percent from December but was down 13 percent from January 2013 — the sixth consecutive month with an annual decrease in foreclosure activity following passage of foreclosure fast track legislation there in July. Despite the downward trend in foreclosure activity, Florida still posted the nation’s highest state foreclosure rate: one in every 346 housing units with a foreclosure filing.

Florida foreclosure starts jumped 43 percent from December to January, but were still down 33 percent year over year, while scheduled foreclosure auctions increased 28 percent from December and also were up 28 percent from a year ago to the highest monthly level since October 2010 — a 39-month high.

Scheduled foreclosure auctions in Nevada were at a 23-month high in January thanks to a 43 percent month-over-month spike in the numbers, which were up 73 percent from January 2013. Nevada foreclosure starts and bank repossessions were still down from a year ago, but the state still posted the nation’s second highest foreclosure rate: one in every 533 housing units with a foreclosure filing.

Maryland overall foreclosure activity increased on a year-over-year basis for the 19th consecutive month in January, helping the state post the nation’s third highest foreclosure rate for the month: one in every 543 housing units with a foreclosure filing.

Other states with foreclosure rates among the nation’s 10 highest in January were Illinois (one in every 603 housing units with a foreclosure filing), New Jersey (one in every 619 housing units), Connecticut (one in every 752 housing units), Delaware (one in every 818 housing units), South Carolina (one in every 850 housing units), Ohio (one in every 885 housing units), and California (one in every 921 housing units).

Report methodology
The RealtyTrac U.S. Foreclosure Market Report provides a count of the total number of properties with at least one foreclosure filing entered into the RealtyTrac database during the month — broken out by type of filing. Some foreclosure filings entered into the database during the month may have been recorded in previous months. Data is collected from more than 2,200 counties nationwide, and those counties account for more than 90 percent of the U.S. population.

To read the full report click here. https://www.realtytrac.com/content/foreclosure-market-report/january-2014-foreclosure-market-report-7982