The Housing Bubble

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “After years of making Canadians feel steadily richer, home ownership is starting to do the opposite. When Pat Webb moved to Vancouver a year ago, she didn’t think twice about buying a condo in tony Kitsilano, among the hottest neighbourhoods in the city’s booming real estate market. But in August, the 70-year-old retiree decided to move back to the United States. She listed her one-bedroom, 705-square-foot condo for the price she paid - $509,000 - on Aug. 30. Ms. Webb has since reduced that to $485,000. It still hasn’t sold.”

“Today time is all but up, as Ms. Webb is moving back to California. Barring a last-minute miracle sale by her agent, Lindsay Wilkinson, Ms. Webb said she will try to rent out the condo this year and relist in the spring. ‘I’m disappointed, but not overly surprised,’ she said. ‘I was right on the cusp and then [the market] changed. So timing’s everything.’”

“Realtors from Long Island heard a slew of sob stories from other parts of the country at their annual gathering in Orlando last week. When one Long Island broker told a colleague from Atlanta, Georgia that her office had eight sales last month, she was impressed.”

“‘We’re getting killed by foreclosures,’ said the Atlanta broker. ‘The buyers think they’re going to steal a house for half price.’”

“There are some frank discussions going on these days between Realtors and their clients. ‘I’ve been very blunt and I tell them the truth about the appraised value of their home,’ said Caroline Chapman, a Realtor with Space Coast Realty Co. ‘You have to show them what’s happening in the market and if they can’t handle the price they’ll just have to take it off the market.’”

“The crippled Charlotte-area real estate market is feeling a new pain: Sales prices of home-building lots have taken a double-digit dive. The number of lots sold dropped by far more than 50 percent, the worst of this downturn. There were nearly 41,500 vacant, developed lots on the Charlotte market at the end of September. That represents more than three years of supply – the highest number and length of supply ever recorded in the area.”

“‘Everybody is taking a haircut,’ said Stephen Pace, a 30-year industry veteran and owner of Pace Development Group in Charlotte. ‘It’s a natural process, but it’s an ugly process.’”

“McStain Neighborhoods is closing its Louisville headquarters at the end of the month and postponing construction in two communitie…the latest area home builder getting whipsawed by the terrible housing market. ‘We have considered bankruptcy,’ said Tom Hoyt, who heads McStain with his wife.”

“From 10 a.m. until noon on Saturday, McStain will be selling about 100 pieces of furniture at a warehouse in Denver. ‘They’ll be at garage sale prices,’ said Tami Noel of McStain Home Studios. ‘They’re priced to move.’”

“John Ritter, CEO of Focus Property Group, said everybody was making money in Las Vegas during the heyday. ‘I think everyone right now is confused,’ the developer said during a panel discussion.”

“‘The market went from bad to worse, from worse to horrible and from horrible to ‘Holy crap.’ We’re in a period right now where no one knows where value is going. The sense is it’s going to get worse before it gets better,’ he also said.”

“A national report said Connecticut suffered the biggest yearly increase in foreclosures of any state in October. ‘Things are going to get worse in the near term,’ said Donald Klepper-Smith, an economist and chairman of Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s economic advisory panel. ‘We have to keep in mind a couple of things here. There is no evidence we are close to a bottom in the housing market. I expect the housing market to form a bottom next year because of further weakness in the job market. We’re in the fifth inning of a nine-inning game.’”

“The number of Clark County houses in foreclosure spiked in October, sending droves of desperate homeowners to the area’s only home mortgage counseling agency. ‘We’ve been inundated (with requests for counseling). It is just nonstop,’ said Teri Duffy, executive director of the nonprofit Community Housing Resource Center.”

“In a reversal of fortunes, Maui residents in need of affordable homes could buy about a dozen foreclosed residences next year under a program managed locally by Na Hale O Maui, a community land trust working to develop affordable housing. The federal Housing and Economic Recovery Act provides $3.92 billion nationally in emergency assistance to state and local governments to acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties.”

