The Housing Bubble

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “According to report from Beijing Morning Post, many investors in Shenzhen property market are paying at least 400,000 yuan in mortgages each month and at least 30 percent of them have lost all their earnings. ‘When the real estate sector was booming, every morning, the first thing I did was to think how much I’d earned. Now, the first thing I do is think how much I’ve lost,’ says Liu Bin, a Shenzhen real estate investor. ‘I’m in a very awkward situation. All I can do now is to rent rooms out for the money to pay bank loans.’”

“He still regrets his last investment in 2007. ‘I didn’t buy anything at the beginning of 2007 as house prices in Shenzhen rose to a degree I couldn’t understand. But I couldn’t help buying a house in June 2007. The decision was made only in a few seconds,’ he says.”

“‘I have a sense that the ‘winter’ has just began,’ Liu says.”

“As Canada’s housing market shows fresh signs it has exited the boom phase, Merrill Lynch economists are cautioning homeowners to expect a ’sustained downturn’ in prices.”

“Ken Glauser, associate broker at Henry Moulin Realty Inc, (is) rather relieved the market is losing some of its fevered pitch. Nowadays, ‘people can go home and think about their bids overnight,’ Mr. Glauser said. ‘Last year, they could hardly get back to their car to think about it.’”

“The demographics of the North Island aren’t encouraging. According to B.C. Stats, the population of the region in 2006 was 12,489. The region’s total population has fallen about 2 per cent a year over the last decade. The region has always been one of working towns that proudly paid their own way. Now the money is coming from outsiders who buy waterfront houses, sight unseen, for $300,000 — and then live in them for maybe a month or two every summer.”

“‘We’re seeing more price reductions in properties listed on the market, which is a levelling impact on the housing-price increases experienced at the end of last year and into the first quarter of 2008,’ Dave Watt, president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, said in a news release.”

“‘”It’s a situation of supply and demand,’ Kelvin Neufeld, president of the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board, said in a news release. ‘Buyers are now in the driver’s seat in the Fraser Valley and we’re starting to see that reflected in home prices.’”

“Multi-family housing developers are trying to enliven Calgary’s sleepy market. A free trip anywhere in the world, a flatscreen TV, cash back or a Smart Car — all yours for free if you buy the right condo.”

“‘They’re hurtin’,’ said John Hripko, leader of the Ripco Real Estate Team, which specializes in condos. ‘A lot of the developers here overbuilt and they’ll offer a number of different incentives to try to lure the buyer in. However, I don’t know how successful they’re going to be.’”

“The boom in the Spanish housing market is in danger of turning into a bust, with many agents already reporting double-digit price falls, while others warn there is still worse to come.”

“Charles Weston-Baker, head of international residential at Savills, said: ‘Prices on properties that people are being forced to sell in a hurry are around 20pc to 30pc lower than last year.’”

“Mild weakness in O’ahu’s housing market continued last month with a 3.1 percent decline in the median sale price of previously owned single-family homes to $620,000, from $640,000 a year earlier. The small drop was the sixth in seven months this year, according to the Honolulu Board of Realtors.”

“Harvey Shapiro, research economist for the trade association, said sellers may have to make more concessions in the softer market, but prices are staying close to last year’s levels.”

“‘This year is going to be a slow but healthy year for real estate,’ he said. ‘If you’re expecting prices to go back to the $300,000 level, you’re dreaming.’”

“The resort-styled Marin condos are currently being constructed on Semiahmoo Spit and should begin to have residents moving in next month. Prices start at around $650,000 and go up to around $1.7 million. Shana Mitcham, license assistant for Marin sales director Chet Kenoyer, said that despite the current housing market, approximately 70 people a week come to Marin to look at model units.”

“‘It’s just one of those unique areas,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s just interested in what’s going on there.’”

“Homes for sale in Ashland had been on the market an average of 152 days as of Friday, according to Colin Mullane, the chairman of the Southern Oregon MLS Statistics Committee. ‘We’ve definitely seen a lot of people who are renting out their house because they can’t sell it,’ said Jennifer Crane, owner of Crane Property Management.”

“Renting out a home, especially at the high end of the market, is not the windfall it may seem. A $1 million home may only fetch $2,500 per month in rent payments, not nearly enough to cover a $6,000 monthly mortgage payment, Mullane said.”

“‘A lot of times people will say, ‘Well, gee, I’m just paying somebody’s mortgage,’ but you’re paying far less in rent than what it would be in mortgage payments, and you don’t have to do upkeep,’ said Everett Eichler, owner of Classic Property Management.”

