The Housing Bubble

AS the road tour has been extended through tomorrow, and the first OTR thread is kind of full, I’ll keep posting observations in this posts comments.

My running observations of what I see as I travel, in the comments.

Some housing bubble news from around the world. Buffalo News, “It is a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Susie Lenahan glides her Acura sedan past a row of picture-book Victorians. A recent afternoon finds her in Allentown, Buffalo’s frayed but still elegant artsy/gay epicenter. Spotting a for-sale sign outside a multicolored ‘painted lady,’ Lenahan — among the area’s best-known real estate agents — nods and smiles. ‘It’s going for $329,000,” she says. ‘Five years ago, it would have been $100,000 less.’”

“We have seen the worst of times, and plenty of them. Now in neighborhoods across Western New York, it is the best of times. The housing market in hothouse-growth metropolises is suffering, while Buffalo’s soars. The bottom is dropping out in San Diego, Las Vegas, Tampa/St. Pete and other mutant-growth ZIP codes. Housing prices plummeted by more than 20 percent this year in some places. Good times in boom towns fueled ever-higher home prices and rampant new builds. Greed-blinded gamblers bought and quickly sold, ‘flipping’ houses like cards. New homeowners stretched themselves thin, fed by a delusion that values would forever rise.”

“It was the dot-com bubble all over again. Only this time, it burst in the faces of wishful-thinking homeowners and real estate speculators. ‘It was totally unrealistic,’ Lenahan said. ‘Prices can’t go up 40 percent a year.’”

The Journal Sentinel” target=”_blank”>Juournal Sentinel. “Low interest rates and prices that a local real estate official said are near bottom failed to pull the area housing market out of the doldrums in May, new data show. Sales were down in all Milwaukee-area counties, and listings fell in all but Kenosha, according to figures from the MLS of Wauwatosa.”

“Michael Ruzicka, president of the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors, said he believes ‘buyers may be missing a huge opportunity. Housing isn’t going to get any cheaper.’”

“A reason for the soft figures is that buyers have unrealistic expectations about what they will have to pay for a property while some potential sellers are withholding putting their homes on the market for fear prices are too low, he said.”

” Ruzicka said inventory levels probably hit their peak late last year and that ‘things should be taking off this summer.’ But he added: ‘I don’t think we are at the point where inventories are so low that we are going to get multiple offers on every shack.’”

The Memphis Daily News. “The Houston-based redeveloper of a Downtown high rise has become frustrated with the soft real estate market and will place 44 unsold condominiums on the auction block. The first 10 will be sold absolute, which means they will be sold to the highest bidder regardless of price. Starting bids on the rest of the units will be based on the prices of those first 10.”

“‘The sales velocity in the entire Downtown area has dropped off significantly over the last couple of years,’ said Mike Maerz, director of investments and property development for McCord Development. ‘There are still sales going on, but with the number of new units in the marketplace, the velocity has been diluted. And with negative national press on the housing market, we feel we’d rather be the first one to auction off units in the marketplace rather than later in the game.’”

The Miami County Republic. “While some homebuyers continue to migrate south from the Kansas City metropolitan area to Louisburg, realtor Doug Busby said that growth has slowed considerably. ‘New housing starts are way off what they were a couple of years ago,’ Busby said. ‘I don’t want to sound all doom and gloom, because I do think we have bottomed out, and I think the market will start to pick back up. But it hasn’t happened yet. Traffic is still pretty slow.’”

“Tired of driving in circles to make ends meet, Jaime and Lisa Watts are ready to sell their rural Louisburg property and move back to the Olathe area, a little more than a year after they migrated south to Miami County. While it wasn’t the tipping point, costly fuel prices did play a role in the couple’s desire to move closer to their jobs.”

“‘Gas prices have gone insane, just in the short time we’ve lived here,’ Lisa Watts said. ‘My husband and I both work in Overland Park, and higher gas prices contributed to our decision to move.’”

