Post Local Housing Market Observations Here!
What do you see in your housing market this weekend? Are prices falling? “Tucson home sales and prices fell during December, while days on the market rose, all evidence of a continuing slowdown in the local housing market. That means the market is improving for buyers, they have more negotiating leverage, and sellers may not make as much as expected on the sale of their homes.”
“Median home price fell $3,000 from November to $215,000, an indication that sellers are dropping their prices, according to a report issued today by the Tucson Association of Realtors.”
From North Carolina. “Sales of existing homes fell for a third consecutive month in December as the Triangle’s housing market continued to weaken. Compared with a year ago, buyers closed on 13 percent fewer homes, the inventory of unsold homes rose 6 percent and the number of sellers cutting their listing price to lure buyers jumped 7.5 percent, according to the Triangle MLS.”
“‘Now we can say the Triangle has joined the rest of the country with a declining housing market,’ said Michael Helmar, an economist for Moody’s Economy.com. ‘Sales are actually lower, not just growing slower than they were.’”
The latest legal action? “Despite a flurry of convictions that have included 15 local mortgage brokers, nine loan officers and six appraisers, fraudulent home loan deals continue to fuel Indianapolis’ high foreclosure rate.”
“Michael Smith is the 58th person convicted of fraud since a federal task force convened to look into real estate fraud in central Indiana, U.S. Attorney Susan Brooks’ office reported. Those schemes have depressed property values for nearby homeowners, cost lenders more than $40 million and riddled neighborhoods with abandoned houses, aggravating problems in older, deteriorating neighborhoods.”
“‘There are so many of these foreclosures. But they’re in small quantities. No one is watching,’ said Indianapolis real estate agent Margaret Huddleson.”
“Phillip Hill and 11 co-defendants were crowded with their attorneys in the large ceremonial courtroom at the Richard B. Russell Federal Building, making the start of the trial look more like a business seminar. That courtroom was the only one that could accommodate the overstocked defendant pool in a trial that is expected to take three months.”
“Hill, a real estate developer, is charged with overseeing an enterprise where he used ’straw’ buyers to lend their names to purchase properties that he then resold for much higher, and artificially large, amounts, Assistant U.S. Attorney Barbara Nelan told jurors.”
“Hill would then pocket the money and the properties would usually go into foreclosure, prosecutors alleged. To pull off the scam, Hill, who has pleaded not guilty, needed a team of appraisers, attorneys, brokers, recruiters and straw buyers working in concert, Nelan said.”
“Prosecutors told the jurors that Hill’s enterprise ‘flipped’ more than 50 houses and 250 condominiums in the metro Atlanta area.”
turnover picking up in 22151 s of central soviet DC where no one will ever be laid off- cool huh
OT wonder if BLS will go to prices vs rent to completely get rid of inflation
The rise in average rent is expected to moderate to 3.9% next year from an increase of 4.3% in 2006.
flaff, Can you give the blog a heads-up when you get the urge to finally ‘do something that the Soviet DC’ and start shopping for the ammonium nitrate and agricultural fertilizer?
I’m just joking
I don’t like Bolton, but actually like what he said about eliminating the top 10 floors of every agency and everything would still be fine. You just seem to pepper every post with anti-fed speak.
Bolton is a madman.
Yea, but he was Colber’t Aphadog of the week:
http://www.colbertondemand.com/videos/Spur_of_The_Moment/Alphadog_John_Bolton
and NC is retirement Mecca now
From North Carolina. “Sales of existing homes fell for a third consecutive month in December as the Triangle’s housing market continued to weaken. Compared with a year ago, buyers closed on 13 percent fewer homes,
Loudoun Co. VA - after dropping consistently and sharply downward since last september, inventory took a sharp turn up two weeks ago - an early start to the spring season (normally doesn’t start until February).
Another note is that just-passed VA transportation package includes an increase of the transition tax for sale of a home to 40 cents per $100, to help offset increased transportation costs in VA. That’s a $2000 fee for sale of a $500k home (in addition to all the other closing costs). Not something that will help home sales I’m sure, especially for flippers. Not sure what the rate was previously - the paper just mentioned it was an increase.
email ,fax and call those fckrs in the legislature- they spent it all on Dullass rail
Hey, if it really is going to the IAD rail… tax the heck out of the flippers. Why the heck is that airport not on the rail network? No excuse. While they’re at it, they should swing it past to the aerospace museum and a new comuter parking lot or two.