“Melanie Wilkinson decided to rent a condominium when she moved to Ashland from Boise, Idaho, to buy herself time to find her ideal house. ‘I think that real estate will always be a good investment, but you have to go in at the right time,’ she said. ‘Buying real estate should never be an impulse purchase. It’s not like buying a pair of shoes.’”

“Greg Neistat has built 20 homes in Northbrook, Glenview, Deerfield, Elmhurst and Lake Forest. Neistat said he has never seen a housing market on the North Shore as slow as it is now, and those who have been in real estate longer say they have never seen it this bad, either.”

“‘This is no shock,’ said Neistat, when told of the figures. ‘For new construction, the price is down, definitely, from what I am seeing. The builders who dealt with reality had to lower their prices. If they didn’t, and foreclosed, the lenders lowered the price for them,’ he said.”

“In an area of Northbrook bounded by Western, Techny, Shermer and Illinois, all the spec homes have been sold except those in the $2 million range, he said. Still, Neistat said he will not build any spec homes right now. ‘No lenders will lend for spec homes anymore. They stopped within the last year after getting burned,’ he said.”

“Assessed real estate values are decreasing for some Washington County residents due to drops in prices of neighboring properties. ‘The Assessor’s Office has to be commended,’ board Chairman Wesley Cannon said during the meeting. ‘I think in the long run the general public will appreciate it.’”

“In Northwest Arkansas, said Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas, ‘we’ve certainly seen sales decline precipitously.’”

“‘Our problem was we hit that bubble,’ Washington County Assessor Lee Ann Kizzar said of the 2007 reappraisal, which followed the 2006 peak in the housing market.”

“There 101 new foreclosure filings in the greater Johnson City, Kingsport and Bristol, Tenn., region in June 2008, according to the Tennessee Housing Development Agency and RealtyTrac. That total represents a 52 percent increase over May for the Kingsport-Bristol Metropolitan Statistical Area.”

“Between 2004 and 2006, a fourth of all mortgage loans in 10 Southwest Virginia counties, Bristol, Va., and Norton were of the adjustable rate or ‘high-cost’ variety.”

“‘People are getting horrible loans that adjust every six months. I worked with one woman whose double-wide [trailer] payment was $1,025 and has gone up every six months, said Debbie Perry, home ownership program coordinator with the Eastern Eight Community Development Corp. in Johnson City, Tenn.”

“Perry said she also assisted a couple who switched from a fixed-rate mortgage to an adjustable rate, believing it would make their payments more affordable. ‘You want to ask them what were they thinking, but you can’t say that,’ Perry said.”

“‘It used to be Chapter 13 bankruptcy was a perfect vehicle for people in trouble to keep their home,’ said Maria Timoney, an attorney with the Southwest Virginia Legal Aid Society. ‘These [new] loans, we can’t solve.’”

“‘Home buying is associated with a stable job and stable health,’ said Twin City attorney Bernard Via. ‘In the current economic climate, with the price of oil and everything else that’s going on, housing is not a good investment. Renting is better.’”

“A lot of Americans, however, had grown rich while busily involving themselves in the racket of issuing mortgages to a whole lot of other Americans who could not afford them.”

“‘It’s dispiriting indeed to watch the U.S. financial system, supposedly the envy of the world, being taken to its knees,’ Gretchen Morgenson recently wrote in the International Herald Tribune. ‘But that’s the show we’re watching, brought to you by somnambulant regulators, greedy bank executives and incompetent corporate directors. This wasn’t the way the ‘ownership society’ was supposed to work.’”

“The lights on the rigs pierce the black West Texas night, illuminating mesquite shrubs and jack rabbits scampering across the flat landscape. Good times have returned to the oil patch.”

“Yet, the people of Kermit and other Permian Basin towns have learned that petroleum-based prosperity is too fragile to squander in wild exuberance. ‘I’ve pissed away three booms in my lifetime, but this time, no,’ said Gary Blue, who says his business preparing sites for drilling is turning down about as much work as it accepts these days.”

“Rodney Hayes, who owns Kermit’s only floral shop, said he and his neighbors haven’t forgotten what happened when oil prices plummeted in the 1980s and the town’s population dropped from 10,000 to its current 6,000 in a matter of months.”

“‘It was like a suitcase parade’ as companies and their workers left town, Hayes said.”

“Sales of existing homes in Marion County dropped by almost 40 percent for the first six months of 2008 compared with the same period a year ago. Times are tough for the county’s 1,800 or so real estate agents at the moment, said Karen Grider, president of the Ocala/Marion County Association of Realtors, but things are starting to look up.”

“‘We’re all very optimistic,’ she said.”