“‘It comes at a time when the foreclosure rate (on Maui) is going up rapidly,’ said John Andersen, executive director of Na Hale O Maui. ‘Maui’s foreclosures are increasing faster than the state as a whole. We’re running about two years behind the Mainland in this cycle. … We’re just beginning to see a wave of foreclosures.’”

“In Sacramento, Assembly Democrats are pushing a moratorium on banks and lenders that would keep them from filing default notices against homeowners for 120 days. Assemblyman Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, outlined how bad the crisis has gotten for California. ‘In August of this year, we had 101,000 foreclosure filings, the most of any state…That’s one filing about every thirty seconds.’”

“Cities and counties across the East Bay are set to become house flippers under an emergency federal program aimed at stabilizing neighborhoods hit hardest by the foreclosure epidemic. Antioch, Richmond, Oakland and Alameda and Contra Costa counties will receive a combined $24 million, much of it to buy, rehabilitate and sell foreclosed and abandoned homes.”

“‘It’ll be a drop in the bucket relative to needs out there,’ said James Kennedy, Contra Costa County’s redevelopment director, of the foreclosure epidemic. ‘Frankly, it’s overrun everybody.’”

“‘I have more questions than I have answers,’ said Janet Kennedy, housing coordinator for Antioch. ‘We don’t even know if the lenders or the banks are going to go along with it.’”

“Foreclosure filings continued to pile up along the Wasatch Front in October. ‘Most of the foreclosures are in speculative properties, subdivisions — that second home someone has built as an investment opportunity,’ said Tom Cook, an attorney with Salt Lake-based Lundberg & Associates. ‘Things haven’t changed much on borrower-occupied residences. I assume that will change when the economy continues to slide and people lose their jobs.’”

“The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced a major initiative Tuesday that aims to get struggling homeowners into mortgages they can afford. Kelly Matthews, senior economist with Wells Fargo, is questioning the effectiveness of the FHFA plan, even though it is modeled on one developed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to lower loan payments for borrowers with mortgages from the failed IndyMac Bank.”

“‘When the FDIC took over IndyMac, the FDIC owned those mortgages. That’s why they could write down those mortgages,’ he said. ‘But in Fannie and Freddie’s case…they don’t own the mortgages anymore.’”

“In places like Nevada and California – and a couple hundred thousand homes in Texas, too – homeowners owe more than their property is worth and aren’t interested in hanging around to see the end of this movie. They’re going to throw their keys on the kitchen counter, and they won’t lock the door behind them when they leave. If you doubt this, consider what I heard just last week at the National Association of Realtors’ conference in Florida.”

“James Lockhart, the poor fellow who’s had the oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dumped in his lap, said Freddie Mac recently sent thousands of letters to borrowers offering to help with their loans. ‘Half the properties were vacant,’ Mr. Lockhart said. ‘A lot of those were investor properties.’”

“The change in strategy for the spending of $700 billion in federal stimulus funds, economists said, shows the credit crunch has spread beyond housing and the mortgage industry to other economic sectors that need help. ‘It is not that mortgage-backed securities are looking any less toxic but that other loan portfolios such as credit cards and auto loans are starting to look just as sick,” said Scott Anderson, senior economist with Wells Fargo & Co.”

“The change in direction, Anderson added, ‘has shaken the confidence that our financing architects really know what they are doing.’”

“‘The Federal Reserve has responded to unprecedented times with equally unprecedented actions … Such actions were appropriate given the challenges we faced,’ said Gary Stern, president of the Minneapolis Fed.”

“‘If we had grasped the net of connections of large financial firms in, say, 2006 instead of 2008, we might have taken steps to figure out how we might contain the ability of this network to spread risk,’ he said.”

“Even so, Stern said he was skeptical that the Fed could have foreseen the situation as it has played out, especially the carnage that the housing market collapse would create. ‘I certainly make no claim for having foreseen how the decline in housing prices would spill over so aggressively to the financial sector and real economy,’ he said.”

“When the year ends and news organizations compile their top 10 stories of the year, the ‘economic crisis’ undoubtedly will be at or near the top of every respectable list. (I use ‘economic crisis” in quotes because I think it’s a bit misleading, all considered. Perhaps “a crisis of government intervention into the economy’ should be used instead.)”