Neil
See my comments on bits bucket regarding the drop in prices here in the cascades area….amazing!!
Loudoun County foreclosures Sept. 06 = 13
Today =105 and rising at 1 day approx. so far.
Fairfax county seems to have a lot of ‘for rent’ signs.
Ithink spring is what a lot of sellers are waiting on.
For motivated sellers here in Arroyo Grande, CA (Cali central coast), whacking $100K off of a house originally listed for $700K is getting to be quite common, at least for those that are ‘motivated’. November YoY median is already down 10% here. All the while, inventory has been sliding up again since the begining of the year.
How is the No. County? I have family there who state the new home builders are having trouble selling their completed inventory.
Crispy,
Yup.
“the new home builders are having trouble selling their completed inventory.”
Yep, it seems that way. The small mom-and-pop builders hare have been hanging on to some inventory for over a year (spec homes)…I can’t imagine what the bleed rate must be.
I’ll probably post an “informal inventory report” feb 1…but right now, it looks like the inventory ice dam that was holding strong through November and December is starting to melt a bit early this year (I think that you’ve noted this as well). I’ll be willing to bet that neighbors will be eyeing each other, looking to see who jumps the gun on listing during the ‘Spring Selling Season ™’.
The small mom-and-pop builders hare have been hanging on to some inventory for over a year (spec homes)…I can’t imagine what the bleed rate must be.
Wow, if my mom and pop built something, it would have fallen down by now.
My parents are classic amateur DIY and bodge most jobs. They could get their own sitcom if I ever put history to paper. For example: The time my dad painted my car whilst my mother cooked lunch. Trouble was he used black emulsion paint to cover up some minor rust spots and my car was brown. His rational for painting my entire car was that he wanted the car to blend in. He’d used a large house brush and as you can imagine, it looked awfull. Still the car had only cost ~ $150 and the ‘new paint job’, gave my friends and I, plenty of joke amunition. I never washed it after that as dirty car looked better than a clean one.
I have seen a small amount of increase in inventory in Janurary. I still think it is slow right now, but the inventory will increase dramatically when the people who have pulled their houses off the market in fall start to relist.
You are correct AG. If you subscribe to foreclosure.com or ReatyTrac you will see that reputable custom home builder Alan Little Homes now has 3 properties with NOD’s.
Yes there is bleeding and the pressure is dropping.
I’m still hearing the “everything will rebound in a few months, so you are a fool for renting” line from just about everyone.
We’ll see. I just stashed $7K more into my savings this month.
Did you see the one originally listed for 1.3 mil, down to 879K, now 779K. I am feeling more hopeful.
These numbers which dropped towards year end are getting up there again.
http://www.ziprealty.com/maps/index.jsp?usage=search&cKey=74rbwvlk
mid may was 799,000
6/10/06 was 836,471
6/14/06 was 840,935
6/17/06 was 846,120
6/20/06 was 850,317
6/22/06 was 855,892
6/24/06 was 860,647
6/29/06 was 866,037
7/01/06 was 858,675
7/09/06 was 870,854
7/11/06 was 882,239
7/13/06 was 886,055
7/14/06 was 890,896
7/18/06 was 895,022
7/21/06 was 900,000
7/25/06 was 905,170
7/28/06 was 910,001
8/01/06 was 903,718
8/12/06 was 915,336
8/19/06 was 920,755
8/26/06 was 925,176
8/29/06 was 951,242
9/15/06 was 955,352
12/1/06 was 925,170
12/2/06 was 915,258
1/01/07 was 857,760
01/20/07 today 900,302
There is a normal seasonal pattern of inventory adjustment over the course of the year, but underlying the normal seasonal cycle is an increasing trend.
More to the point, the summer is normally the peak (”red hot”) selling season. You will note that in the frigid chill of a deep freeze, we have already surpassed the level of 900K, not hit last summer until 7/21/06 (right at the beginning of summer, after the end of the “red hot” spring sales season).
So I would say the slow inventory crash continues.
