‘We Call It ‘An Adjustment Of Expectation’
Some housing reports from the Nevada Appeal. “There aren’t many people looking to buy homes during this typically slow season in late summer/early fall, but those who do are spending about 6 percent less than a month before, according to city assessor records. Residential sales are also being brought down by higher interest rates and sellers overestimating what their property is worth, said Bob Fredlund, an agent Carson City.”
“Sellers are shocked because of the decrease in the value of their property over a year ago when all real property was inflated, Fredlund said. Many sellers are making reductions in asking prices. He believes this trend will continue until Carson City gets a population influx. ‘The reality is we’ve got fewer buyers now,’ he said. ‘Everybody purchased in the last year.’”
“The South Lake Tahoe real estate market closes off a slow summer for sales with a glut of inventory, but prices remain strong despite what many deem a market correction from the spiraling heyday of previous years.”
“Dee Hackleman is one seller who took her house off the market recently because she and her husband didn’t get what they were asking for. At last count, it was listed for $29,000 less than what the originally requested, down to $395,500. ‘The market is flat right now. It’s glutted,’ she said.”
“But a correction in price and availability might not be a bad thing, according to the state’s leading economist. ‘Absolutely not. That’s just the way the market works. At some point, housing affordability will be impacted by rapid appreciation. We call it an ‘adjustment of expectation,’ California Association of Realtors chief economist Leslie Appleton Young said.”
“The median price for South Shore homes from July to August dipped by $40,000 to $435,000. One listing from Coldwell Banker indicates the ’seller will carry a second to qualified buyers with no payments for three years.’”
The Pahrump Valley Times. “A buildup of housing inventory for sale in the neighboring giant of Las Vegas is one of the reasons blamed for a slowdown in the Pahrump real estate market this year, local real estate professionals say. Some local real estate representatives said the problem is that sellers can no longer expect to get they prices they were able to demand during the boom.”
“Agent Fely Quitevos said she’s read on the Internet about new home developers like Beazer Homes offering 8 percent commissions and giving $10,000 to $20,000 to home buyers, incentives that are difficult for existing home sellers to compete with. Quitevos said some of her listings have expired after six months, and she’s had to renew them. But she added, ‘If the property is priced right, we could sell.’”
The Review Journal. “The luxury rental market in Las Vegas has been limited to custom executive homes in upscale master-planned communities, a few midrise apartments such as Vegas Towers and the 30-year-old Regency at Las Vegas Country Club. That’s changing as more high-rise and midrise condo projects are completed and investors dump their units onto the rental market.”
“A two-bedroom, second-floor condo at Manhattan is offered for six-month or one-year lease at $1,600 a month plus deposits. The owner is a licensed real estate agent in Nevada. ‘People that bought in the initial phases of midrises and high-rises bought as speculators and never had any intentions of occupying the place,’ (analyst) Larry Murphy said. ‘They bought with the intention to flip it. It’s just adding to the already huge inventory.’”
“‘There’s not an open market of people willing to pay $2,500 to $3,000 a month. That’s not typical here in Las Vegas. That’s still a lot of money,’ said Carl Sims of Hendricks & Partners. Investors who lease a unit for $3,000 a month, or $36,000 a year, would get a 10 percent return on a $360,000 unit, and to get those kind of rents, they’re going to have to pay a lot more than $360,000 for the unit, Sims said.”
“After expenses such as mortgage, homeowners association fees, taxes and insurance, owners could end up with a negative cash flow, he said.”
“Murphy said a lot of Realtors bought at SoHo and Manhattan, hoping to flip the units for a profit. ‘I don’t think they’ll be so lucky this time,’ Murphy said. ‘We’re in chapter two of the high-rise story and some of the people that bought them may be in Chapter 11 (bankruptcy) before we’re through.’”
The BLM is making more land near Henderson:
‘ The Bureau of Land Management has blessed Henderson’s plans to annex coveted federal land bordering both sides of Las Vegas Boulevard South near St. Rose Parkway, positioning it as the southern gateway city into the Las Vegas Valley. The land, totaling 3,500 acres and owned by the BLM, is situated between St. Rose Parkway on the north and a proposed heliport in unincorporated Clark County on the south, near Sloan.’
