‘Just Another Facade In The Crowd’
The Times Herald Record reports from New York. “Sure, the Orange County housing market is cooling down, but few would ever have thought it would come to this: a free vacation as an incentive for buying a home. But the addition on the sign in front of the two-story home on Route 211 West is unequivocal: ‘Vacation included.’”
“According to real estate agent Donna Ksiazek, who put the sign there, her company is offering full hotel fare for a seven-day vacation in any part of the world. It’s just one of a growing number of incentives for people to buy and sell homes.”
“If there ever was a sign that the once-hot Orange County housing market is no more, this is it. Sellers have to be patient and consider lowering the price on their homes if they want to make a sale, Ksiazek said.”
“Ksiazek said the desire of many homeowners to cash in before the market sinks further has added to the urgency of home sales, thus the need for more incentives.”
The Boston Globe. “Janelle Reagan has a nickname for her suburban side street: ‘Realtor’s Row.’ The label refers to the array of for-sale signs that mark the entry to her Katherine Heights neighborhood. Each placard peddles a different condo, all of them nearly identical to hers.”
“For Reagan, they are a constant reminder of the situation she and her husband Troy find themselves in at this stage of a soft real estate market: Their condo is just another facade in the crowd.”
“The Reagans are experiencing the wrenching consequences of being home sellers at the wrong time. They’ve had several buyers fall through, and have been forced to pull out from buying their own new dream home. They’ve packed and unpacked, explained to their children why they had to call off a move, and spent many a sleepless night talking about money.”
“‘It seems like we’ve been through every difficult scenario,’ said Janelle Reagan. ‘At this point, it’s hard to even get excited when our realtor calls to tell us she wants to show the condo.’”
“Now, interest in their condo has dropped off, there are five other units in the development on the market as well, some of which are priced below theirs. The Reagans have dropped their asking price to $195,000, 8 percent below the original list price. ‘Things have been really stressful,’ said Janelle Reagan. ‘There were many nights I didn’t sleep.’”
“Financial advisers said among the many huge emotional elements home sellers face in such times, the biggest is fear. ‘The fear of maybe having two mortgages and having to meet those payments month after month, wondering when it will end; the fear of messing up one’s credit or looking like a failure,’ said Rick Fingerman of Financial Planning Solutions.”
“Though in a different price zone, Stephen and Dianne Greenstein can relate to Reagan’s deflated spirits. The couple’s four-story waterfront home, on Nahant’s craggy coast, has been on the market for nearly a year. For all of its amenities, the three-bedroom contemporary home has yet to sell, despite a drop of $326,000 in the asking price.”
“So in August the couple elected to sell the home at auction. They hired AllynAuction Co. of Nahant and paid roughly $8,000 in marketing costs. Three bidders registered for the Sept. 24 auction. With hopes high, the Greensteins said a silent prayer as auctioneer Richard D. Allyn started the bidding at $1 million. No takers.”
“In the end, a single bid of $830,000 was offered, which the Greensteins rejected as too low. The current list price for their home: $899,000, down from $1.25 million.”
“‘I want to sell, but I’m not going to give the house away,’ said Stephen Greenstein, noting that another Nahant home, a three-bedroom, sold through AllynAuction in July for $1,050,000. ‘I’d rather wait for the right offer.’”
The Boston Herald. “Just how weak is the Boston real estate market? We got an idea yesterday. And if you’re looking to sell your home in the near future, the news isn’t good. Brand-new luxury condos downtown saw hundreds of thousands of dollars wiped off their value in the Hub’s first public real estate auction in a decade.”
“The 31 condos up for sale in the Folio building on Broad Street sold on average for 30 percent below their asking prices.Some barely fetched their minimums. Even the building’s marketing boss couldn’t hide what happened.”
“‘I think the buyers got a better value than anybody expected,’ Paul Gollinger said after the two-hour auction. ‘But we’re satisfied, very satisfied… We hadn’t had a sale in the last four months.’”
