The Housing Bubble

The Union Tribune reports from California. “ABA Recovery Service owner Marcelle Egley-Sparks said that in the past year, high-end repossessions have swelled from about 15 percent of the 350 items taken by her company each month to about 50 percent. ‘People are finding themselves overextended now that the economy is failing,’ Egley-Sparks said.”

“Leisure-time toys reflect the excesses facilitated by the fat economy and booming real estate values of a few years ago. Now that the economy is in decline and the real estate bubble has burst, people are losing or unloading their wants for the sake of their needs.”

“It does hurt, and Alex Ochoa knows how much. He’s being forced to give up his 25-foot travel trailer because he can’t afford to keep it. Ochoa, like tens of thousands of others caught in the real estate collapse, is upside-down on his La Mesa house. He paid more than it’s worth now, and he wants to minimize his losses with a new mortgage. ”

“Ochoa is willing to give up the item to anyone qualified to take over the $136 monthly payments. ‘Take advantage of this great deal,’ Ochoa pleads in an Internet ad for the trailer.”

“‘It’s time to cut back,’ he said.”

“Robert Manning, director of the Center for Consumer Financial Services at E. Philip Saunders College of Business in Rochester, N.Y., cautions that the next year or so could be even worse for those who overindulged during the high times.”

“‘They are the ones who are really going to be hurting,’ he said.”

“They’ve already lost equity in their homes, and now they may be facing the loss of jobs - further shaking the foundations that once supported discretionary splurges. ‘It is a question: What is the American dream?’ Manning said. ‘And does it mean just because you could, should you have? We’re seeing the answers now.’”

“During its first 73 years, San Diego Metropolitan Credit Union never lost money on a real estate loan. That ended last year, when it wrote off $527,681 in bad real estate debt. The credit union also took a paper loss in 2007 as it bulked up reserves by more than $1 million.”

“Across the state and country, credit unions - generally considered the most conservative of lenders - are seeing a rise in delinquent mortgages, late credit card payments and late auto loan payments.”

“Marla Shepard, CEO of California Coast Credit Union, is also seeing fallout from overextended consumers. ‘About 40 percent of our repos in the last couple of months are from members who brought in their cars keys,’ Shepard said. ‘They’re saying, ‘You take the gas guzzler. I’ll keep the Toyota.’”

“‘We also are seeing - and I’m hearing this elsewhere, too - a significant increase in the number of bankruptcies. What’s a little concerning is some of these members filing for bankruptcy are not delinquent yet’ on their loans with California Coast.”

‘Shepard is in the process of merging First Future Credit Union, which had a lot of auto loans, with California Coast, which focused on real estate and home equity lines of credit. Because of the merger, the credit union is still evaluating how much more it will need to set aside in reserves.”

“‘We’re having a tough time identifying how bad it’s going to be,’ Shepard said. ‘You have people who are not delinquent filing for bankruptcy and people who are not delinquent turning in their car keys.’”

“Before August 2007, nearly 40 percent of Southern California sales were financed with jumbo loans, according to DataQuick Information Systems. In July, jumbos accounted for only about 16 percent of the region’s sales. Sales of high-end homes that require jumbo loans ‘have really dropped off’ in recent months, said Delores Conway, director, Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast at the University of Southern California.”

“During the recent housing boom, thousands of adjustable-rate mortgages were issued without verifying the borrower’s ability to repay them.”

“To get home loans today, consumers need to have ’skin in the game,’ said Ed Smith Jr., chairman of government affairs and industry relations for the association of mortgage brokers.”

“‘In the heyday, we were giving 100 percent financing to people one day out of bankruptcy,’ said Smith. ‘No wonder people walked away from their houses.’”

The LA Daily News. “Falling prices sent housing affordability soaring across California in the second quarter, the California Association of Realtors reported last week.”

“But this jump in affordability isn’t translating into a sales boom because the credit crunch that erupted a year ago is still with us. So while prices appear affordable, they really are not.”

“‘The lack of investor appetite for mortgage securities has forced the (home loan) originators to be a lot more conservative in their underwriting standards and that’s led to the drying up of credit despite the fact that interest rates are still at very low levels,’ said Nima Nattagh, an analyst at Lender Processing Services, a provider of mortgage services. ‘It’s more difficult to qualify for a mortgage.’”

“Robert Kleinhenz, the association’s deputy chief economist, said affordability and housing prices have retreated to levels last seen in 2003. What’s different? Sales.”