The BLM is making more land near Henderson:
I’m glad I wasn’t drinking something…
“We call it an ‘adjustment of expectation,’ California Association of Realtors chief economist Leslie Appleton Young said.”
Is this the new moniker for the housing bubble collapse?
I suppose “We” means learned economists.
I wish some economists, such as Appleton, would put half as much thought into providing realistic analysis and forcasting as they apparently do in dreaming up new buzz phrases. What the heck is an “adjustment of expectation?”
That’s when both testicles are on the same side of the crotch of your pants. Leslie probably picked the phrase up from Bernake ……
Laffing my azz off watching these realtors trying to flip their luxury condos as prices decline. Pass the popcorn.
I’m with you Spiral. I particularly liked the comment about how Chapter 2 in the condo market was going to lead to Chapter 11 for the floppers.
Don’t worry, those Realtors can cover the negative cash flow with those fat commissions they earn on all that sales activity. Right?
“The median price for South Shore homes from July to August dipped by $40,000 to $435,000. One listing from Coldwell Banker indicates the ’seller will carry a second to qualified buyers with no payments for three years.’”
How does this work? Am I right in guessing that the seller must think that prices will fall by a lot in the next three years?
Just another way of getting someone with no money into a house . The seller figures the gamble on the second is worth it just to get the house sold ,and he would most likely have to reduce the price of the house by the amount of the second to get it sold anyway .
The key to this deal is will the appraiser come in with the value or is it inflated to cover the second trust deed . Appraisers got to watch out for seller carry back seconds being a fraud thing .
I’m not sure. Remember your talking about Tahoe. Real estate has been pricey up there for a very long time.
Not true it has been pricey since only 2000. Prices prior to that were half of Bay Area homes.
should add the run up was from cashing out of stock options in 2000-01 and held as vacation homes.
But they were double that of Reno homes. The median in Reno is over 300K.
And don’t get me wrong, Tahoe is not different.
“Quitevos said some of her listings have expired after six months, and she’s had to renew them. But she added, ‘If the property is priced right, we could sell.’”
right = lower
right price = lower price = “NEW” price!
There are a lot of “NEW” price listings that already are going stale.
new price = reduced price
http://www.counterpunch.com/whitney08302006.html
Pop Goes the Bubble!
The Great Housing Crash of ‘07
By MIKE WHITNEY
This month’s figures prove that the so-called “housing bubble” is not only real, but that its cratering faster than anyone had realized. As the UK Guardian reported just yesterday, “the orderly housing slowdown predicted by the Federal Reserve will (soon) become a full-blown crash”.
All the indicators are now pointing in the wrong direction. Consumer confidence is down, inventory is at a 10 year high, and the number of homes sold in July was 22% lower than last year. As Paul Ashworth, chief economist at Capital Economics said, “Things seem to be getting worse very quickly. Freefall is a strong word, but I think it’s the right one to use here.” (UK Guardian)
The housing bubble is a $10 trillion equity balloon that will explode sometime in 2007 when more than $1 trillion in no-interest, no down payment, adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) reset; setting the stage for massive home devaluation, foreclosures and unemployment. (”By some estimates housing activity has accounted for 40% of all the jobs created since 2001″. Times Online) July’s plunging sales are just the first sign of a major slowdown. The worst is yet to come.
The blame for this rapidly-approaching meltdown lies entirely with the Federal Reserve, the privately-owned collection of 10 central banks who cooked up a way to shift wealth from one class to another through low interest rates.
Sound crazy?
Well, just as high interest rates cause the economy to slow down; low interest rates have the exact opposite effect by stimulating the economy through increased spending. It’s all pretty clear-cut.
When the stock market nose-dived in 2000 the Fed lowered rates 17 times to an unbelievable 1% to keep the economy sputtering-along while the Bush administration dragged the country to war, gave away $450 billion a year in tax cuts, and awarded zillions in no bid contracts to their friends in big business. All tolled, the Bush-handouts amounted to roughly $3 trillion dollars, the largest heist in history, and it was carried out under the nose of the snoozing American public.
At the same time, America’s debts and deficits have continued to mushroom behind the smokescreen of low interest rates.