The Daily from Australia. “The Local Government Association of Queensland has attacked plans to fast-track land releases on the Sunshine Coast, saying it will do nothing to improve housing affordability.”

“LGAQ executive director Greg Hallam said while governments were genuinely concerned about affordability, it was a furphy to suggest that increasing supply would bring prices down. ‘Numerous independent reports have shown prices are driven by macro-economic policy,’ he said.”

“‘We have the highest level of second home ownership in the western world and, with negative gearing and minimal capital gains, people will continue to invest in this sector. The lack of logic (in the government’s approach) is borne out by the experience in Perth, where they have the most available land and the highest prices. I would be shocked if any of these initiatives reduced the price of houses,’ he said.”

The Ashburton Guardian from New Zealand. “Ashburton has reached section saturation, with around 100 house lots looking for new owners. During the first six months of this year, only a handful of sections sold in urban Ashburton; last month there were none and that has to be hurting someone, somewhere, says real estate industry spokesman Roger Burdett.”

“‘It’s quite alarming when I look at that. There are between 90 and 100 sections on the market that I know of and they’re just sitting and that’s not counting sections in Rakaia, Hinds and Methven. And there will be others that have gone under the radar,’ he said.”

“The section bottle-neck owed some of its origins to spec home builders who had unsold properties on their hands and who were simply not reinvesting in home lots until the market picked up, Mr Burdett said. ‘It’ll be great to have those sections when the market picks up and they will move, but prices will have to be looked at.’”

“Large numbers of sections are being marketed off Manse Street, Racecourse Road, Tuarangi Road, and in several Tinwald locations as well as many small lots developed as infill housing. All were simply sitting, he said.”

“A developer who knows first hand how tough selling a section can be is Ben Hansen. Like other developers he has spec houses to sell, blocks of land to subdivide. And nothing is moving.
With just 11 houses sold in Ashburton in the past month, there’s not a lot of room for spec home builders to move, Mr Hansen said.”

“‘We’ve got four or so on the go at the moment and I’ll just turn those into rentals, that’s what a lot of spec builders are doing and that’s driving the price of rentals downhe said.”

“At least there’d be one winner, the home renter, he said. While he could turn his spec homes into rental properties, when it came to the 20 odd sections he still wanted to sell, Mr Hansen said they would just sit until the market came right. ‘I’ll chip away at growing my rental stock, but unfortunately you can’t rent out a section,’ Hansen said.”

“Because most local builders were pretty conservative, they would be in a position where they could quit a property and at least break even, he said. ‘This is a stressful time to be in property – renters, purchasers, real estate agents, but this is just part of the cycle, you can’t bludgeon people into buying houses.’”

The Kingman Daily Miner. “Like the rest of the nation, Kingman has seen its share of foreclosures in the housing market. Now, however, those facing foreclosure have someone new to turn to for advice. Last week, Gov. Janet Napolitano announced her latest effort to curtail the wave of foreclosures that has wracked Arizona in the last few years - a local toll-free help line.”

“On June 1, Kingman Realtor Todd Tarson found 596 single-family residences listed for sale within the boundaries of the city of Kingman, the Butler area, the Hualapai Mountain area and the Valle Vista subdivisions. Of these, 56 houses - nearly a tenth - were listed as foreclosures.”

“When Tarson pulled the preliminary sales data from January through May of this year, that figure turned even grimmer. Foreclosures have thus far accounted for nearly a third of single-family home sales - 59 of the 195 homes sold - and they tend to go for significantly less than non-bank-owned property.”

“‘The kicker is, foreclosures are having a big impact on our market, but they’re selling faster,’ Tarson said.”

The San Mateo County Times. “Prices continued to slip in May on homes under $1 million in San Mateo County, but there may be light at the end of the tunnel on slumping sales, according to a new report. While May home sales fell 18 percent countywide compared to May 2007, sales have improved some this spring, according to the San Mateo County Association of Realtors.”