“The most expensive properties fell hardest. A $1,760,000 penthouse plunged $600,000 to just $1,140,000. A $1,600,000 three-bedroom apartment with a terrace crashed by half a million dollars, selling for less than $1.1 million.”
“Husband and wife Kevin and Daire Starr couldn’t believe their luck. They got a 1,910-square foot apartment with three bedrooms and two bathrooms for $837,000, almost $400,000 below the list price, and just $12,000 over the auction minimum.”
“Starr said the couple currently rented in Back Bay. ‘We’ve been waiting for the market froth to cool down the last couple of years before we jumped in,’ he said with a smile.”
“In total, condos listed for nearly $33 million ended up selling for $24 million.”
“You can expect the auction to put pressure on the rest of the real estate market. And it may push more sellers to negotiate on price. The big losers yesterday? The people who paid full price for the other 65 homes in the building during the last few years. Collinger said the first went up for pre-construction sale four years ago. And they all sold for the asking price.”
“Bidders ‘got a better value than we thought they’d get,’ said Jon Gollinger, whose firm, Velocity Marketing, conducted the auction on behalf of the Folio developer, Michael Rauseo. ‘But we’re satisfied,’ Gollinger said. ‘The market has spoken.’”
“Ten condos, with asking prices of $1.16 million to $1.76 million, sold for prices that were 21 percent to 36 percent below the asking prices.”
“Steve Goulas wasn’t ready to buy yesterday. Sitting amid the frenzied bidding, methodically recording each unit’s sale price, the Manhattan investment banker said he was just observing. He and two friends, Boston attorneys, want to buy a condo. They believe prices will continue to drop over the next six to nine months, he said, because so many condos are under construction.”
“Goulas had a parting comment as the auction ended: ‘I’ll see you at the next one.’”
“Financial advisers said among the many huge emotional elements home sellers face in such times, the biggest is fear.”
Fear, aka reality.
“…huge emotional elements home sellers face in such times, the biggest is fear.”
Mirror image of “…huge emotional elements home buyers face in such times [2005], the biggest is greed.”
Jas Jain
- ‘‘Things have been really stressful,’ said Janelle Reagan. ‘There WERE many nights I didn’t sleep.’”
Janelle is over it now and is sleeping much better. She realized that the market would decide the value of the condo and that she was helpless.
“So in August the couple elected to sell the home at auction. They hired AllynAuction Co. of Nahant and paid roughly $8,000 in marketing costs. Three bidders submitted bank-certified checks of $25,000 and registered for the Sept. 24 auction. With hopes high, the Greensteins said a silent prayer as auctioneer Richard D. Allyn started the bidding at $1 million. No takers.”
“In the end, a single bid of $830,000 was offered, which the Greensteins rejected as too low. The current list price for their home: $899,000, down from $1.25 million.”
And 6 months from now when they sell for less than $830k, they’ll wish they had taken the auction bid.
(Don’t know why this comment ended up on the other thread)
“‘I want to sell, but I’m not going to give the house away,’ said Stephen Greenstein, noting that another Nahant home, a three-bedroom, sold through AllynAuction in July for $1,050,000. ‘I’d rather wait for the right offer.’”
Keep waiting pal. You’re going to ride this one down like the pilot sitting on the nuke in Dr. Strangelove sans cowboy hat.
Great image! LOL……wahooooooo!
Where have we seen this before- “I am not going to give it away..”????
I think we need to create a new circle in Hell, solely for people who uttered the phrase: “I’m not going to give it away”.
Although they are going to suffer a lot now, not just in the Hereafter
Where have we seen this before- “I am not going to give it away..”????
My first date with an actress!!!
Thats right baby you go girl… ride it all the way down…
We need as many poster children of the RE bubble as we can get.
That is just ridiculous. YOU’VE ALREADY DROPPED IT BY 325K, DUMBASS. What’s another 60!?
WTF is with these people?
“Husband and wife Kevin and Daire Starr couldn’t believe their luck. They got a 1,910-square foot apartment with three bedrooms and two bathrooms for $837,000, almost $400,000 below the list price, and just $12,000 over the auction minimum.”