Rather than face the recession which should have followed stock market crash, the Fed chose to increase the money supply (which doubled in the last 7 years) and lower the qualifications for getting mortgages. (I read recently that 90% of first time home buyers not only lie on their mortgage applications, but that 50% of them say that they earn TWICE as much as they really do. The applications are not cross-checked with IRS statements) Now, tens of thousands of Americans live in $400,000 and $500,000 homes without a penny of equity in them and with loans that are timed to increase dramatically in 2007. (Many of the monthly payments will double)
So, how can we blame the Fed for the reckless and irresponsible behavior of the average homeowner?
Well, because they knew the effects of their “cheap money” policy every step of the way.
First of all, the Fed knew exactly where the money was going. Greenspan endorsed the shabby new lending-regime which put hundreds of billions of dollars in the hands of people who never should have qualified for mortgages. They were set up to fail just like the victims in the stock market scam who kept dumping their life savings in the NASDAQ when PE’s were shooting through the stratosphere.
Secondly, the Fed knew that wages had actually regressed (2.3%) since Bush took office, so they knew that the soaring value of real estate was entirely predicated on debt not real wealth. In other words, home values increased because of the availability of cheap money which inevitably creates a buying-frenzy. It had nothing to do with real demand or growth in wages.
And, thirdly, according to the Fed’s own figures, “the total amount of residential housing wealth in the US just about doubled between 1999 and 2006″up from $10.4 trillion to $20.4 trillion”. Times Online.
UP $10 TRILLION IN 7 YEARS! That is the very definition of a humongous, economy-killing equity monster. In other words, the Fed knew the ACTUAL SIZE OF THE BUBBLE and chose to steer it towards the nearest iceberg without warning the public.
This is what Greenspan called “a little froth”.
There is no real growth in the American economy. Figure it out. Last year Americans saved less than 0% of their net earnings while they borrowed a whopping $600 billion from their home equity to piss-away on a consumer spending-spree. Once home prices begin to retreat, that $600 billion will evaporate, real GDP will shrivel, and the economy will begin flat-lining. (Consumer spending is 70% of GDP)
The Federal Reserve’s plan is so simple; we shouldn’t dignify it by calling it a conspiracy. It’s merely a matter of hypnotizing the masses with low interest rates while trillions of dollars of real wealth is diverted to corporate big-wigs and American plutocrats.
It might not be rocket science, but it worked like a charm.
Now, the trap-door has been sprung; the country is dead-broke and all the levers are in place for a police state. As the housing-balloon slowly limps towards earth, the new Halliburton detention centers are up and running, the National Guard is in Rummy’s control, the Feds are able to listen-in on every phone call we make.
The noose is beginning to tighten.
New Orleans was just a dress rehearsal for the new world order; 300,000 million Americans reduced to grinding poverty while the economy explodes into sheets of flames.
- (”By some estimates housing activity has accounted for 40% of all the jobs created since 2001″. Times Online) July’s plunging sales are just the first sign of a major slowdown.
The worst is yet to come.
- Nice article.
But, here in So Ca no crash will happen. The unemployed simple open Taco Stands, Auto Detailing, Become Sign Flippers or audition for American Idiot.
someone famous said, “no need to ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.”
i believe a corollary is, “no need to ascribe to the new world order that which can be explained adequately by greed and/or the need to CYA.”
Unless it was malice, then ascribing it to incompetence only makes one a duped fool.
“Now, the trap-door has been sprung; the country is dead-broke and all the levers are in place for a police state. As the housing-balloon slowly limps towards earth, the new Halliburton detention centers are up and running, the National Guard is in Rummy’s control, the Feds are able to listen-in on every phone call we make.”
9/11 sure was conveniently timed, allowing the implementation of the police state to deal with those pesky ‘Arabs.’
Snip:
In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba” was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods “may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government.”
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/
I thought I was the only “tin foil hat” in the room? Welcome aboard!
Here! Here!
Forget the popcorn. We need lawn chairs, tents, and a 36 month supply of beer.
Their party is ending. Ours is just beginning.
Found this in our local paper.
NEW PORT RICHEY - The full-page advertisement in the Gulf Harbors Civic Association’s newsletter was a desperate plea to homeowners.