You can’t go by Zip though - their numbers include only the areas where they have listings, and they’re adding new areas all the time. I noticed last summer there were jumps and starts when they would add a new area, where it was obvious that the jump wasn’t due to normal increase in listings.
good point, thank you.
Perhaps a better indication, then, might be the inventory work OCrenter does — most of the tracked areas are at April 2006 levels, with some at July 2006 levels.
Watching inventory on zip is a bit like watching the Chinese SARS data a few years back. It should generally be viewed as a lower bound (undercount) on the actual inventory. It gives some indication of where the market is headed, but don’t be shocked when there is an occasional big jump when they suddenly start counting a portion of the data which was previously ignored.
Saw another set of numbers that make for interesting tracking–
the homepage on Foreclosure.com Sorry for the missing datapoints, but the trend is pretty clear:
Foreclosures PreForeclosures
7-Jan 133,882 196,357
8-Jan 133,823 198,175
10-Jan 135,239 199,949
11-Jan 135,938 200,392
13-Jan 135,643 200,139
16-Jan 137,999 196,513
20-Jan 141,820 199,732
Sumter, South Carolina has seen a 33% drop in SFH Sales from 2005-2006. We are now at pre-2004 home sale levels. Want to read the whole story?:
http://ourcarolina.com/modules/wordpress/?p=41
The good news is that the price for Single Family Homes hasn’t seen much appreciation. YOY appreciation is extremely low…1% the way I figure it. An article in the local newspaper today highlighted the Real Estate Agent of the Year for Sumter County. This Agent of the Year mentioned that Sumter is still in the middle of a real estate boom. Guess he didn’t read my blog.
1% appreciation, after inflation, is a drop in price.
And if you sell after only a few years of ownership, minus the RE costs and other fees. Now we are talking about a real drop.
1% is exactly what Charlotte county (N.Car) had for 2006. But the Carolinas are booming. It is different there.
The unseasonably warm temps we’ve had must have coaxed the For Sale signs out of the ground…they’re sprouting everywhere.
Condos I looked at months ago are now for rent, owners asking wishing prices for rent as well. The one REO I saw in a zip I’m tracking is gone. Pre Super Bowl, inventory is building.
Last night I was stunned when a friend phoned me with the news that her offer on a house was accepted. I was under the impression that her house hunt was suspended. At first I hoped for the best, when she told me the home was estate owned, no living heirs, I said “good, that’s a situation where you can get a place for a song!”.
It wasn’t the case. After details unfolded, her offer came in at about 3% less than ask.
Nothing about this deal makes sense: Current home not sold, not even up for sale yet. Mortgage on current house paid, but husband had taken out a HELOC. New home’s taxes close to 10k a year - for a ca. 1950 3/1 stucco ranch - and this couple are DINKs - normally, they wouldn’t want to pay a premium for school district.
The real bite in the ass: When I asked if their offer included an inspection contingency, she said “yes we chose Option 2.”
Option 2 - WTF is that?
Evidently the realtor had prefab offers ready, and Option 2 means that the buyer will pay up to 10K of whatever repairs the inspector deems necessary. Un- effing believable. I didn’t have the courage to ask her if she was getting her own inspector, or if the realtor was sending his own. I think I know the answer to that one.
Plus the house needs at least 20K in repairs and upgrades. Conservatively.
I congratulated her on the purchase of their new home, what else could I do?
If it’s not too late: strongly suggest that the offer be contingent on getting the current home sold?
(or if the deposit has gone out, hope that it is small in case your friend walks)
Put in a lowball offer on the house she’ll be selling.
I thought about that, but their current residence needs too much work. Plus they would totally be insulted by what I would offer.
JP - Friend stopped over this a.m. to show me pics of house, told me they’re prepared to carry two mortgages totalling $4k for six months or so. It looks like it’s all systems go. Right now it doesn’t look like walking away from deposit is even remotely in the picture. She did say she wasn’t going to be greedy and hold out for top dollar on current house.
I do hope all works out well for them. IMO they could have driven a harder bargain, but it appears they succumbed to the lure of so-called “friend” realtor.
Alas. Perhaps lessons will be learned.
Or maybe inflation will take off and friend will make out like a bandit.
And the realtor will insist upon a release at closing.
Or maybe inflation will take off and friend will make out like a bandit.