“Starr said the couple currently rented in Back Bay. ‘We’ve been waiting for the market froth to cool down the last couple of years before we jumped in,’ he said with a smile.”
Sounds like one of us, but they probably jumped in a bit too early.
What do you want to bet those apartments sold for approximately 500K in 2002.
It’s a new res conversion. They didn’t exist in 2002.
10% down = $4671/month plus HOA fees, taxes etc.
How lucky can you get!
They’re the buyers of JDSU at 90. It was such a bargain.
And 50
And 40
And 20
And 10
ot, txchick…
get the new AD? Check out the Dallas house…pretty cool.
No, but I will. Who’s the architect.
I’ll bet it’s for sale within 6 months. They always are.
hahahaha…..good one txchick57. You made me laugh.
I did lose all of my savings in the stock market and JDSU was one of the stocks that I had invested in. Fortunately, I had recently graduated from college and did not have much to lose.
Not just “a bit too early,” but a whole lot too early. I mean by a factor of 4-5.
The best time to buy would be when the mkt, across the board, is up 20% from the bottom.
Jas Jain
They just paid $432/sf and they consider themselves to be lucky? Sounds more like a fleecing to me.
Plenty more sheep where they came from.
testament to the number of people ready, willing and able to catch a falling knife. they must be listening to liereah about the bottom being reached sometime around the third week of november, on that thursday i believe, sheeez.
“Starr said the couple currently rented in Back Bay. ‘We’ve been waiting for the market froth to cool down the last couple of years before we jumped in,’ he said with a smile.”
What a genius.
but it’s all good. these knife-catchers did their share to lower the comps. i expect these things to happen in continous waves
From the update:
‘Bidders ‘got a better value than we thought they’d get,’ said Jon Gollinger, whose firm, Velocity Marketing, conducted the auction on behalf of the Folio developer, Michael Rauseo. ‘But we’re satisfied,’ Gollinger said. ‘The market has spoken.’
‘Ten condos, with asking prices of $1.16 million to $1.76 million, sold for prices that were 21 percent to 36 percent below the asking prices. Steve Goulas wasn’t ready to buy yesterday. Sitting amid the frenzied bidding, methodically recording each unit’s sale price, the Manhattan investment banker said he was just observing. He and two friends, Boston attorneys, want to buy a condo. They believe prices will continue to drop over the next six to nine months, he said, because so many condos are under construction. Goulas had a parting comment as the auction ended: ‘I’ll see you at the next one.’
Sorry OT;…
BEN;..Can you please send Fred Hopper my email address…Thanks…
This is a snip from today’s Orlando Sentinel about a recent auction of a local historic home.
“Home in the range
Historic house auctioned for $890,000 after previous asking prices deemed too high
Claudia Zequeira | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted October 8, 2006
Home auction (ED SACKETT, ORLANDO SENTINEL)
Oct 7, 2006
The auction of a historic Victorian home that sat on the market for more than a year ended Saturday with a purchase by an Orlando venture capitalist.
Frank Amodeo agreed to pay $890,000, plus a 10 percent auction fee, for the home at 614 Lake Ave. in Orlando’s Lake Cherokee neighborhood. The price was a bargain compared to the $1.59 million listing for the property in 2005 and an earlier asking price of $2.1 million.”
“Financial advisers said among the many huge emotional elements home sellers face in such times, the biggest is fear.”
Naaa… we’re still in Denial. Ok, Florida might have progressed to fear, but most markets are still in Denial. Shameless plug for my blog:
http://recomments.blogspot.com/
“Steve Goulas wasn’t ready to buy yesterday. Sitting amid the frenzied bidding, methodically recording each unit’s sale price, the Manhattan investment banker said he was just observing. He and two friends, Boston attorneys, want to buy a condo. They believe prices will continue to drop over the next six to nine months, he said, because so many condos are under construction.”
“Goulas had a parting comment as the auction ended: ‘I’ll see you at the next one.’”