“For all of 2003, there were 601,770 sales. But in 2008, if the market matches the second-quarter pace for the entire year, there would be just 403,660 sales.”

“‘Getting their hands on a loan though the second quarter continued to be quite difficult,’ he said of the situation facing creditworthy buyers. ‘We typically take for granted that our financial sector is going to work smoothly and that money is going to be there for someone who is qualified to get a loan. That hasn’t been the case.’”

“The association’s index is based on first-time buyers getting a home equal to 85percent of the median price in their area and assumes a 10 percent down payment.”

“In Los Angeles County, the entry-level house cost $355,130 in the second quarter. To buy it, a family would need an annual income of $67,840. The monthly mortgage payment, including taxes and insurance, would be $2,260.”

“A year earlier, that house cost $504,080, the qualifying income level was $101,550 and the monthly payment was $3,380.”

“‘The whole mess in the financial sector is, in my view, an unusual constraint,’ Kleinhenz said. ‘It happens every 10 or 20 years but it’s atypical.’”

The New York Times. “Ellie Wooten, the likable mayor of this likable Central Valley city, is on her way to the office when her cellphone rings. A constituent wants her mortgage payments reduced, and is hoping that the mayor has some clout with her lender.”

“Although Merced has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country, this borrower isn’t in such dire straits. She’s not even behind on her mortgage. But her oldest daughter is turning 18, which means an end to $500 a month in child support. She just wants a better deal.”

“The mayor hangs up and shrugs: ‘It’s a surprise her daughter is turning 18? You’d think she could have planned ahead.’”

“But hardly anyone in Merced planned very far ahead. Not the city, which enthusiastically approved the creation of dozens of new neighborhoods without pausing to wonder if it could absorb the growth.”

“Certainly not the developers. They built 4,397 new homes in those neighborhoods, some costing half a million dollars, without asking who in a city of only 80,000 could afford to buy them all.”

“And, sadly, not the local folk who moved up and took on more debt than they could afford. They believed - because who was telling them differently? - that the good times would be endless.”

“‘Owning a home is the American dream,’ says Jamie Schrole, a Merced real estate agent. ‘Everybody was just trying to live out their dream.’”

“In the three years since housing peaked here, the median sales price has fallen by 50 percent. There are thousands of foreclosures on the market. But almost no homeowner can afford to sell. If you cannot go as low as ‘the foreclosure price’ - the cost of a comparable bank-owned house - real estate agents say you might as well not even bother listing your home.”

“The boom here allowed some people to become rich overnight and gave many more the idea that they could do it, too. Ms. Schrole, a single mother of four, succumbed to temptation too late: she bought a home as an investment, sold her own home, bought a much more expensive one, and lost both. ‘I was stupid,’ she says. ‘I didn’t get in until things started to tank.’”

The San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s about the size of seven ping-pong tables - and all yours starting at $279,000. A San Francisco design and development firm has begun marketing 98 tiny condominiums - ranging from 250 to 350 square feet - at the Cubix Yerba Buena building in SoMa.”

“Architect George Hauser is the first to say the studios are too small for many people, families in particular. He and local planning groups, however, believe the so-called micro units represent one means of providing more first-time home-buying opportunities in a city where most prices outstrip most incomes.”

“‘It’s not the last place a person might own, but a great place to spend three to five years as a young single … to build equity and move up,”‘ said Hauser.”

“The kitchen area includes a mini sink, two-burner electric cooktop, half fridge and microwave-convection oven. The appliances are stainless steel; the countertop synthetic brown stone. There isn’t room for a bed and a sofa, so each studio is staged with a sofa-bed. They come with a wardrobe but no closets.”

“The units cost $279,000 to $330,000. (Monthly homeowners’ association dues are around $270.) By comparison, the median price for all homes in San Francisco was $749,000 in July, according to MDA DataQuick. Given the generally high cost, only 39.3 percent of city residents own their homes, the lowest level among the state’s counties, according to a California Budget Project report.”

“Projects like the Cubix aren’t the end-all solution to San Francisco’s affordability challenges, but do offer one answer for one part of the market, said Sarah Karlinksy, policy director at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association.”

“‘What it’s doing is providing middle-income housing without a subsidy,’ she said. ‘It gives them a toehold.’”