Sometimes I wonder when all is said and done, will I be the jackass for expecting big price haircuts while living out of a suitcase.
Tried replying to your post and JP’s above…this is second attempt.
JP - likelihood of friend walking is slim to none.
imp - I did consider submitting an offer on current house but I want to remain friends with these folks…!
OK so next time I wait a half hour instead of 29 mins.
You can’t save the world. The only good news is that she probably will not buy another house.
SD zip shows 17K+ (up from around 15K a couple of weeks back, I believe), but only 33.5% now indicate “price reduced,” down from a level over 40% a few months back. I guess the guys who reduced their prices already sold, and a new generation of sellers will have to learn they cannot sell at last year’s wishing prices.
…or they were taken off the market and relisted at new prices; then would not show as price reduced…
Right. Like inventory figures reported on zip, both “days on the market” and “percent with price reduced” should be interpreted as lower bounds on the actual figures.
From the “Hill” story:
“Les Rector only followed orders,” Froelich said.
Wasn’t that what Adolf Eichmann said at his trial?
Phoenix inventory at 51,933 this morning, up almost 2000 from last week. Looks like spring will indeed be the growing season.
Yesterday I had an encouter with an relatively honest, straightforward realtor who, I think, knows the game is over. I’ve grown tired of my twice a day happy hour on I-10 and have been looking for something closer to work, so yesterday I went to see a townhouse for rent near downtown (Artisan Village at Roosevelt and 7th St. for you locals). The place was 1200 sf and rented for $1200. After a quick look I knew I really didn’t want it (one kitchen/living area with too much unusable space, two smallish bedrooms upstairs, shared garage, view of the parking lot, absolutely nothing special about it). I noticed that the place was also for sale (the 4′ x 6′ FOR SALE sign on the gated entrance was my clue), so I asked the agent showing me the property what the price was. Asking price was $349, down from $389, and, according to her, “we can’t GIVE them away at this price.” Well, of course not—someone would have to be clinically insane to buy at that price, especially when the rent is only $1200, and the place is basically just a shoebox in kind of a marginal neighborhood. I told her I thought everything was overpriced, and that I was just sitting things out. To my surprise she didn’t argue, didn’t try to tell me about the low interest rates, large selection, great time to buy etc. She just agreed with me and said it really was best to wait (though she did add that if I found a REALLY motivated seller I might consider etc. etc., but I just chalked that up to her having a certain amount of realtorspeak embedded in her DNA).
Phoenix inventory at 51,933 this morning, up almost 2000 from last week. Looks like spring will indeed be the growing season.
Lat weekend it was 50,400. The spring ‘bounce’ in inventory will indeed be ‘nice.’
$349k for a place renting for $1200/mo is insane. Just goes to show how far down even the leading-edge markets in the bust have to go before fundamentals are respected again.
“Last weekend”
$1200/month? After PITI & HOA, what would the owner clear in NOI? Maybe $600/month? That place must fall to $120,000 to make economic sense. Wow, Phoenix is in for a rough ride over the next 5 years.
Seeing some signs of weakening in Townhouse prices in Costa Mesa, CA.
TH that were priced above $500k have dropped to $450. But for the most part wishing prices are still far too high. More stats later.
Have noticed condo/townhome prices in Huntington Beach in the OC(CA)falling yoy %wise per Dec Dataquick figures. IMHO the Part of Hunt Beach south of Garfield ave, centered around the civic center/main st all way to the shorefront, seems a good decent clean coastal burb, with plenty of open parks and room to roam, an acccessible relatively clean beach/shoreline, and enough mixture of home types to give the area a more interesting ambience than your standard cookie-cutter vanilla suburb. There is still ongoing development and continued bldg of additional townhomes/condos which is rapidly filling up the entire area around the HB civic center, where garfield/main st/golden west blvds meet. This part of HB is becoming a dense cluster of multi-unit housing tracts. All in all, South coastal HB area not too shabby, though overpriced as is all of the OC.
Peter,
There are several pockets like the Main St HB area in Coastal OC. Costa Mesa is one. The neighborhoods are less cookie cutter even though they may have once been, time has worked it’s magic. I loved living in Corona del Mar and kick myself for not stretching to buy there in the early 90’s when I moved to CA. CdM is a place where you can park your car and walk everywhere you need to go. Small lots though. That’s why I like Costa Mesa and HB. Bigger lots and far enough away from the beach that I do not have to deal with the crowds unless I chose to.