“The county’s median sale price in June, was $150,500, down 15 percent from the same month the year before. ‘I don’t think that prices are going any further down,’ she said. ‘We’re about as low as we’re going to get for the majority of properties in Marion County.’”

“‘They [buyers] need to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop,’ Grider said. ‘People are selling for reasonable prices.’”

The Rocky Mountain News reports from Colorado. “In the first seven months of the year, buyers bought $7.36 billion in homes sold by Realtors in the Denver area, about a $1.3 billion drop from the $8.7 billion sold during the same period in 2007. And last month, the median, or middle, price of a home sold in the metro area hit a six-year low of $229,200 for a July report, a 10.1 percent drop from July 2007. The average price of a condo was $169,474, down from $192,685 in July 2007.”

“Housing consultant S. Robert August blamed the record home foreclosures for the tumbling prices. ‘You have homes that sold for $190,000 a few years ago, now selling for $120,000,’ August said.”

The Daily Camera from Colorado. “A report released Wednesday showed that foreclosures continued to climb in Colorado during the first half of 2008. During the first six months of the year, the number of foreclosure filings increased 16 percent from the same period last year, according to a report from the Department of Local Affairs’ Colorado Division of Housing.”

“Broomfield County could be seeing increases in filings as defaults are starting to affect higher-priced homes, said Barbara Walker, executive director of Independent Bankers of Colorado. While most foreclosures have hit homes in the $150,000 to $250,000 range, in some cases, she said, that range is climbing to houses priced at $300,000 to $350,000.”

“‘I think it shows the continuing depth of our economic woes starting to penetrate into more strata of our population,’ she said. ‘Douglas County clearly represents that, and Broomfield is like Douglas County in that regard.’”

The Daily Herald from Utah. “For nearly a year, a stately red brick mansion at 515 Sheffield Drive in Vintage On the River, a subdivision in the affluent Riverbottoms area in Provo, has remained vacant, its yellowing front lawn in stark contrast to the manicured, verdant lawns of neighboring luxury homes.”

“This home, one of five properties that federal investigators say were subject to an illegal property flipping scheme in 2006, is among an estimated 20 Riverbottoms properties blighting an area hard-hit by the housing downturn, an ongoing credit crunch and a glut of luxury housing inventory in Utah County.”

“‘When you put a housing downcycle hand in hand with mortgage fraud, it pulls the market down faster and farther,’ said Mark Steinagel, director of the Utah Real Estate Division.”

“‘When people like Kitchen drive up property prices to pull money out, and then let the properties go into foreclosure, that’s damaging,’ he said. ‘The buyer may end up owing more on the home if he obtained a loan based on inflated appraisals from fraudulent sales. And if the home loses 10 percent to 20 percent of its value in a downturn like the one affecting states like California and Nevada, these people may become upside-down on their loans.’”

“‘People wanting to sell in such an environment may have difficulty selling because they can’t find a buyer, and even if they do find one, some lenders won’t let them sell for less than they owe,’ he said.”

The Salt Lake Tribune from Utah. “It’s Parade of Homes season, and builders once again are showcasing their best - and oftentimes most expensive - residential master- pieces.”

“Behind the glamour and glitz of this year’s pricey mansions, though, lies a downturn that has led to plummeting home sales and declining prices. A number of builders are nearly certain to struggle to get their showpieces sold at a price with which they are comfortable.”

“Ivory Homes, for example, is selling a ‘2007 Parade of Homes award winning model home’ in Draper for $990,000. ‘Was $1,190,000!’ reads an online advertisement for the property.”

“‘I look through the [Parade of Homes] magazine and chuckle,” said Michael Landrum of Big Brother Construction in Layton. ‘There’s some $3 and $4 million Parade homes for sale, and I’m thinking how on earth are they going to sell them, unless they have a line on NBA basketball players or executives coming to town.’”

The Spectrum from Utah. “A new report from RealtyTrac says the St. George area saw foreclsoure filings jump 446 percent year-over-year and 56 percent from the first quarter of 2008 to the second quarter.”

“The foreclosure rate in Washington County doesn’t surprise Lecia Langston, regional economist with the Utah Department of Workforce Services. During the building and buying boom that lasted from about 2004 to 2006, prices of homes got ‘out of control and created a bubble market in the housing market,’ she said.”

“As far as a solution, Langston said, it’s just ‘going to take time’ and will strain people who may not be able to pay for their homes or who bought on speculation and weren’t able to flip their investments. Langston also said many people are ‘upside down’ in their homes. ‘It makes it really difficult to sell,’ she said.”

