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.