As is well know EVERYTHING here is way overpriced. Heck, even with a 40-50% haircut we’ll still be paying a premium for living here. But at least it will be at or below what I pay for rent at some point.
Just caught part of an informercial from these clowns:
http://www.americaninvestorsgroup.com/
Everything they are claiming smacks of fraud and preying on the stupid.
http://www.americaninvestorsnetwork.com/
SOUNDS JUST LIKE THESE GUYS
they are all con artist scum
Phuck,
Can you post the Phoenix Inventory numbers (the big list)? I’m curious how the last few months have done relative to a year earlier, and also the current nubers for January vs Jan ‘05.
Thanks.
Here is a site for PHX inventory:
http://bubbletracking.blogspot.com/
Here is a link to PHX inventory:
http://bubbletracking.blogspot.com/
Slightly O.T.: So, how to go about buying now?
Even though I expect the home prices to fall for many years to come, the best time to plant an apple tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
So, as much as I love to rent, we have to buy land now, if we want to grow fruits and nuts for the long term (we moved from Austin TX to San Bernardino County summer’06 and have a lease which will last until May’07).
Is buying just land the cheapest way to start off (I’m open to living in RV/mobile home to start)? Or would taking a gamble on fixer upper and/or foreclosed be a better deal, even though home prices are barely budging here in the Inland Empire….
If your fruits and nuts cost is high, you’ll be selling at a loss. The lower cost producers will be around 20 years from now.
I am looking to buy land as well. It is a very precarious time to do so IMO. Land is so hideously overpriced. So much so that it makes more sense to buy a home on acreage vs. just the land. For instance, in Oregon, I will see 5 acres listed at $300,000 (way too much given median income, etc. for the area). Then I find an old farm house on 5 acres for less than $400k. So why buy the raw land? By the time you clear a driveway, homesite, put in a well, septic, utilities, etc. you have already spent the same amount. My concern is that land will not fall as much as housing. Why? Because I believe that a lot of the land speculators have more money than the home flippers. Land requires a substantial down, has higher interest rates, and is a long term investment. I am not seeing a lot of reduced prices unfortunately.
I am looking to buy land as well. It is a very precarious time to do so IMO. Land is so hideously overpriced. So much so that it makes more sense to buy a home on acreage vs. just the land. For instance, in Oregon, I will see 5 acres listed at $300,000 (way too much given median income, etc. for the area). Then I find an old farm house on 5 acres for less than $400k. So why buy the raw land? By the time you clear a driveway, homesite, put in a well, septic, utilities, etc. you have already spent the same amount. My concern is that land will not fall as much as housing. Why? Because I believe that a lot of the land speculators have more money than the home flippers. Land requires a substantial down, has higher interest rates, and is a long term investment. I am not seeing a lot of reduced prices unfortunately.
I just heard from old friends in your area…..Battle Ground, WA…population 15k just north of Vancouver. They sold their house w/1.2 acres for $1.1M The developer who purchased the house could care less about the house and told my friends to take whatever they wanted when they moved. Keep it, give it away, it’s all demo to him.
In 1991 I purchased a 42k sq. ft. commercial lot in the same town for $131,300 when the population was 3,500.
Times have changed in small town USA
Wow, that must have been some lot. That is WAY too much. Some of these developers/builders are out of their minds. They seem to have a total disconnect from reality in that they feel they can just bake these prices into the houses. Well, they could, for a while. But I have to believe, as the subprimes go away, these builders are going to start racking up huge losses. Some of this land may become more affordable as it goes to auction due to builder/developer BK’s.
Not really….but the developers are cramming in sh*tboxes onto postage size lots so I guess he did his math. They had an old house on the lot w/dog grooming business. The guy kept bugging them and bugging them to sell but they liked their place. When THAT much money was on the table, they changed their mind. She called us and said they were closing the shop and were outahere……LOL
Can’t blame them…..but we, and our dog, sure did miss the business.
Not sure what your business plan is here but I believe agricultural zoned land should be cheaper than commerical land. Secondly, taxes on ag property should be cheaper.