Alright, which one of us are you Steve? Fess up! Oh, 9 months to the bottom? Nyet. But if you keep going to the auctions, you’ll get a “feel” for the market, so he’ll be ok.
Neil
“you’ll get a “feel” for the market, so he’ll be ok” There’s in old saying at my mens group “If you hang around a barbershop long enough, you are going to get a haircut” Why in the world would anyone waste their time doing research anywhere but the internet. It’s all here, and you don’t caught in the emotional aspect of an auction. I predict this guy will buy way to soon during the downturn
“…and spent many a sleepless night talking about money.”
That is going to be the future of tens of millions of American households designed by their economic rulers – Bankrupters and Fraudsters of New York City (BFNYC). I seriously doubt that the American political system would survive such a premeditated financial rape of the population, all in the name of “free market principles.” All such beliefs are subjected to abuse.
Jas Jain
How is the Tehachapi market? An associate of mine purchased some land to build house on, er… speculate and become wealthy. Now he can’t sell the lot. He purchased last summer in a bidding war. I actually got into a shouting match with him (I like this guy) and begged & insulted him to not buy to no avail.
Time to send your friend an E-mail like “told you so, jackass!”
LMAO! In this case he knows he was a dumb a$$ decision. He comment now is “That was an impulse buy, and not a smart one either”
Barely breathing. Last time I checked, 494 listings for homes and only 64 under contract. Lot sales are down more than 50%.
Yes, I know a couple of people like that myself (and I know very few people in town, as I live in a remote area away from whatever little hustle-and-bustle there is). They felt like geniuses a year ago and now feel a bit unsure. Both are “trying” to sell lots that they bought a year ago.
Jas Jain
I once worked in Lone Pine (east side of the Sierra Nevada), so I rolled through Tehachapi every month or so. A wide spot in the road. Pleasant enought, but I cannot conceive of it as investor country, except for fools.
Can’t be all that bad. At least if you move a good portion of your wealth into precious metals and offshore.
Sorry to momentarily interupt the threads. Does anyone know anything about the World Financial Group (WFG)? A classmate of mine and an acquantance separtely ask me to join this group. I know that they sell insurance and its members work in hiarchy (pyramid structure). One has been in WFG for 2 years and claimed to make a good living. The other has been in for a few months. Does anyone know any scams associated with WFG? Thanks.
Don’t know anything about WFG in particular, but if you’re being sold on a club where you’ll make lots of money by just sitting on your butt after writing a sizeable check, most likely its a Fonzi scheme. FWIW, I’d stay away.
Er, Ponzi scheme. Apparently I’ve got Henry Winkler on my mind.
AAYYYY!
That name rings a bell. I believe this group goes by many names. The group I’m thinking of is a ponzi scheme cult. They play loud rock and roll to pump up their “professionals”. The Big Sellers get Superbowl-like rings. They were creepy, gave bad financial advice, and made the majority of their earnings by getting referrals (like you) to join.
The common thread through each story is “blip, bump, hiccup.” These people have added a new pahase to denial. no longer able to deny that prices are cratering, they now deny that it will last very long. The investor with two lawyer buddies saying hee’d be at the next auction. No, anyone who even bothers to stick their head out of the bunker is gonna get shot. This is a war of Wet Eyes and neutron bombs, not snipers. When it was raining soup it made sense to be outside with a bucket, now it is raining shrappnel and flipper parts. Stay inside.
“When it was raining soup …”
i just almost lost my soup listening to chris farrell on “market money” on npr saying that the housing bubble “hasn’t popped, it’s just sort of hit a ceiling…” and prices aren’t going to go up anymore until wages catch up with housing prices.”
well, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. i wonder why he didn’t mention the remote possibility of prices going down to accommodate those fundamentally low wages?
nah…
Robert…As always your comments are spot on and very funny.
Cote,
We disagree politically (I’m a sprawlophobe), but doozies like this are golden. Keep it up,even if someone disagrees with you once in a while. Great (if gruesome) imagery, and for once, we agree.