“For those who are trying to sell homes, real estate appraiser Tom Forsythe said the foreclosure market shouldn’t make it more difficult for anyone to sell their home. ‘All it does is it makes it impossible for them to sell their home for the inflated imaginary price they believe it’s worth,’ he said.”

The Yuma Sun from Arizona. “Despite a nationwide housing slump, Yuma County’s market has remained healthy, although sellers may not be getting their original asking prices, say local Realtors.”

“Carol Engler of Realty Executives states that greed was the root of the housing bubble of 2004 and 2005 and that now ‘we are reaping what we sow.’ Regarding the inflated prices of that period, Engler says, ‘We will never ever see those numbers again.’”

“She says that buyers, though more willing than in recent years, are also waiting to see when and where prices will hit their absolute bottom. According to Engler, ‘Every one of them wants a steal’ and is willing to wait for the seller’s bottom line.”

The Arizona Republic. “Gloria Pettis says she chose the Toll Brothers at Litchfield Park community because it was love at first sight. Gloria and her husband are among the first occupants of the new luxury-housing community nestled on the last land parcel available for single-family residential development in Litchfield Park. Baseline prices range from the mid-$400,000s to the upper-$500,000s.”

“The Pettises were on the highway to Phoenix after having packed their belongings in Seattle, where they had lived for 15 years, when they passed a billboard advertising the Toll Brothers community. They had planned to spend weeks researching various neighborhoods before they bought a home, but after viewing the models at Toll Brothers at Litchfield Park, they were sold.”

“‘We’re normally very contemplative people,’ Gloria said. ‘We can’t believe we did this.’”

The Review Journal from Nevada. “Home sales in Las Vegas increased for the seventh straight month to 2,592 in July, the most since September 2005, and inventory remained stable at 23,423 units, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported Thursday.”

“Housing market statistics are a ‘mixed bag,’ association president Patty Kelley said. While it’s painful to watch home prices slide, large chunks of foreclosures are being taken out of the inventory each month, she said.”

“‘Until we get rid of foreclosures, prices are going to keep on dropping,’ Kelley said. ‘I don’t know how things are selling if it’s not a foreclosure.’”

“Robin Camacho of American Realty & Property Management found 74 percent of MLS sales in July were foreclosures and another 9 percent were short sales. ‘Chances of selling your own home in this market are very, very slim,’ she said.”

“Camacho’s research showed 40 percent to 50 percent of listings as short sales, yet only one in five escrow closings was a short sale.”

“Southern Nevada had 1,266 new foreclosures in July, or 41 a day, Applied Analysis reported. That’s up 61.9 percent from 782 in the same month a year ago.”

“For the past 12 months, foreclosures reached a record 13,548 homes, nearly double the figure reported for the 12 months ended July 2007. The number of preforeclosures, or those in the foreclosure process, also remained high at 5,175 units.”

“The vast majority of subprime adjustable-rate mortgages were originated in 2005 and tended to be two years to three years in length, sales director Mark Carrington of First American Core Logic said.”

“‘So right now, we’re definitely feeling the peak in all of those subprime ARM resets,’ Carrington said. ‘It’s safe to say as long as housing is in this depreciation path, when some of these loans reset, some are not going to be able to refinance and some are going to go bad.’”

“What seems to be coming next is prime loans going to foreclosure, which increased from 0.4 percent last year to 1.8 percent this year, he said. ‘We’re starting to see a ramp-up of prime foreclosures in our analysis,’ he said.”

“California, Florida, Arizona and Nevada combined represent 62 percent of all foreclosures on prime loans and nearly half of all subprime ARM foreclosures started in the first quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported.”

“Las Vegas has roughly 5,000 homes a month headed for foreclosure and isn’t even close to getting out of the forest, using California as a bellwether.”

“‘What’s after the 5,000?’ Bob Reeve of Realty One Group in Las Vegas said. ‘Will we be past the ARMs? I see stability once we get past the loans that are either going to reset … owners suck up the higher payments or they walk.’”

The Globest.com on Nevada. “The vacant land market in Las Vegas experienced record low sales volume and declining values in the second quarter of the year, according to Applied Analysis. Approximately 223.2 acres were sold during the quarter, which is down 58% from mid-year 2007 and down 11% from March 2008.”

“”Speculative land sales have come to a near standstill,’ says Applied Analysis principal Brian Gordon. ‘This overall slowdown has come at a price, as average land pricing has declined to levels witnessed three years ago.’”