“The May drop of 18 percent and the 14 percent fall in April have given Realtors cause for optimism. These are the first two months in a year that the sales slowdown has been less than 20 percent. In the other months, sales have tanked between 22 percent and 45 percent.”

“Many of the homes in the $700,000 range were purchased in the past two years with subprime loans, and a number of buyers got in over their heads and didn’t have the qualifications of good credit and a stable job, said Ron Gable, VP of Alain Pinel Realtors in both San Mateo and Half Moon Bay.

“‘That was a recipe for disaster,’ said Gable.”

The Recordnet. “The company that staged the first Internet auction of unsold new homes in the Central Valley is calling its first auction a success. The real estate auction firm, based in Newport Beach, staged an auction beginning in April of 63 homes built by San Ramon-based Pacific Mountain Partners. That included 18 houses in Lathrop’s Mossdale Landing as well as houses in Gridley, north of Sacramento in Butte County; and Madera and Kerman, both near Fresno.”

“All 20 of the Madera homes were unexpectedly pulled into foreclosure by the bank, said Kelly Lovegrove, director of operations. But the remaining 43 have been sold, with most of them in escrow, she said.”

“In Lathrop, the lowest winning bid was $225,000 for a home with 2,333 square feet of space, four bedrooms and three baths. The highest was $365,000 for a 3,182-square-foot house with five bedrooms and 31/2 bathrooms. The Mossdale Landing homes originally were priced beginning at $540,000. Auction sale prices there averaged about $280,000.”

“Lovegrove said that since the auction, the company’s sales people have been busy talking with builders and banks about new properties for auction. ‘I suspect we will be back in that area soon,’ she said.”

The Ventura County Star. “LandSource Communities Development, the company behind the massive Newhall Ranch project near Santa Clarita, has been swept up in the turbulent real estate market. The Miami-based company, which operates in California, Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, Nevada and Texas, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It would allow the company to restructure its $1.24 billion debt, while continuing to operate ‘our business as usual,’ LandSource spokeswoman Tamara Taylor said in a release Monday.”

“‘Because of the downturn in the real estate market, we found ourselves in the same situation as other land development companies; the terms of our loans no longer work in today’s environment,’ said Taylor.”

“LandSource did not rule out the possibility of being sold. The company’s assets include 15,000 acres of undeveloped land north of Los Angeles. Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long, whose district borders the development in Los Angeles County, has her doubts that the development will advance.”

“‘I don’t know if they’re strong enough to go forward,’ she said.”

The Oregonian. “David Oringdulph built Legend Homes over four decades by building middle-class housing in Willamette Valley suburbs. With home prices rocketing up, Oringdulph, the company’s founder, expanded to red-hot Southern California. He also bought land for the first time in Bend, Oregon’s boomtown, and returned to fast-growing Vancouver.”

“Then the housing market tumbled. All three land deals fell apart. Legend’s parent company, Matrix Development, got stuck holding land worth less than the company owed on it. On Tuesday, the three deals sent Legend Homes into bankruptcy.”

“Legend’s troubles show how the national housing slump has rippled through the Portland area even though the region has largely escaped the depths of the market downturn playing out in California, Arizona and Florida.”

“Legend, the state’s fifth-largest homebuilder since 2000, is by the far the biggest to turn to bankruptcy. The move could mean trouble for small subcontractors who have been teetering in a slow market. ‘It’s sad,” said John Satterberg, president of Community Financial, a major construction lender to Oregon homebuilders. ‘I’ve never seen a builder that big tip over in the 30 years I’ve been here.’”

“‘If I hadn’t gone out and done all these deals, we’d be in great shape,’ Oringdulph said. ‘It was kind of like, ‘How can this happen?’ It happened. It couldn’t have been worse.’”