“WHY IS EVERYONE SELLING?
MORE HOMES FOR SALE MEAN LOWER PRICES!
STOP SELLING!”
The appeal was not as surprising as the woman who submitted it: one of the affluent subdivision’s most successful real estate brokers.
“The signs are going up faster than they’re coming down,” said JoAnn Milano of Century 21. “The market is suffering.”
Her advice to Gulf Harbors homeowners: Unless you need to sell, don’t.
“People are starting to take their properties off the market because they’re not selling, and that is driving down prices,” she said. “I’m telling them to wait.”
The slowdown of waterfront property sales in this seaside subdivision - long a haven for northern retirees - is the “perfect storm” of rising insurance premiums, climbing interest rates and a sluggish real estate market, Milano said.
Nowhere is the market downturn more evident than along Floramar Terrace, where rows of “for sale” signs are sprouting like mushrooms in front of well-groomed houses.
In Gulf Harbors, Gulf Harbors Woodlands and Gulf Harbors Sea Forest, nearly 200 homes are on the market. Only a handful of them are selling, Milano said.
Since January, only 33 homes have been sold in the three neighborhoods, compared with about 145 homes sold in the area during the same period last year.
The houses on the market range from megamansions on West Shore Drive, one recently listed at $4.2 million, to modest single-family houses listed at about $134,000.
Another factor in the Gulf Harbors housing crisis was the unintended consequence of a recent crackdown on short-term rental properties in the deed-restricted community.
In December, the county attorney’s office sent letters to dozens of homeowners warning that the county planned to start enforcing a 1999 law limiting short-term rentals.
Complaints About Tenants
The county attorney’s office got involved after receiving numerous complaints from residents and the Gulf Harbors Homeowners Association about the revolving door of tenants, many of them with out-of-state license plates, late-night parties and disruptive boaters.
But the move prompted homeowners and real estate investors who were renting out their properties to sell, dumping more than 50 houses onto the market earlier this year.
Milano said that translated into bad news for sellers. “It’s a buyer’s market now,” she said. “That’s if you can afford it.”
Still, the abundance of houses for sale west of U.S. 19, from Hudson to Holiday, masks a broader trend: People are moving away from the densely populated part of Pasco County in droves. Some of them are migrating to Hernando and other northern counties. Many are leaving the state.
‘Killing The Housing Market’
The story is the same with other subdivisions west of U.S. 19 - Holiday Lake Estates, Sea Pines and Westport in Port Richey - where “for sale” signs line the streets.
Much of it has to do with rising insurance rates.
“The state’s insurance crisis is killing the housing market,” said Chris Kowalczyk, vice president of the nonprofit citizens advocacy group Homeowners Against Citizens, referring to Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
Kowalczyk, who lives in Sea Pines just north of Port Richey, said many residents are leaving Florida because they cannot afford the skyrocketing homeowners premiums.
“In my neighborhood alone there are more than 100 houses on the market,” he said.
The sluggish market is a dramatic turnaround for the region. Beginning in the late 1990s, a scarcity of land and of access to the Gulf in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties sparked a migration to the subdivisions west of U.S. 19. The new arrivals, many of them middle-class professionals with young families, were jumping on available properties that used to belong to elderly residents.
Over the past decade, Gulf Harbors recorded the largest increase of any Pasco subdivision as home buyers came from neighboring counties.
Orville Holtz, 62, was one of them. He bought his single story, canalside home in Gulf Harbors for $80,000 in 1998. With the steady rise in property values, it is worth several times that now. Earlier this year, Holtz decided the time had come to sell. But after several months of working with real estate agents, and a few months on his own, he has only gotten a few offers.
“Personally, I’m in no rush to sell,” Holtz said. “Other people aren’t that lucky.”
He wants to move to Georgia, but for now he has to wait.
A year ago, local brokers were clamoring over a handful of available homes in Gulf Harbors, a community of 1,850 houses carved out of the coastline about 30 years ago. This year, closings are few and far between.
So Milano, who has lived in Gulf Harbors for decades, tells them to wait, for now. “The market will bounce back,” she said. “But it will take time.”
“Personally, I’m in no rush to sell,” Holtz said. “Other people aren’t that lucky.”