The Marin Independent Journal. “When writing his recent book, ‘House Lust: America’s Obsession with Our Homes’, Dan McGinn sought real-life examples to combine with research to reveal why so many of us have turned a basic need - shelter - into an arms race for square footage and eye-popping digs.”

“I could have been his poster girl. Seriously, if I went to a 12-Step meeting for Home Improvers Anonymous, I would sound like this: Yes, I have over improved for the neighborhood. Yes, I’ve poured money into my home that I should have put it into a retirement account. Yes, I’ve gotten caught up in remodel fever and blown the construction budget to add something I really, really wanted even though I did not get that money back in the resale. Yes, in the face of home renovation, I am as powerless as a gambler at the track.”

“But McGinn didn’t need me. He found no shortage of subjects. Fortunately, McGinn doesn’t condemn people like me, but rather comments and commiserates. He’s one of us, which is why I kept turning the pages. I also wanted to know why Amazon kept partnering my book with his: ‘People who bought ‘The House Always Wins’ also bought ‘ Lust.’ I learned why.”

“He, being much deeper than I am, also ponders why yesterday’s luxuries - two dishwashers, home gyms, nanny rooms, massage rooms, rooms for potting plants and gift wrapping, stereo systems for swimming pools, life-size stages for kids’ theater productions - have become today’s necessities.”

“(Answer: ego, ‘I’ve arrived and deserve it’; competition, ‘I must keep up with the Joneses’; and greed, ‘I’ll get the investment back and more on the resale.’) Which begins to explain why some people would sell a kidney to get granite countertops.”

“When I called him at his Newsweek office, he said, ‘During the boom, we got into the trading up mentality. People thought, ‘Our house is up 30 percent; let’s cash in and move up.’”

“I squirmed recalling how five years ago, I sold my Southern California house, which had appreciated nicely in the seven years I’d owned it, and bought a bigger house on more land in Colorado for less money. ‘We lived through a housing period where it was raining money. Only an idiot wouldn’t have put a bucket outside to catch some.’ (At least he doesn’t think I’m an idiot.)”

“‘Are you saying we need to stop lusting?’ I asked nervously. Absolutely not, he assured. (Whew!) We just need to lust more intelligently.”

“A healthier attitude, McGinn says: ‘Living through an era when we thought our homes may make us rich has resulted in a permanent shift in thinking - one that will leave many of us happily obsessed with houses for years to come.’”

“All the wiser, McGinn concedes, ‘As for me, my obsession remains largely intact.’ Ditto.”

The Denver Post reports from Colorado. “Unable to sell her Aurora town home for what she owes on it, Judith Smith is looking for someone to take over her mortgage. Three years ago, Smith said, townhomes like hers sold for $140,000 and up, but a nearby foreclosure is on the market for $99,000. Even if she could sell for the $115,000 she owes on her mortgage, Smith said she wouldn’t be able to cover the $6,900 in commissions to agents on each side of a sale.”

“‘”I’m very interested in selling and moving,’ Smith said. ‘But factoring in the Realtor’s commission, I am pretty much out of the ballpark.’”

“Smith’s predicament is becoming more common as falling home values make it increasingly difficult for home owners to sell without bringing money to the table.”

“The number of homes in the seven-county metro area sold for less than $100,000 has increased dramatically over the past three years, as the real estate market has struggled and foreclosures have soared. In 2005, 355 homes sold for less than $100,000. So far this year, there have been 2,015, with almost 90 percent of them in foreclosure.”

“Investors are able to buy homes that sold for $140,000 two years ago for $55,000 now, said Charles Roberts, a broker with who has sold about 45 homes for less than $100,000 in the last 12 months. ‘Prices have collapsed 40 to 50 percent, sometimes 60 percent,’ he said. ‘Every single closing I’ve had, the banks have lost between $60,000 to $80,000.’”

“‘The cash flow is just extraordinary,’ Roberts said. ‘People are really banking on future appreciation as the market corrects.’”

The Deseret News from Utah. “Like a growing number of Utahns these days, she is struggling to keep her house. She is also among the many who feel a sense of shame to find themselves in such a perilous position, so much so that she asked that her identity not be revealed. A Salt Lake resident, she paid her bills and worked hard, spending 14 years in the retail business so that she could buy a home.”

“But her fortunes changed due to some serious health problems, and she was swept into a scam. She fell behind on her mortgage payments and soon was at risk of losing her home to foreclosure.”

“‘I got so far behind on my house because I couldn’t afford it,’ she said. ‘It got so bad that I was getting phone calls from creditors, so I went and filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy.’”