If you are looking at buying a residential property and turning it into a commercial farm, good luck to you. It sounds flawed that you would buy prime land near the top of the market to do this. Unless you are planning to plant the garden of Eden, I cannot imagine that any crop (with exception of drugs) would have any positive returns in California.
If you are serious about becoming a farmer. Look at buying an existing one.
Stan, you are right on the money regarding farming. Never in my life have I seen so many farms and ranches for sale. And the asking prices would not allow for a profitable return on ones money through farming or ranching. The only way would be through subdivision and building more sh!tboxes. This boom has temporarily (I hope) ruined opportunities for the small farmers and growers. In the Willamette river valley in Oregon, many nurseries are trying to capitalize on the boom by selling off their acreage (business) to builders. It makes more sense financially as one can make more on the sale of the land than they could in many years of cultivating it. This is not in the best interests of our country long term, IMO. Unfortunately, there has not been enough protection of farmlands, much of which has disappeared, replaced by overpriced POS’s.
Bantering,
Agree……ever look at the “Orchards” area of Vancouver?…..not a fruit tree in site. Twenty years ago it was nothing but one family farm after another. Near our former house close to WSU campus, an old timer has 12 acres of raspberries…you pick/they pick. Developers have left blank checks for him to fill in. He won’t sell because he likes what he does and doesn’t want or need the money. When he dies it’s going to be a free for all……
That’s why I think food will be the next bubble.
Thanks for the various ideas: I wasn’t thinking so much about running a business but being self-sufficient: grow one’s own food as much as possible and trees would be part of that process, something you can’t grow in one year or one season….
Buy some land over by Cadiz (as the Cadiz Co. did), off of the national trails highway (old route 66), and use the undeground water to grow crops in the middle of the desert. If you have Google Earth, just type in “Cadiz, CA”, it’s pretty wild to see planted acerage in the middle of nowhere.
Government does not like competition, comrade.
“Tucson home sales and prices fell during December, while days on the market rose, all evidence of a continuing slowdown in the local housing market. That means the market is improving for buyers, they have more negotiating leverage, and sellers may not make as much as expected on the sale of their homes.”
I’m keeping a watch on a place in Tucson that is shown on realtor.com in the $400,000 range, but zillowed at $31,000 less than the for sale price. I think the place should drop below $330,000 before I make a move. It will be taken off the market (my prediction) this year and put back on the market in 2009 at the price I want.
LA Times real estate pullout for Saturday shows lots and lots of homes, but still delusional pricing. Maybe some budging on Mar Vista area homes, where more are listing for the 600K range, but overall the prices are still insane.
PS - I’d love to jab a stake through the heart of whomever invented the term “adjacent” for real estate. I don’t know if it exists outside of LA, but it has to stop. I saw Burbank Adjacent the other day in an ad. WTF?
Lionel, your are right, but there are also some little gems buried in that real estate section if you have been following the market for a while. A house in Cheviot Hills that I looked at months ago is “back on the market” (at over 1.4M). It’s a nice ranch with absolutely no backyard, but in another market it would have sold in a few weeks. The price hasn’t gone down, but it’s been sitting for a long while. And you are right about Mar Vista. I usually drive around the Mar Vista adjacent area on Saturdays because I take my daughter to ceramics class (btw, Iagree,WTF does adjacent mean?), and those little houses are simply not selling. I agree that those are the only prices that seem to be beginning to slide. If you think about it, it makes sense if you consider “Mar Vista adjacent” one of the more marginal areas of the Westside. There is also a ‘bank owned’ listing in Mar Vista for $599,000. A few months ago, even I would have exclaimed: how cheap!
You’re right, cass, they’re are small signs, kind of like reading tea leaves or bird entrails, but they’re there. I just try not to get too excited, at least at this early stage. I did notice more rentals of small houses in Santa Monica in the 3K range, which would not have happened just a short while ago, and I did see a realtor set up a coffee cart in front of a Pac Pal open house, which I naturally interpreted as desperation. I suspect that Mar Vista, Los Feliz, Westchester will be some of the first places where the bottom falls out. It seems like some of the condos in Santa Monica are also coming down a tad, especially at the low end (ones on Yale, Princeton, Berkeley).
