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10:00am | I’m getting a bit tired of writing negative stuff about foreclosures, the crappy economy, and speculation on housing and commercial real estate—which is what you will see below—so I’m putting out a call to real estate agents. Any realtors with interesting properties on the market who would like a little free publicity, please e-mail me at don@lbpost.com. I’m looking not just for many of the same faces who often contribute to this column—though you are always welcome—but some new faces who have yet to make an appearance in Realty Bites. Big, old, really small, unique may do. If it’s interesting enough, I may break out my video camera and put together a video along with the column.

You hear news now and then about "the other shoe." It’s something I started writing about in 2008 when I was editor of a commercial real estate magazine. However, that thing has yet to drop.  According to a story posted Tuesday at CNBC, that shoe may be about to release its negative potential energy as you read this. "It’s happening down the road," Scott Rechler, CEO of RXR Realty told CNBC. Rechler added that today, "the blood is really in the boardroom behind closed doors where people are negotiating to solve problems." Rechler and other commercial experts site the source of the shoe’s pending plunge is the dying, or pretty much dead, commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) market. He says that over the next five years the lion’s share of commercial debt will be maturing. "You can't replace the same amount of debt in today's market with the amount of debt that is maturing—it’s going to need more equity," he said.

U.S. News & World Report is reporting that "although home prices improved notably in May, real estate values are expected to deteriorate as we head into the fall." Home prices in 20 major cities rose 1.3% in May from June, according to the most recent S&P/Case-Shiller home price report, however the chairman of Standard & Poor's index committee warned that May's figures were not all that encouraging, the U.S. News story states. "While May's report on its own looks somewhat positive, a broader look at home price levels over the past year still do not indicate that the housing market is in any form of sustained recovery," Blitzer said in a statement.

RealtyTrac on Thursday released its Midyear 2010 Metropolitan Foreclosure Market Report showing 154 of the 206 U.S. metropolitan areas with a population of 200,000 or more posted year-over-year increases in foreclosure activity. However, foreclosure activity fell in nine of the 10 metros with the highest foreclosure rates, the report shows.
 
"While we’re seeing early signs that foreclosure activity may have peaked in some of the hardest-hit markets, foreclosures continued to rise in three-quarters of the nation’s metropolitan areas in the first half of the year," James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac, said in a statement. "The fragile stability achieved in many local housing markets hinges on improvements in the underlying economy, specifically job growth. If unemployment remains persistently high and foreclosure prevention efforts only delay the inevitable, then we could continue to see increased foreclosure activity and a corresponding weakness in home prices in many metro areas."

A total of 93,263 properties in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana metro area, which includes Long Beach, received a foreclosure filing in the first half of 2010, the second highest total of any metro area nationwide. The rate for the area was a bit further down the list—one in 47 housing units in the area received a filing.
  
 The top 10 metro foreclosure rates included Las Vegas, with the nation’s highest metro foreclosure rate in the first half of the year—one in 15 housing units received a foreclosure filing. However, Vegas posted a decrease of nearly 15% from the previous six months and a decrease of nearly 9% from the first half of 2009.
 
With one in 22 of its housing units receiving a foreclosure filing, Modesto posted the nation’s third highest metro foreclosure rate. Other California cities in the top 10 were Merced, the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario area, Stockton and Vallejo-Fairfield.
 
The Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale metro area in Arizona posted the nation’s seventh highest metro foreclosure rate, with one in 23 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing in the first half of 2010.

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