“Utah built its way to the nation’s second-fastest rate of housing-unit growth in 2007, according to census estimates released Thursday. The housing growth came before the current mortgage crisis hit full stride.”

“‘We have really gone in the tank since then,’ said James Wood, director of the University of Utah’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research. New building permits in major cities since 2007 are down about 60 percent.”

“‘We’ve really fallen off the edge in the last nine months,’ Wood said. ‘The last three quarters have been the three worst consecutive quarters - ever’ for housing growth in Utah.”

“Taz Biesinger, executive VP of the Utah Home Builders Association, said it may take 10 years for home construction to reach the 2007 levels - ‘if we ever get there again.’”

“He said the ‘artificial’ demand came from ‘investors who thought they were going to flip homes’ by buying them at low prices, improving them and reselling them. Some of the ‘artificial’ demand also was due to ‘exotic mortgages that helped some people qualify for mortgages who probably shouldn’t have.’”

“Wood said that more than 50,000 high-risk subprime mortgages were issued in Utah between 2004 and 2007. ‘A good deal of those people would not qualify (for mortgages) in past markets,’ he said.”

The East Valley Tribune from Arizona. “A high concentration of foreclosures continued to pull home prices down last month across the Valley’s existing home market, according to the latest Arizona State University report.”

“Foreclosure activity represented 42 percent, or 3,470, of the 8,165 transactions that took place last month.”

“‘The lower median price is being impacted by several forces including the large number of vacant homes, especially in certain neighborhoods,’ said Jay Butler, director of realty studies at ASU’s Morrison School of Management and Agribusiness at the Polytechnic campus. ‘Further, the capital is available for lower-priced housing, but lacking in the higher-priced housing market.’”

“For the traditional sales market, the Valley median price was $200,750, while the foreclosed properties had a median price of $159,205, according to the latest Arizona State University report. That compares with $218,000 and $169,890 last month, and $270,000 and $220,075 in July 2007.”

“The median price, including foreclosures, in Scottsdale was $450,000, compared to $501,135 in June and $595,500 in July 2007. The prevalence of foreclosures is hurting the market, said Janine Brown, president of the Scottsdale Area Association of Realtors.”

“‘I don’t think that we have seen that type of number for a while,’ she said. ‘Even with the tick back in our median price, we had a huge tip up in 2005. It’s kind of hard if you have a really nice house and you want $250,000 for it and the guy next door let his go on short sale for $175,000. That’s going to affect your home price.’”

The News Herald from Arizona. “Talking to some executives at Lake Havasu City’s community banks, you get the feeling they’re in the business of lending optimism as well as money. ‘People, business, really need some good news,’ Ralph Tapscott, CEO of Mohave State Bank, said.”

“He thinks he has some. Housing inventories are down, and sales are up in the hard-hit Las Vegas market.”

“But the fallout from the mortgage crisis caused both residential and commercial construction to slow, or in some cases come to a halt, and that has been a hit to the community banks, which did a lot of construction lending. ‘They were probably financing the strip mall or the restaurant that was going along with (the booming housing market). That’s pretty much across the state,’ said Tanya Wheeless, CEO of the Arizona Bankers Association.”

“Until August 2007, Horizon Community Bank, then in business for five years, had never held a loan that was 30 days or more past due, said CEO Dennis Van. By November, more delinquencies began to crop up, he said.”

“In February, Horizon’s leadership made the decision to set aside $1.1 million in reserves for potential losses, Van said. ‘We’re by far not hurting. We’ve changed our focus. We’ve changed our focus from bucking and kicking to maybe working out more loans,’ Van said.”

“Van said sometimes that expertise means knowing when to discourage a customer. ‘We don’t want to help our customers hurt themselves. For our perspective, saying ‘no’ is a good thing in this environment,’ he said.”

“In spite of the obvious challenges the current economy has posed for local banks, their top executives convey a sense of groundedness, almost as if they’re relieved the high-flying days over.”

“‘I think everybody needed to catch their breath,’ Van said. ‘I think prices needed to adjust. This is our own catch-our-breath period.’”

The Review Journal from Nevada. “Home sales are making a comeback in Las Vegas and inventory has been reduced to about an eight-month supply, but prices continue their free fall from a year ago, a strong signal that the housing market has yet to enter recovery.”