“To be certain, there have been some negative economic realities that cannot be overlooked. But highlighting only the negative outcomes of economic downturns belies the cyclical nature of the economy.”

“What about housing prices? Not long ago, complaints of the typical American family not being able to afford a house dominated the evening newscasts. As we are all aware, housing prices have receded in recent months, but there has been little celebration. No — it is those who are looking to sell their house that now get the headlines, forced to swallow lower gains or even losses on their transactions.”

“That news outlets search out pessimism is no new idea; but given the cyclical nature of the economy, today’s worries will likely be tomorrow’s reason for optimism. Just don’t expect to hear about it.”

The Herald News reports from Illinois. “The 14900 block of Gardner Street in Plainfield has been a lonely place this year. Dick and Jeannine Goss have lived there since February, when they closed on the single-family home where they intended to live out their retirement. They were the first — and only — people to buy a house in the Fairfield Ridge subdivision near the center of town. After three years of marketing the subdivision with no other takers, developer James McNaughton asked the village to allow the company to replace a large number of the planned single-family homes with more affordable duplexes and townhomes.”

“‘(The Gosses) are placed in the unenviable position of owning not only the only house, but the most expensive house in the neighborhood,’ said trustee Jim Racich. ‘What are you doing to help the Gosses financially where they are not going to suffer financial disaster when you start selling homes for $100,000 or $150,000 less?’”

“Steve Gregory, president of James McNaughton Developmentpointed out that the amount the Gosses have invested isn’t as much as the company has — and with no return. ‘Without a change with more market appeal this development is doomed to fail,’ Gregory said.”

“Jeannine Goss agreed the developer has suffered a significant loss, and that fighting a sagging economy has been a losing battle. But she also pointed out their unusual predicament. ‘At one point Steve Gregory kept talking about all the money they invested. I said well, you still have your homes. This is all of our money,’ she said. ‘He said they’re trying to stay afloat. I said can’t we both be in the boat? Can’t we stay afloat with you?’”

The Chicago Tribune from Illinois. “Custom builders are using more lumber and less stone, delivering shrub-free yards, and subbing those Sub-Zeros for General Electric appliances. These are among the efforts of local builders trying to protect their bottom line. It’s a new financial reality.”

“‘Builders are no longer putting up the largest possible house for the lot size and are installing lower grade appliances or eliminating a window,’ noted Chris Smith, a sales associate for Baird and Warner in Winnetka.”

“‘All materials costs are way up, so obviously the profit has gone down a lot compared to last year,’ said James Shim, Shimco Custom Homes, Bartlett, whose costs rose about 10 percent while his asking price fell about 15 percent. His 3,300-square-foot homes with five bedroom and five baths are priced from $1 million to $1.8 million. ‘Consumers are looking for quality and big bargains, so I have no choice but to cut on our end.’”

“A sobered National Association of Realtors wants the federal government to underwrite new mortgages to make them significantly cheaper to pull would-be buyers off the sidelines. Saying that ‘consumers are tapped out and have given up,’ the trade group’s chief economist told attendees at its annual convention here that it plans to urge Congress to create a housing-specific stimulus package.”

“James Kinney, president of Rubloff Residential Properties in Chicago, who is attending the meeting, said local numbers would be weak. Privately gathered data on showings of homes in Chicago ‘fell off the end of the Earth in October,’ he said.”

The St Louis Dispatch News. “The wave of foreclosures that has crested across the St. Louis region in recent months has brought with it a nasty undertow: a surge of empty houses. Now, in the hardest-hit neighborhoods of St. Louis and north St. Louis County, there might be three or four on a block, foreclosed homes sitting vacant with no one to buy them even at rock-bottom prices.”

“Kelly Kress heads a housing agency that serves one of the hardest-hit areas in the region — a 140-block patch of south St. Louis between Grand Boulevard and Jefferson Avenue and roughly Arsenal Street to Meramec Street, where investors bought up battered brick two-family homes that have since fallen into foreclosure by the hundreds. In the Gravois Park neighborhood, part of Kress’ turf, one in five properties is either vacant or has been foreclosed upon in the past three years, according to city data.”

