It’s The New Reality Of Real Estate
It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “One million dollars will buy you a lot of real estate in Warren County, New York. Would you prefer to spend such money on a condominium in downtown Glens Falls? Yes, you read that right. Someone willing to spend that much usually gets a bonafide mansion for the money.”
“Glens Falls Realtor Ginny McBride asked a caller to repeat Levinsky’s top asking price two or three times. ‘You mean almost a million?’ she asked. ‘In Glens Falls?’”
“Pete Swaufield, executive officer at the Realtors Association of the Fox Valley (Illinois), said sales had ’slowed considerably.’ ‘Now, instead of sellers dealing with three bidders and 15 days on the market, sellers are looking at trying to find one bidder in 90 days,’ he said.”
“Swaufield noted that the market only appears slow relative to the robust sales racked up in 2005 and much of 2006. ‘I deal with agents who have never seen a down market,’ said Swaufield. ‘This is a cyclical market, and right now, we’re in a little bit of the down.’”
“Rosanne Lynch tried to sell her home, first listing with a Web-based For Sale By Owner program, and then listing with a real estate agent. She even cut the asking price.”
“But after six months and no offers, she opted to pull the house from the market. ‘I’ve got to decide what I want to do now,’ she said. ‘The market’s flat, and I don’t know what I can do about it.’”
“It’s the new reality of real estate. Mississippi leads the nation in the number of people behind on their house notes. Prices are being reduced in some cases and foreclosures are adding up. ‘We have a subprime market collapse.’ According to Quentin Whitwell, Executive Director of the Mississippi Mortgage Bankers Association. Whitwell adds, ‘It’’s painful, there is no doubt about it.’”
“According to Kelly Hogue, an auctioneer, ‘They tell me (realtors) they have so many listings they are out of signs.’”
“The marketing boss for Norway’s largest brokerage chain, told newspaper Dagens Næringsliv on Tuesday that it’s taking almost twice as long to sell properties now than it did in January. ‘Time on the market is a good indicator of how housing prices will develop,’ Rune Garborg of DnB NOR said.”
“Several flats in the popular Majorstuen district of Oslo have also been advertised repeatedly in recent weeks, clearly because they haven’t sold.”
“Housing loan defaults were rising, said bankers. This is because many borrowers, who buy houses as an investment, have started defaulting following the hikes in interest rates.”
“‘Mortgage default is rising for the category which borrows to fund a second home or buys property as an investment,’ said U.S. Bhargava, chief general manager, Punjab National Bank.”
“The fact that the property market in the province of Malaga is slowing down has already been backed up by a number of statistics. The President of the School of Real Estate Agents, Cayetano Rengel, pointed out that the slump in property sales is becoming more and more noticeable and that this affects the new properties more because there are more of them on the market.”
“Rengel points out that now the real estate boom, which defied logic with exorbitant prices, is over. ‘Foreign investment has stopped,’ Rengel explains.”
“Soaring house prices are driving public-sector professionals out of the city, say those in the know. ‘Pportable professionals’ are beginning to leave the province behind, and it’s a problem affecting portions of the public sector, said University of Calgary economist Frank Atkins.”
“‘It’s just pure economics, when things are hot in one area, people come here and it’s really great,, Atkins said. ‘Then it gets really expensive and some people cash in their chips and move to another region.’”
“Don’t look now, but a downtown condo project is in financial trouble. On Sunday, BankEast published a foreclosure notice in connection with a planned Commerce Lofts project.”
“Developer William Cole Smith, a East Tennessee State University graduate, said the condo market hasn’t softened and he could easily sell all of the Commerce units but has decided to go in a different direction. He gave few details but said that the building is ‘going to be a different type of project.’”
“The housing market in Cheyenne, the capital of Wyoming, took off during the real estate boom and is only now showing slight signs of slowing. ‘We have not had a down year for the past five years,” says agent Bill Lewis.”
“Recently, though, Lewis says, homes for sale have been staying on the market a little longer, and some sellers are having to cut their asking prices a bit.”
“The number of homes on the market at the end of April was up 17.6 percent compared to the year before. The Houston Association of Realtors attributes the increase to the time of the year, as more people list their homes for sale in spring. But if the for-sale inventory continues to rise faster than sales, it could push down prices.”
“Sixteen percent of the April home sales were properties that had been foreclosed on. They were up 87 percent over the previous April.”
“Miles Marks of Performance Realty expects the problem to worsen. He’s already seen his properties stay on the market longer. ‘The foreclosures are just going to go ballistic here in a while,’ he said.”