New Real Estate Brokerage Firm Banks on Future Housing Boom

In a tough real estate market, Christian Fuentes and his wife Jeanette see hope.

On Thursday, the couple celebrated the expansion of their RE/MAX franchise to an independent brokerage and Christian said he is keeping his eye on 2013-2014 to bring back a boom in the market.

"For us, this is good timing," Fuentes, who is the president of the agency, said.

Now, Fuentes said, low prices and low interest rates open opportunities for investors to pick up short sales, flip homes, or start with low down payments.

In Diamond Bar, Fuentes said most transactions have been short sales and he said he expects that to continue for a couple years.

Nationally, the inventory of short sales and foreclosures or bank-owned homes could take years to exhaust, according to Forbes magazine blogger Morgan Brennan.

A survey by the San Francisco-based Trulia and the Irvine-based RealtyTrac listing services also projects recovery out to 2014, Brennan reported, with a high number of foreclosures and bank-owned properties still awaiting sale or processing:

There are over 900,000 residential properties sitting on banks’ balance sheets right now, of which 600,000 have yet to reach the market. Another 1.2 million properties are currently in some stage of foreclosure, of which a mere 20% have been listed for sale. Behind that, an additional four million properties are in some stage of delinquency — not yet in foreclosure but on their way there.

Rick Sharga, senior vice president of RealtyTrac, told Forbes that the foreclosure process in California is taking as long as 600 days.

Fuentes said he is not expecting a rise in prices anytime soon, but when the market does pick back up, a boom in the region will put his Diamond Bar office in a good position.

"Diamond Bar is a great location to do business," Fuentes said, pointing out the short trip east to San Bernardino, west to Los Angeles, and south into Orange County.

Heidi Gallegos, executive director of the Regional Chamber of Commerce for the San Gabriel Valley, which includes Diamond Bar, said that she is pleased with the move.

"We're pleased that they chose Diamond Bar," Gallegos said, "and I think it shows that we're expecting an expansion in the housing market two to three years out."