It remains to be seen how “lucky” this homeowner is. Being in a rush to sell may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Often times margin calls are as well. Both force the stubborn hapless owner to part with a depreciating asset before its value declines further. A classic example of not recognizing a margin call as a blessing was WorldCom’s Board of Directors extending Bernie Ebbers a $400 million loan so that he wouldn’t be forced to sell his WorldCom stock @ $15/ share. Que sera sera.
Great post, Waitingitout!
By this time next year, I predict ol’ JoAnn Milano of Century 21 willl be fleeing down the street to escape a lynch mob of FBs with pitchforks and torches, who foolishly heeded her advice to “wait it out” until the market bounced back — but who got bounced into foreclosure and homelessness, instead.
Why will the market bounce back? I wish the reporter had asked that question. People who believe the market will crash can tell you why, and in great detail, but people like this Milano woman seem to have only blind faith. Does she really think homeowners insurance is going to get cheaper?
My b-i-l thinks this way and last Christmas conceeded there may be a RE bubble but not in Florida. He’s a doctor who has stopped saving because he says he doesn’t need to - his house is making him plenty of money.
Lucent and Nortel are making a come back. I promise.
Her advice to Gulf Harbors homeowners: Unless you need to sell, don’t.
“People are starting to take their properties off the market because they’re not selling, and that is driving down prices,” she said. “I’m telling them to wait.”
And how does she think that is going to help? She thinks that by “faking out” the potential buyers that prices will remain higher for longer? What is she smokin’? She does sound a bit panic stricken….the dollars she used to see are disappearing before her eyes and she’s trying to figure out how she’s gonna pay for her OWN spec and HELOC’d properties. Ugh! Whatever….
Hmmm…maybe that’s it. If she can reduce the number of For Sale signs, she may think she has a better chance of selling her own albatross(es). I don’t know. It all stupid.
BayQT~
Interesting article, waitingitout. It is a sure sign of desperation when people involved in the sales process are trying to manipulate market supply/demand through public appeal. Even “late to the game” sellers who saw 100% appreciation are still more than willing to accept 80% if they can get it. And it really doesn’t cost them much to have their property listed, nearly all the costs are to the agent. So heck, why *not* list your property? People are approaching from a lottery mentality - “I might get lucky!” It’s been a drunken orgy so far and a newspaper ad isn’t gonna sober anybody up.
RE agents have no mechanism for preventing this, although, I suppose a very succesful RE agent with a long track record might be able to charge an up-front fee to handle your property and that could lead to a trend which would keep the “casual sellers” out. My landlord told me something similar happened in the rental market in Boston about 15 years ago - it was so tough to find tenants to occupy rentals that he had to pay the brokers to do so (finder’s fee). During the dotcom, the reverse happened. I, as a renter, had to pay a huge commision to the broker for finding me a place. I don’t think such a mechanism exists in residential RE.
Well, after the dotcom bust, *ALL* of those fly-by-night rental brokers in boston folded up in an instant. This time around, RE agents will be changing careers in droves.
I used to wonder why all those rental agents in Boston had such high opinions of themselves when all they were doing was showing me a few rentals and then collecting a fat check. To RE agents’ credit, there is a lot more involved in buying/selling property compared to rentals, but still nothing justifying most of their pay checks. A small number really do earn it, but most are incompetent and just looking for easy money in a bubble market. Lacking any real talent for real estate, they’ll be forced to seek out the next bubble market. This is why I think a deep recession might actually be a good thing because it will sober up some of these jokers for good.
Still, even if the casual sellers pulled out, there are many, many other problems in RE. Hyper-valuation and debters who are desperate. No matter what, they are going to prop up supply for at least the next two or three years.
A seller’s boycott? Never happen. No one is going to hold their property off the market so the neighbours can cash out first.
It’s every FB for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.
oops, my post was in response to waitingitout’s article above, not Jon’s post immediately above
I’m sure as Global Warming accelerates and the realization dawns that sea levels are rising and will continue to rise, I’m sure florida real estate will become an even more highly prized commodity.
“Her advice to Gulf Harbors homeowners: Unless you need to sell, don’t.”