As to your comment about how one’s attitudes adjust over time re: housing prices, I too am amazed how these prices (in some cases) have come to seem normal.
According to my LA moms message board, there has been a huge crime spree in mar vista in recent weeks…
Interesting, that reinforces my idea that Mar Vista is kind of marginal…
I have a buddy who’s a Culver City detective, and the one message he carries with him is you really, really have to be careful where you choose to live in LA. Parts of Santa Monica are plain bad; Culver City has lots of sketchy neighborhoods and much of Mar Vista is not so hot. Not a blanket assessment of course, just caveat emptor.
Report out of the IE, riverside county, CA:
Was in Norco, a typical IE Boomtown just north of Corona off the 15 fwy. Norco is rapidly seeing it’s rural pastures and 1-acre ranch plots transforming into vast cookie-cutter Mc Stucco tracts, and spankin-new shopping centers, typical IE style. KB advertises it’s sfh’s on a banner visible from the 15 for homes in the mid-$600,000’s. In norco? this was till recently a dusty smelly rural dlapilated region of cow pastures,rickety ranch shacks, and horse sheds! Norco is hot, flat and dull as nails most of the year, rather like Ontario or Chino. How in hell does anyone buy a cookie-cutter MCStucco out here for over $600,000? Incredible that there are GF’s who would pay that money for IE tract homes, which are simply at peak boom prices. The entire IE is nothing but a classic Boom-and bust region, which will shortly go into the bust phase in the upcoming RE downturn. What you see all over the iE are Contractors, mostly related to the construction business, driving their brand-new behemoth trucks, and no doubt in hock to the banks, cc’s, MEW’s up to the eyeballs. The entire population of the IE is in hock in some form or another, for there is almost no wealth derived from any thing but RE=related industries, construction, ect. Already seen one Title company shut down and vacated from what was a nice blgd in the tri-cities area of redlands.
Went into an upscale commercial office blgd in corona off main st: practically all the tenants were RE companies, and there was virtually no activity at all in that bldg(it was dead).
Note: San bernardino county showed 0 % yoy in SFH prices per dec dataquick. IE RE market is starting to crack: pretty soon that small leak in the dam will crack wide open and the flood will roar down the IE, drowning everything in it’s path.
“San bernardino county showed 0 % yoy in SFH prices per dec dataquick”
Correction, SB county showed 1,998 sfh’s sold in dec @ $369,000 median sold price for +6.3 YOY %.
This does not alter the sorry state of IE housing one iota! All that happened was that virtually all the homes sold were new larger McMansions in new tracts, which combined with incentives would push up median sales prices. This has been commented upon by other posters on bens site:That virtually all the recent sales throughout the IE are for 4/3 ample-sized stuccos in brand-new developments with builders incentives pushing up the yoy averages. AS soon as the toxic subprime market goes under there will be a bloodbath in the IE, with foreclosures/REO’s littering the entire IE landscape. This is already starting, but will pick up speed later in 2007 and snowball into an avalanche of foreclosures in the IE over next several years.
“Correction, SB county showed 1,998 sfh’s sold in dec @ $369,000 median sold price for +6.3 YOY %.”
Yeah, I just re-checked Dataquick’s numbers vs. the numbers I had saved January 18. The Jan 18 table had San Bernardino county listed as 0.0% change year over year, but the current web page is showing +6.3% YOY. There must have been an error in the table when they originally posted it, which has since been fixed.
peter posts “The entire population of the IE is in hock”
You need not say anymore. Over the next 2-3 years your statement will be proven correct. I beleive the whole IE will be ground zero for the toxic loan, funny money, stated income loan fraud mess, that will soon be our reality.
I think Chino will be the fireball but it will be a “Nutron Nuke kills (makes broke) and leaves the buldings still standing
I think that the fireball/epicenter for the IE RE implosion will start somewhere in moreno valley/hemet/lake elsinore area of SW Riverside county. In SaN berdoo county Hesperia/victorville/inner San bernardino metro will be the northern tier epicenters for the coming IE RE meltdown.
Bexar County (San Antonio/Helotes area/In the Woods) - The boring house down the street “sold” to a family member of the seller in August. Loan amount $160K. A little paint, staging furniture and now on the market for 4 months at $239K. Reduced this week to $238 (better get traffic control out here). Separate yard sign entices with 100% financing.