“SalesTraq reported 3,173 existing home closings in July, a 56.5 percent increase from the same month a year ago and the highest monthly total since September 2006. However, 61 percent of those sales were bank-owned homes with a median price of $193,000, dragging the overall median existing home price down 23.9 percent from a year ago to $210,000.”

“New home sales slumped to just 731 in July, down 57.5 percent from July 2007. For the year, new home sales have fallen 47.9 percent to 6,248 units. Median prices fell 20.4 percent to $262,185.”

“‘It’s getting depressing out there,’ SalesTraq President Larry Murphy said. ‘I’ve got people coming to me for a job, or asking if I know of any jobs. I’ve got people sending me résumés every week.’”

“The number of foreclosures edged up to 2,281 in July, up 8.4 percent from June, according to SalesTraq.”

“Foreclosure sales in Las Vegas were about 85 percent of the number of new foreclosures. That’s one benchmark for recovery, Murphy said. ‘When we get to the point where the banks are selling more than they acquire, then and only then will we be in a recovery mode,’ he said.”

In Business Las Vegas from Nevada. “In the past three months, Las Vegas has averaged more than 2,600 closings a month. ‘A lot of people are asking, ‘When do we hit the bottom?’ said Steve Bottfeld, executive VP of Marketing Solutions. ‘The answer is we have already hit it and are just scudding along it.’”

“Reducing the supply of existing homes is crucial to the recovery of the new-home market, which continues to slump. July’s 731 sales were the fewest in any month this decade and were down 58 percent from July 2007, Murphy said.”

“New-home sales have surpassed 1,000 only one month this year, in March.’

“Builders continued to drop prices in July with new homes going for a median price of $252,990, about $2,300 less than the end of the second quarter. The price is nearly 20 percent below July 2007’s $314,993.”

“The new and mid-rise condo market had its weakest month of the year in July with 73 closings. That’s the fewest since 61 in December. The median price for all new homes in July, including condos, fell to $262,185, the lowest it’s been this year. That’s a drop of nearly $8,000 from June.”

“The Meridian, a luxury condominium property just east of the Strip, owes approximately $568,000 in taxes for operating an illegal hotel, according to preliminary results of an audit by Clark County’s business license department.”

“County officials knew about the informal hotel operation since its beginning, claims Michael Mackenzie, who helped run it. And the county had agreed to tolerate it on the condition the Meridian eventually went through the required procedures, according to Mackenzie, who was voted off the Meridian homeowners board this week.”

“The county Wednesday flatly denied Mackenzie’s version of events. ‘The first time that we became aware of an issue of short-term rentals happening at the property was this spring, when we started getting inquiries’ from the media and Meridian owners, county spokeswoman Stacey Welling said.”

“Mackenzie, who does not personally own a Meridian unit, is a vice president of American Invsco, the Chicago-based company that converted the Meridian from apartments to condos in 2005.”

“Angry owners of units at the financially troubled Meridian turned Mackenzie out of office on Monday night. Many believe he misled them on the hotel, which he helped launch in summer 2007. The Meridian is now taking steps to legally reopen the hotel.”

“When the Meridian’s hotel ceased, the well went dry for unit owners who were leasing out their units through a rental program affiliated with American Invsco. They have received no rent checks since June. Many unit owners counted on the rental income to cover the cost of their Meridian mortgages.”

“About 80 of the 678 units at the upscale property are now in foreclosure, Mackenzie estimated Monday. He said he was ‘bitter’ toward Kathleen Mannix, the owner who went to the county and the Review-Journal in spring. Unlike most unit owners, Mannix lives year-round at the Meridian and paid in full for her modest studio.”

“About 400 of the Meridian’s estimated 450 owners are in some degree of financial distress ‘now or soon,’ according to Scott Oelke, a real estate agent who owns a unit at the Meridian.”

“‘Today we take the HOA (homeowners association) for ourselves,’ owner Frank Taddeo, a local resident, shouted at an informal meeting of owners on Monday afternoon. Many had flown in from out of town to attend.”

“Welling could not say when the county’s audit of Meridian’s unremitted room taxes will be ready. But when the audit — which is looking for missed taxes from June 2007 through June 2008 — is complete, Welling said the county licensing department has 30 days in which to bill the final amount to Meridian by Executive Location, which is the entity that has applied for the transient lodging status required to run a hotel.”

“Taddeo, to applause, said that investors ‘deserve all the goodies, not American Invsco.’”

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