Yes, please allow all the flippers and speculators to cash out their home lottery winnings first, and reap the lions share of the winnings. It is best if the long time home owners are left holding the bag, and have nothing left for their retirement. This is the what you should do. I implore you.
“The South Lake Tahoe real estate market closes off a slow summer for sales with a glut of inventory, but prices remain strong despite …”
Does than mean the price of gasoline remains strong, too?
The Tahoe real estate is directly impacted by the Bay Area RE prices, which resulted in second homes whose values were shooting through the roof. Now the prices are stagnating and you have these marginal owners barely able to hold on. I couldn’t tell you all the POS homes for sale. One example: 250sqft cabin on a postage-stamp sized lot (no exaggeration) selling for $350K. And the same mantra you hear everywhere: “the market is different in Tahoe.”
Top that off with second-home owners who come to the lake two weeks a year and not only drive the price of affordably housing up, by create neighborhoods that are ghost towns most of the time. Then they try to rent these homes out, which not only drives down the price of other rentals, but also is killing the lodging industry – especially the mom and pops. Oh well. I am not really sad I left there.
The nicest thing about living in Lake Tahoe, is saying that you live in Lake Tahoe.
I don’t know about that. I really enjoyed living up there and loved the skiing/hiking/mountain biking that the area offered (aside from the beauty). It was a great time of my life and I’m very happy I spent it in Tahoe. Besides when the mountains got to me I could hop in my jeep and be in SF in under 4 hours for some carousing!
I found the Tahoe area to be reasonably affordable in the 80’s and 90’s. If affordability ever returns, I wouldn’t mind returning.
I grew up around Tahoe. It is not the same as it used to be. It is now a part time enclave of the super rich look at me’s of the world. It is, as you say, full of neighborhoods which largely resemble ghost towns most of the time, as the owners show up maybe a few weeks of the year to have their fun. You now hear more and more stories of people like Mark Cuban and Donald Trump expressing interest in the area. What was once the unspoiled gem in my backyard, has turned into the playground of the rich and famous. It is not surprising, but it is disappointing. I am hopeful that one day, in the not too distant future, affordability returns for the locals who respect, cherish, and belong in the area.
What, did the rich and famous abandon Aspen?
OT….pologies if this is coming late to the party…but I just stumbled across this a moment ago:
Reply.com Site aids buyers in making unsolicited offers
Reply.com is a new real estate site that allows a buyer to make an unsolicited offer on a property. For $24.95, reply.com will create, prepare and priority mail an offer to a seller. The reply.com site provides estimated valuation information for properties in a manner similar to zillow.com. Reply.com offers are non-binding and serve as a means for connecting buyers and sellers without real estate agents.
This model works well for properties that are not currently on the market, as most listed properties would contractually require a broker commission payment regardless of who produces the buyer. Reply.com is an interesting concept and one that has the potential to catch on quickly once it gains critical mass and credibility in the marketplace.
http://www.reply.com/
I checked this site out by plugging in my old house in Berkeley, CA. Most of the details are good but they (as well as Zillow) don’t account for the extensive, permitted work we did on the house during the 1979-81time period in the “Year Updated” section. The last one noted is 1946, which was when the last permit work was done before we started our work. The work that we did was: raised the entire house 4 feet, gutted out the lower level, added a new 2bd apartment unit (already listed as a duplex with the city but foundation was rotted and unit had deteriorated & was out of code), added a 2-car garage w/work space, new foundation, new roof, new fireplace (bricks fell through when house was lifted), new front staircase and railing. The list goes on, but my point is that I’m surprised that with that information available somewhere with the city that it was missed by these real estate sites.
Anyway, I digress….I just wanted to share my new finding. Any comments on this site?
BayQT~
“Apologies”, not pologies. Sorry about that.
BayQT~
Sounds like a great concept BayQT but who writes up the offer for the property .
I don’t know. Just discovered the site….. haven’t looked into in depth.
BayQT~
Gary, Gary, Gary!!! Calling Mr. Watts, Mr. Watts, Mr. Watts ??? Gary, Gary - where are you when these many F’ckd sellers need some reassurance that at least 15% increase was ‘in the bag’????
It will be interesting to see if the ski season is slow in Tahoe and everywhre else, due to slowing consumer spending from all of this.