The Palm Beach Post from Florida. “Homeowner Chentella Harper-Graham fell behind on her mortgage payments after a one-two punch to her pocketbook. Her husband lost his job as a clerk at a law firm, and she became caretaker for her ailing mother. The West Palm Beach woman was among the flood of Palm Beach County borrowers facing foreclosure, but she was able to escape her mortgage default relatively unscathed, thanks to a successful short sale. ‘We had to take care of our mortgage and ourselves, and we couldn’t do both,’ Harper-Graham says.”

“In 2005, Harper-Graham paid $131,900 for a 960-square-foot condo in West Palm Beach. In 2006, she refinanced for $153,000 and used the extra cash to buy flooring and cabinets. By late 2007, when lender US Bank filed a default notice, the unit’s value had plunged. Harper-Graham sold in March for $90,000 - including the uninstalled flooring and cabinets. US Bank agreed to a $60,000 bath.”

“For Harper-Graham, the fallout from a short sale was far less devastating than a foreclosure would have been. ‘My credit didn’t get hit too hard,’ Harper-Graham says.”

From Wink News. in Florida. “Thousands of people living in Cape Coral won’t have to pay between $10,000 and $15,000 as part of the city’s billion dollar utility expansion project. City council voted to postpone hooking up homes located in the southwest six and seven areas. They may be off the hook for now but might have to pay more later on.”

“David Plume’s neighborhood has really been hit hard by Florida’s housing troubles. ‘There was about five families on this street and now we are down to three,’ says Plummer.”

“His street is almost becoming the norm in the Cape. ‘You just need to take a ride around the city and count how many vacant homes you are seeing and houses falling into repair problems,’ says Councilman Tim Day.”

“One burden City Council members won’t be putting on the residents who are here, $10,000-$15,000 bill to hook into city sewer and water lines. ‘You can’t put something else on people who can’t pay their mortgage or insurance,’ says Day.”

The Orlando Sentinel in Florida. “The median sale price of a home in the core Orlando area was still 14.4 percent below the May 2007 median of $250,000. The number of houses and condos available through the local MLS was down 421 for the month and 1.76 percent lower than in May 2007. The 19.6 months of inventory was the lowest by that yardstick since August 2007.”

“Orlando resident Bill Butler has had no luck trying to sell his two rental houses, one in Orlando and one in Longwood, despite dropping the prices a number of times. So he’s considering auctioning them off to the highest bidders. ‘It’s about as slow as you can get,’ said Butler, who has been buying and selling rental property in Central Florida since 1994.”

“He recently dropped the price on his three-bedroom concrete-block home near Clear Lake in Orlando from $169,000 to $151,500 and now is slashing it to $145,000. He upgraded the electrical and air-conditioning systems, added tile and carpet, and now is ‘hoping to at least break even. It’s move-in ready,’ he said.”

‘His rental house in Longwood has had an asking price of $245,000 for some time now, but Butler said he’s now leaning toward auctioning it off ‘with bids starting at $189,000.’ ‘You just have to be proactive,’ he said.”

“Paul Auslander, a veteran financial planner in Orlando, said he travels throughout Florida a lot and thinks Central Florida’s housing market is in better shape than other big metro markets farther south.”

“‘The Miami market is down, Fort Lauderdale way down, and Palm Beach, where I used to live, is absolutely dead. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for us here. The Realtors I know are not happy, but I think we can pull out of this a lot faster than other [ Florida] locations, especially [coastal] locations where people feel vulnerable to hurricanes,’ he said.”

The Daily Business Review from Florida. “In South Florida’s tumultuous real estate market, even subsidized housing projects aren’t immune to foreclosures. Yet, Roberto Godoy may be one of the luckiest rookie developers in Miami. City officials are considering using millions of taxpayers’ dollars to rescue him from a construction loan that is in default.”

“SunTrust Bank last month cut a deal with city officials, letting them buy the troubled $2.99 million mortgage for $3 million. The city wasn’t the loan guarantor but agreed in principle to the deal to save the affordable housing project.”