“‘We’re ground zero,’ Kress said.”

“It was a neighborhood on the upswing, as the tide of redevelopment that lifted nearby Benton Park and Tower Grove South promised to flow in. Money arrived. Gorgeous rehabs got under way. But then the housing market turned. Credit dried up. Novice rehabbers found historic renovation more difficult than they anticipated.”

“‘We went from being the next hot market to a neighborhood that could be walked away from,’ Kress said.”

From KMBC in Missouri. “In the last year, Buchanan County has the most foreclosures reported in Missouri, according to a realty tracker. Clay County was second. Foreclosures in Jackson County dropped, as did Platte County. In Kansas, Wyandotte County heads the list of reported foreclosures. Johnson County is third on the list.”

“Jackie Moore currently rents, but she said she knows a lot about foreclosures, because two of her landlords lost the homes in which she was living. ‘It happened to me twice. But there is nothing I can do about it,’ Moore told KMBC’s Micheal Mahoney.”

“Moore said she blames her landlords for not warning her that home was being foreclosed. Moore is now living in a third rental house. ‘I never did get a deposit back. I was just out of there,’ Moore said.”

The Press Citizen from Iowa. “It appears the housing crisis that has had major effects on much of the rest of the country now is affecting the Iowa City area. Jeff Dill, president-elect for the Iowa City Area Association of Realtors, said he’s also witnessed more foreclosures.”

“‘It’s starting to affect people we know a little more than it used to,’ he said. ‘It’s more noticeable than it ever has been.’”

The Detroit Free Press from Michigan. “Two reports released Thursday indicate bright spots in Michigan’s real estate market, but industry experts say we’ve got a way to go before things are normal. Sales continued to boom in foreclosure-laden Detroit, which saw a 42.2% jump in sales to 1,126 properties from 792 in October 2007.”

“Richard Dugas, CEO of Pulte Homes Inc. of Bloomfield Hills, cautioned against too much optimism. ‘The sales velocity is up, but a huge percentage of the resale number is foreclosed sales,’ Dugas said. ‘It is optimistic to say a sales jump so driven by foreclosures is a signal of the bottom. A huge amount of resale inventory that is not foreclosures is not selling.’”

“Another thing that mars the positive home sales picture is that prices are still on a downward spiral, said Drew Sygit, president of the Lending Edge at Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corp. in Rochester Hills. In October, the median price of homes sold was $70,000, a 40% drop from the $117,000 median sales price in October 2007, according to Realcomp data.”

“‘Prices are still falling. That’s not a stable market,’ Sygit said.”

From WLNS TV 6 in Michigan. “Would a 90 day ban on foreclosures really help the housing market? Home after home, facing foreclosure or already there. Adeline Metzler, Center for Financial Health: ‘99% of these people are serious hardworking people, they do not want to lose their homes.’”

“But Metzler says the plan does raise one red flag, it’d be too hard to enforce. ‘How do you tell all those lenders there’s a moratorium, because many of those loans were made here in the state of Michigan, but we’re dealing with servicers in California and Texas,’ Metzler said.”

“So she says, while it may be a bandaid for the struggling market, it won’t be the medicine that heals the wounds.”

The Capital Times from Wisconsin. “Housing starts continued to be at a virtual standstill in Dane County in October, with only 52 building permits issued for single-family homes, condos or duplexes, less than half the number issued in October 2007. Through October, 612 building permits have been issued in the county, down almost 40 percent from the 1,005 permits issued through October last year.”

“The city of Madison has seen new housing starts cut in half this year, with only 145 permits issued in 2008 compared to 305 permits issued through October 2007.”

“The MTD report shows the average value of new housing construction in Dane County in October to be $263,384, compared to an average last year of $241,062, with the average square footage at 2,536 square feet compared to 2,342 square feet last October.

The year-to-date comparison is also higher, with the value of new homes this year averaging $269,691 compared to $248,783 last year and the size of homes this year coming in at an average 2,573 square feet compared to 2,431 square feet in 2007.”

“From a peak of 2,156 new home building permits issued during the first 10 months of 2004, starts have fallen every year since, to 2,007 in 2005, 1,233 in 2006, 1,005 in 2007 and 612 in 2008.”