You’d be surprised. I bet 80% of what you dislike about sprawl I dislike as well. The usual explanation is that many people have the wrong idea about sprawl because the planner elites have hijacked the language and twisted to their evil agenda.
Hello, my name is Arwen, and I’m a recovering open-house visitor . . . Sunday afternoons are now for napping or sipping wine with friends.
“Ksiazek said the desire of many homeowners to cash in before the market sinks further has added to the urgency of home sales, thus the need for more incentives.”
I think most buyers are waiting for the “market sinks further” part, and will skip the “more incentives” part.
In general, buyers know the market better. Most (smart ones, at least) look for at a number of houses in comparable neighborhoods and get a good feel for the local market they are interested in before pulling the trigger.
Sellers are usually deal with one house that typically has a lot of emotional baggage attached, and often with a price they need to get.
This is, in part, why “the first offer is the best offer” mantra is often true. It’s not about the sellers having “the house”. It’s about they buyers knowing their local market well enough that when “the house” shows up, they know it.
However, in the current market, if a house has not been on the market for 6 months, and has not had a nice trail of significant list price decreases, it’s likely overpriced.
DL - World Financial Group is a bunch of crooked folks peddling really bad insurance. If you understood what they were marketing, you would run real fast from them. They were split off from Primerica Financial Services around 1990, when Citigroup took over PFS. WFG then went back to the crummy products that Art Williams was fighting against when he formed AL Williams and did a major change in the insurance industry. Just my two cents worth. Check out the history in some INDEPENDENT works.
WFG = scams galore. I was working as a PFS rep. Anyone with WFG stated their insurance was crummy and they were easy to replace.
A friend of mine bought a condo (converted from an Apartment) in Sarasota about 18 months ago. He was all excited and told me how his mortgage agent has made all this money and how the prices in Sarasota were going to go up $100 grand. He told me he would sell it in a few years and that $100k was in the bag. He showed me news articles and was just thrilled. I tried to not rain on his parade and said.. I hope so for your sake..
About 6 mos ago, as the market became slow and his ARM readjusted, he tried to sell for a 10 grand profit. I told him he should take it and pay the 6 grand penalty. He did not want to do that. I explained to him how his mortgage agent screwed him, the one he thought so highly of, by putting in the prepayment penalty to fatten her commission. The one she told him he had to sign, because prices are always going up. That without the prepayment penalty, the lender would not accept. I told him they would have, she just would not have gotten paid as much. He was livid.
Now he is trying to hold on for another 6 mos. He now owns more on his condo than it is worth. He is struggling to pay his payments. he says, I pay $2 grand a month for my mortgage, my home owners association fees, my taxes, and my insurance. I’m going to get out of this place. This is ridiculous when I can rent the same thing for $850 a month.
It’s a sad thing to see, but I tried to warn him. Not only is his bubble popped, but so are those of everyone else. My brother and his GF just left FL because jobs dont pay well and RE is expensive. FL is not as attractive as it once was. Take my brother and my friend and multiply that by millions and that is the situation we have here. Greed fed this bubble and now fear with speed it’s collapse. Everyone claiming that the worst is behind us have no clue. My friend is hanging on and I don’t see it getting any better. This economy is as good as it is going to be and it is going to be much worse from here. I could have bought stocks during the last month, but I held out because I know what is ultimately going to happen.
A recession.. and possibly even :-x… I will not say.
“Sure, the Orange County housing market is cooling down, but few would ever have thought it would come to this: a free vacation as an incentive for buying a home. But the addition on the sign in front of the two-story home on Route 211 West is unequivocal: ‘Vacation included.’ According to real estate agent Donna Ksiazek, who put the sign there, her company is offering full hotel fare for a seven-day vacation in any part of the world. It’s just one of a growing number of incentives for people to buy and sell homes.”