“‘Land pricing trends are following a clear path paved by falling housing prices and rising commercial vacancies,’ concludes Gordon’s partner Jeremy Aguero. ‘Continued corrections are likely to prevail as land owner equity has diminished significantly and collateralized properties have financiers responding cautiously.’”

“The average price per acre-excluding premium-priced resort properties-came in at $570,300, a 20% decline from mid-year 2007 and a 4.8% decline from March 2008, and is expected to continue.”

The Las Vegas Business Press from Nevada. “Lewis Operating Corp. bought nearly 700 acres of commercial and residential land in Nevada and California for $57 million, or $81,428 per acre, from various sellers.”

“It most notably picked-up 507 raw and improved residential lots totaling 90 acres at Walnut and Tropical avenues in North Las Vegas from Standard Pacific Corp.”

“‘We aren’t looking to get back into the housing market,’ said Robert E. Lewis, company president. Lewis Homes had built more than 25,000 residences in Nevada before selling to Kaufman and Broad (now KB Home) in 1999. ‘We may sell the lots,’ Lewis said. ‘We’re not sure what we will do. But these came to us at favorable price. It seemed like a good opportunity.’”

The Las Vegas Sun from Nevada. “Early last week, as he prepared to move back to California, Steve Saltzman sold a competitor what was left of his once thriving enterprise - at a going-out-of-business price.”

“Seven years ago Saltzman had come to the valley at just the right time. The housing market was booming, and he hit on the idea of packaging sets of cardboard boxes with tape, a tape gun and a marker, then selling them for $55 each to real estate agents who gave them to clients after a home sale.”

“‘I was selling 100 to 150 a week,’ Saltzman said, then laughed at the recollection of how much money had once been rolling in. ‘It was a great business.’”

“But now, he added, fewer people are moving here and many fewer are buying homes. ‘I can’t make it selling 20 of these a week,’ he said.”

“May was the first month in 12 years that fewer than 5,000 people traded in driver’s licenses from elsewhere for Nevada licenses in Clark County, according to Keith Schwer, at UNLV, who has kept tabs on population growth for years.”

“The May total of 4,612 is also nearly 23 percent less than the figure for the same month of 2007, the largest such decline since at least as far back as January 2005.”

“In short, the May figure was ‘abysmally low,’ said Jeremy Aguero, principal of Applied Analysis.”

“The manager of the company that bought Saltzman’s inventory, said she has seen a shift since about the end of April. ‘It seems like a lot fewer people are coming into Las Vegas in just the last three months, and a lot more are going out,’ Savannah Frascella said.”

“In 2007, 61 percent of the people who used U-Haul to move into Nevada came from California (56 percent of those who moved out of Nevada went to California.) In the first five months of 2008, the percentages were almost the same, 61 percent of those migrating to Nevada came from California and 60 percent of those moving out of Nevada went to California.”

“Saltzman was counting down the hours until he joined the latter category. As he finished dismantling his little cardboard empire, he took consolation in no longer being tethered to the valley. ‘Just one more day, and I’m back in Orange County,’ he said.”

“The Meridian Luxury Suites condo development has taken another step toward restarting its hotel operation, which was shut down by the county last month. The Clark County Planning Commission approved a tentative map of the 671-unit site, but some owners say final approval of a conversion into a condo resort might not come in time to save them from foreclosure.”

“Meridian owner Dan Somers said 100 employees had been laid off because of the hotel operation’s closure, and 1,000 reservations had been cancelled. The delay could cost owners $18,000 per unit, and some investors have multiple units, Somers said.”

“The Meridian is 98 percent investor owned with 14 owner-occupied units, said Michael Mackenzie, president of the Meridian Private Residences Homeowners Association.”

“One resident-owner, Kathleen Mannix, who paid for her unit in full, is a focal point of anger for other owners who question her motives. ‘She said, ‘Buy me out for $600,000 for my unit,’ and she only paid $300,000,’ Mackenzie said.”

“The resident-owner said she later dropped her buy-out price to closer to $300,000 but Mackenzie only offered to pay her half that amount. Mannix said she also ‘promised’ to report what she claimed were illegalities on the part of the HOA and management.

“‘I promised to stop them if they wouldn’t let me leave,’ Mannix said. ‘If I wanted to live in a hotel, I would have bought into a hotel.’”

“Some owner-investors traveled from California and Chicago to ask the planners to expedite approval. Investor owner Ferri Wolf, a retired San Diego doctor, said Wednesday she is losing $5,000 a month on her unit and might have to go into foreclosure as soon as October because of the hotel shutdown. She said the county is losing out, too.”

“‘If (the units) are foreclosed on, what will happen to the tax money? We were housing people and making money,’ Wolf said.”

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