But the good news is now we can take our 5 year old daughter skiing and not have to go bankrupt paying for the lodging…
‘The reality is we’ve got fewer buyers now,’ he said. ‘Everybody purchased in the last year.’
Some people are finally starting to “get it”. Not only has the housing industry built too many homes and created a gross oversupply, they’ve also oversold the market and depleted demand for the next several years.
Happy times.
Old Chinese proverb for all the Real Estate Wizards out there. “Even Monkey’s Fall out of Trees !”
The ground WILL be littered with RE Monkey bodies VERY SOON !
They also don’t get that a huge % of the demand was speculators and marginal qualifying buyers who have headed for the hills .
OT ,Is anyone as amused as I am daily by how funny Bens ‘titles’ are
for his daily articles and comments ?
One listing from Coldwell Banker indicates the ’seller will carry a second to qualified buyers with no payments for three years.’”
Did someone notice what did ‘POP’ overnight in the RE market ….
no 40 year loans to be seen.
Where did that go ? POP! Gone!
I ALMOST bought one of those Manhattan condos. I put down a $9000 deposit and everything. I ended up having to cancel it…I literally couldn’t sleep at night. When I went to my “sales preview” it was absolute and utter chaos. As I stood outside the preview center I couldn’t help but overhear everyone’s conversations around me. They were ALL speculators. They were ALL talking about flipping. It made me pretty nervous imagining buying into this condo project that would be completed only for the ENTIRE building to go up for sale all at the same time. Scary.
What ultimately made me back out was the fact that they only released a certain number of condos the day of my preview and yet there were more people attending the sales presentation than units available. As you can imagine, this created a frenzy. They did a very quick slideshow of each floorplan and at the end of the slideshow you literally had to FIGHT to get a salesperson so they could reserve you the unit you wanted. I was like “Whoa, whoa, whoa! I want to look at these plans in detail here!” (Afterall, I wanted to LIVE in my unit so I wanted to make sure I liked it!) So while I took a few minutes to review the various floorplans being released for sale that day, everyone else was busy snatching up absolutely anything. I eventually found a unit I liked at a price I could swing, so the next challenge was to get a sales agent to hold it for me. This was very stressful….there was a great deal of competition in the air that day.
I finally got a salesman to squeeze me in at his desk. He looked up the unit I was interested and his computer showed it was still available (nobody else in the room had put a deposit down on it YET). Well the guy ended up making small talk with me and all I could think was “RESERVE MY UNIT BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE HERE GETS IT FROM ME!!!” Two minutes later, when he finally went to reserve it in his computer, it was too late. I lost the unit because the sales guy wasted literally two minutes talking to me. I was PISSED. I ended up having to settle for an entirely different floorplan that was 300 square feet less for the SAME price. And it wasn’t a nice floorplan.
For weeks I dwelled on the fact that I’d missed out on an awesome unit at a good price because of that f’ing stupid salesman. I looked at the floorplan I was stuck with and tried to make myself like it. In the end, I couldn’t do it. I hated it. So I cancelled my unit, got my deposit back and literally moved out of Las Vegas. I was done. And the bubble roared on.
That two minute period of time changed the course of my life. Had he reserved me the unit I wanted at the moment I told him I wanted it, I would be living there today. Instead I lost it to someone else, and I’m really not sure that’s a BAD thing, but only time will tell.
Bittersweet
I really like your story Jeff and you told it so well .I was just wondering if maybe some of the buyers were fake shills and the intent was to steer buyers to bad locations / designed units at the higher prices .I would not put anything past the Vegas marketing groups .
A friend wanted me to go to Vegas to check out a time share last year ,(only went to talk friend out of it ) , and it was nothing but a phony high pressure sales hussle . After they realized that my friend wasn’t going to buy the time share ,they wouldn’t even clean the room .
You were so right in not buying something you didn’t really like .
Rejection is protection .
All tolled, the Bush-handouts amounted to roughly $3 trillion dollars, the largest heist in history, and it was carried out under the nose of the snoozing American public.
I don’t think the american public was asleep, I just do not think the average American is savy enough in economics to understand what just happened any more than they will understand what is about to come. OUCH!