I can’t believe they talk about this “Free Vacation!” incentive as if it’s an amazing, unprecedented huge deal …. I mean, seven days in any hotel in the world … Who cares!!!! Even if they pay for 7 nights at one of the world’s most expensive hotels … Claridges or the Savoy in London, George V in Paris … What will that be? $7,000 to $10,000 at most? When the real estate market is dropping like a rock, and you’re taking on a monstrous mortgage to buy an overpriced $600K-$800K POS, why would you even care about a measly 7 days “free” stay in a hotel … 7 days free in hotel, in exchange for which you commit yourself to years shackled to a massive mortgage on an overpriced house that you can’t sell again without losing your shirt … Sounds like a GREAT deal!!
That’s how stupid they think buyers are . Buyers are stupid in a mania but they start getting their heads back when the bubbles pop .Just lower the prices and enough with the insulting incentives .
Free vacation, yet only the hotel is free. The buyer still has to pay airfare, meals, car rental, etc. Bogus!!
Good article from the LA Times. Read the part about the rise in households entering some phase of foreclosure. This is just the beginning.
Foreclosure can be foiled
http://tinyurl.com/eklua
The Starr family “Couldn’t believe their luck,” when they got (what they think) was a good deal when they bought their property $400,000 below the original asking price. Um, a small comment here. Back in 2000, my wife and I went on vacation to Mexico. We had been investing in the bubble technology “suckers market” but pulled out just in case their was a crash while we were away. At that time we followed a financial guru (because we didn’t know much about the stock market) by the name of Bob Brinker. We always invested in the QQQQ’s (then called the QQQ’s). The QQQQ’s started to drop and when they reached (I think it was $85.00 from a high of $120.00) Brinker, via his subscription market letter, told his followers to get in at $85.00. Many, many, many did just that. However, we were on vacation and didn’t know about his current “advice”. When we got back home, the QQQQ’s had dropped to $65.00. WOW!! We couldn’t beleive our luck!! If Brinker had advised buying at $85.00, how could we miss at buying at $65.00?! We went into the market with both hands and feet. “We couldn’t beleive our luck!!” (Sounds like the Starr family.) We then sat and watched the QQQQ’s fall to $50.00. Then $40.00. Then $30.00. Remember, thousands of Brinker’s followers bought at $85.00 and were STUCK. Finally, around 9/11 the QQQQ’s hit $20.00. Quite a drop from $120.00 with lots and lots of investors stuck all the way down - including me. For the Starr family the moral of this story is very simple. You were not lucky. You were inexperienced because you didn’t do your homework (I did my homework and now make a very good living trading stocks in the greatest ponzi scheme the world has ever seen - the US stock market) and in the next 24-36 months, I doubt if you’re going to feel as “lucky” as you do right now.
THE PRICE ON THIS FINE HOME DROPPED $10,000 Thursday!
IT DROPPED ANOTHER $1,000 Friday!
IT’S DROPPING ANOTHER $1,000 TODAY!
AND, IT’S GOING TO DROP ANOTHER $1,000 EACH DAY UNTIL IT SELLS!
THIS HOUSE IS GOING TO SELL SOON!!!
from craiglist , sfo, fremont,ca
That is the right way to sell by Dutch auction. Drop the price $1000 per day until a buyer is forthcoming.
“‘I want to sell, but I’m not going to give the house away,’ said Stephen Greenstein.
That does it. I’m going to have a branding iron made up that says “FB Idiot.” Then, much like Jay and Silent Bob in JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK, I will fly around the country, knock on the doors of these morons, verify their identities, then slap the FB brand on their foreheads as a permanent marker of their gross stupidity.
[Disclaimer: I don't actually INTEND to do this, but find the thought amusing.]
“But the addition on the sign in front of the two-story home on Route 211 West is unequivocal: ‘Vacation included.’”
Is it legal to capitalize the value of your vacation into a home loan which you will never be able to repay?
“‘I want to sell, but I’m not going to give the house away,’ said Stephen Greenstein.”
These kind of comments are so irritating. According to Zillow, the Greenstein’s house in Nahant was purchased in 1997 for $449,000.
They are too greedy to accept $830,000, and take over $300K in profit, even after transaction costs. Holding out for more, as the market goes down in flames around them…
True. I’ll have no sympathy when they eventually have to sell at $500,000. How’s that for “giving it away”?