“The value and size of new homes, however, have kept rising for the past decade. The average value of a new home built in 1999 in Dane County was $156,049, so with the average now at $269,691, the value of a new home constructed this year is up 73 percent from 10 years ago. Square footage of new homes this year is 27.5 percent greater than homes built in 1999, going from 2,017 square feet in 1999 to 2,573 square feet this year.”

The Journal Sentinel from Wisconsin. “An upscale condominium project in Oconomowoc that ran into delays amid litigation with its former general contractor has sold its first unit. Vespera at Porticellos sold the 2,700-square-foot villa-style condo for $530,000, said Rebecca Sprague, associate vice president at Shorewest Realtors. Sprague said another villa has an accepted offer, with that sale still pending.”

“Icon Development Corp. of Franklin originally planned to build 36 units, and work started in early 2006. But only seven units have been built so far.”

The Pioneer Press from Minnesota. “As home foreclosures pile up in Minnesota, plans are emerging about how local officials will use federal money and work with lenders to handle at least some of the influx. A Pioneer Press survey on Thursday of sheriffs’ offices in the seven-county metro area found that lenders have repossessed more than 15,000 homes so far this year — compared with a total of 13,050 for all of last year.”

“The combined effort would account for less than 9 percent of the estimated 4,000 vacant and foreclosed properties in St. Paul next year, said Natalie Fedie, a spokeswoman for the city’s department of planning and economic development.”

“‘We need a lot more money to really make an impact in acquisitions,’ Fedie said.”

“For the Twin Cities housing market, it’s 2002 all over again. The median price for homes sold in the area during October hit its lowest mark in more than six years, and it’s unlikely it’s the bottom. The median sales price in the 13-county metro area was $180,000 last month, down 18.2 percent from the same period a year ago, according to the St. Paul Area Association of Realtors.”

“In the past two months, said Patrick Newport, a housing economist, economists at Global Insight have pushed back their projection for a bottoming out in the housing market by a full year because of the freezing of the credit markets and a general worsening of the economy. The view was similarly bleak among economists at Wachovia Capital Markets, who issued their monthly economic outlook.”

“‘Declines in home prices and equity prices are expected to shave $9 trillion in household wealth over the next several quarters,’ the economists wrote.”

“Local Realtors weren’t making predictions Wednesday about future median prices, but they did point to what they see as encouraging signs in the local housing market. Closed home sales in October increased 12 percent from a year ago, noted Rae Jean Malone, president-elect of the St. Paul Realtors group. Her group’s report also highlighted a drop in the number of active listings, which could help stabilize the market. ”

“The ultimate silver lining for Realtors right now? They’re not stockbrokers. ‘What’s a safer investment right now — housing or the stock market?’ asked Steve Having, president-elect of the Minneapolis group of Realtors, in a news release. ‘The increase in sales activity seems to point to housing for many folks round here.’”

The Quad City Times. “Doug Winter, a regional manager for Countrywide Home Loans, told a group of real estate agents that Countrywide has been the ‘poster child’ for the mortgage industry since last year.”

“Winter, who oversees Countrywide offices in Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska, spoke during a luncheon workshop at the Quad-Cities Area Realtors Association in Bettendorf. ‘I don’t think … it should have been as pointed as it was,’ he said, referring to criticism of his company as home foreclosures nationwide rose dramatically.”

“Winter said one of the challenges faced by Countrywide was that it was the first of the larger mortgage companies to experience problems and became the example for all mortgage companies facing similar problems. ‘They were looking for somebody to pin the blame on,’ he said.”

“During the workshop, Winter outlined how the housing crisis began. ‘I have said it was like a freight train coming down the road. … We didn’t see it coming.’”

“In 2003-2004, interest rates were low and the number of homeowners continued to grow. But because interest rates were so low, he said many borrowers began taking out second mortgages to finance other purchases. That eventually led to higher interest rates. By 2005 and into 2006, the market began to fail. By June 2007, real estate prices were falling and there was an oversupply of 1 million homes on the market. ‘It was the beginning of the end,’ he said.”

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