RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE

Foreclosure Market Booklet: In a bid to capitalize on home shoppers’ dreams of picking up a steal in the foreclosure market, the new Southern California alliance of Grubb & Ellis Co. and Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate has begun distributing a booklet listing foreclosed and distressed properties, bank- and corporate-owned homes, homes available for trades and homes being sold by “desperate sellers offering financing.”

And it apparently works.

In the past two weeks more than 100,000 copies of the 26-page booklet have been distributed in San Diego County and parts of south Orange County. Realtors in the participating Grubb & Ellis and Better Homes & Gardens network have fielded more than 350 calls and opened escrows on about a dozen sales, said Mary Lou Rodgers, marketing manager for Grubb & Ellis’ regional operation headquartered in Orange.

She said the response rate has been “fantastically higher” than with other types of direct mail, with more than 10 times the response rate of previous direct mailing of 100,000 pieces.

Listings in the inaugural booklet--which ultimately will be distributed to 400,000 Southern California homes--range from a two-bedroom, 1 3/4-bath home in Yucca Valley priced at $51,500 to a $2.5-million waterfront manse on Lido Island in Newport Beach.

A $3.4-million Harbor Ridge estate also is listed in the book but already has been sold. The home was built by former Mercedes-Benz dealer James Slemons and was foreclosed on by his bank when his company went bankrupt last year.

In all, the book includes 72 Orange County properties starting at $82,900 for a one-bedroom, one-bath waterside condominium in Lake Forest.

Grubb & Ellis also uses the book to publicize its in-house mortgage lending operation, GEMS (Grubb & Ellis Mortgage Services), a job-loss mortgage insurance program offered through an independent company, Morgard Inc., and its new ties with the Better Homes & Gardens offices throughout Southern California.