“The project was to honor his late father, who had bought the land in the early 1990s to build affordable housing. ‘All he did before dying in 1995 was talk about building condos for the less fortunate,’ Godoy said this week. ‘It was his dream … and my nightmare.’”

“Real estate consultant Saul Cimbler said it makes sense for the city to try to save its investment as a second mortgage holder. ‘It is not unusual for a second position to buy a first mortgage to protect’ its interest, he said.”

“Godoy can’t wait for the project to be over. ‘It took too long … too many headaches,’ he said. ‘I would never do anything like this again. It is time to retire.’”

From Access North Georgia. “The water is not the only thing dropping on Lake Lanier. According to the president of the Lake Lanier Association, home prices are also falling about as fast as the lake they border. ‘More houses than usual are on the market,’ Lake Lanier Association President Jackie Joseph said. ‘They are not moving very rapidly.’”

“The blame goes, in part, to the struggling housing market. Many across the country are having a hard time selling regular homes. Expensive lake front property is suffering the same fate. But that means now’s the time to jump in if you are looking for a great deal. ‘Really big discounts are being offered,’ Joseph said. ‘Some people who are lake residents are taking those discounts as a way to liquidate their property.’”

The Index Journal from South Carolina. “The housing market is a mess. That much is clear, but what it means for renters is significantly more gray. ‘We’re renting more units, but rent hasn’t gone down or up,’ said Russell Lawrence, broker in charge at Greenwood Rental Agency.”

“Greenwood Rental Agency manages about 2,300 residential units and about 97 percent of those are currently occupied. Lawrence said this is slightly above the firm’s usual occupancy rate of 95 percent to 96 percent. But, he said, the agency and property owners are having to work with tenants more than ever on rent arrangements.”

“‘Ordinarily, your rent is due on the first of the month. . . . In some cases we are having to split it into two payments, but we’re still getting it,’ he said.”

“Ted Long, rental property manager at Harrison Real Estate in Greenwood, said he has run specials in a couple of his buildings, but said overall occupancy rates have increased for his company. ‘It’s helped our business because people are not able to get a loan for a house,’ he said.”

“Wilson Bruce, of Town & Country Property Management Inc., said said there have been some problems in the Anderson area. Occupancy rates and inquiries started to slow down there about Feb. 1, Bruce said. To cope, Town & Country has offered incentives and lowered rents, but still most of its properties have 15 percent vacancy rates where the usual is 5 percent to 10 percent.”

“Bruce thinks this is because of a combination of factors, mostly the economy and jobs. More people are putting off the obligation of a place of their own and are staying home, moving home, or moving in with friends, because they are uncertain about their financial future.”

“Bruce, who is also the president of the Greenwood Property Managers Association, is wary of the future. ‘I have begun to see some competitors lowering their rents, and that scares me,’ Bruce said. He also has noticed ‘traffic,’ measured in phone calls and walk-in inquiries about properties, has decreased recently.”

“Bill Clark, of Upstate Carolina Real Estate Investors Association Inc., said he has not noticed rent rates decreasing, but he can see how it might be a possibility in the future. ‘We’ve got a lower rent base than most already,’ Clark said of South Carolina’s rental market. ‘The rental base is great if you keep the rent below $850. You get over that and you’ve got a problem.’”

“Clark said he has noticed more properties on the rental market as a result of foreclosures, but he said South Carolina renters are not drawn to the kind of large properties that are being foreclosed on because they can’t afford them. Plus, he said, the number of people coming back to the rental market after losing their homes makes up for the new properties that are coming on the market.”

“Heritage Co. VP Van Walters said his company has experienced some downward pressure on rent prices, but he chalked the change up more to normal fluctuation than any trend. ‘We haven’t had an extreme influx of new construction in Greenwood,’ Walters said of why he thinks rent rates in this area have been stable. In other areas, rent rates were pushed higher by fancy new buildings and when the housing bubble burst, those rates came back down, he said.”

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