The “Bates Hotel” monstrosity built across the street from me was on the market for 13 months for $350K (the builder would intermittently go up to $355K when he was off his meds I surmise). He and his extended family finally moved into this architectually challenged manse a couple of weekends ago. He now has two loans - $260K and $65K - on this get rich quick folly (after paying off construction loan(s) that totalled $290K). This is the only house he has ever built - his day job is home inspector. He still owes $75K on his $90K appraised chickensh#t homestead. He has failed to report to the tax appraisal district that improvements exist on this new property for 2006 and 2007. Another neighbor has done the same thing (not reporting improvements for 2 years) and he’ll be looking at some big time fines - they’ll overappraise his ugly house just for the grins. Civic duty calls. We’re teachers, savers (not sure why I’m throwing that in) and we’ve been paying our $4500+ property taxes while these bozos cheat. Gosh, that felt good to write about my little corner of the world.
saywhat?, nice to see a posting from the San Antonio area. I’m moving there in 5 months and have been a little distressed at what prices have done over the last year (mini-bubble) (and no…I’m not fleeing from California, despite my tag I’ve been in Miami the last two years on a military assignment). As soon as the Forbes article that predicted that San Antonio would go up 8%, it seems that ALL the sellers immediately upped their prices by about 15%. A particular new home in River Crossing that I’ve watched out of curiousity (too expensive for me, but goregous) was 530K when it was being finished last year. After the article the seller/builder bumped the price UP to 633K. It has been at least 12 months and the house is still empty. I guess he is hoping some stupid Californian GF will come along and pay the inflated price. I also see a lot of older homes (Fair Oaks Ranch) that have come on the market with ridculously high prices. I assume they are just wishing…also hoping for some stupid out of stater.
I see pretty much nothing in terms of improvement around me (border of Montgomery/Bucks Co. PA). Same b.s. prices (including rents). And more “SOLD” signs on houses than I thought I’d see. I must live in the land of the greater fools.
If it makes you feel any better, eastcoaster, one of the other parents on our coop board is a RE agent (in Chesco tho) and he is MISERABLE. he’s a miserable shell of a man. We really overbuilt out here tho, not sure they built as much in Montco and Bucks.
“The days of living cheap and easy in Florida are over”.
The above is a quote from a local political journalist and guest on the local PBS (Tampa) station’s Friday night panel show on issues of interest to people in West Central Florida. He was referring to the insurance crisis and the special legislative session trying to come up with a solution. It doesn’t look pretty, especially since he reported that insurance companies had contributed $30 million to politicians in Florida over the last ten years, $10 million of that in just the last election cycle alone.
His point, as near as I could make out, was that Florida had overbuilt in areas where there should not have been development (duh!) and that, combined with the fact that we are now entering a 40 year cycle of warming of the Atlantic basin, will bring more storms and there is no way to avoid skyrocketing insurance. He was bascially saying that only those who have lots of money can live here.
My question: If you have a lot of money, would you want to live in Florida?
Me, personally? If I had enough money to OWN Florida, I wouldn’t want to live there. No offense to anyone who does or wants to.
Thanks, eastcoaster. My reason for asking the question is to get sort of an informal concensus as to whether Florida is desirable WITHOUT the cheap and easy living that it used to have. I have lived here for many years because of the relative “ease” of living, and I suspect there are many like me who will defect when that “ease” is no longer there. Florida used to have its charms, but now there’s too many ugly people and ugly development.
After 8 years in San Francisco my wife and I moved to the Twin Cities. We fled after less than 3 years for a variety of quality of life reasons. Each by itself was serious enough to warrant getting the hell out. Number 1: The weather was completely unbearable.
Regardless of housing market conditions, rent first.
Ditto your remark. I live in the Miami area and am quitting my job (early retirement) at substantial financial loss just to get out of here. My boss has offered a position at higher pay to intice me to stay. I told him I wouldn’t stay even if he offered me high 6 figures. If you read these comments and you haven’t experienced living here you simply won’t understand. If you are a local (especially if you are Latin), you won’t understand either, since you probably think this place is normal. Well it isn’t. South Florida is a shi@, hole. Maybe O.K. to visit if you stay in nice hotels and do the tourist thing, but not to live. Just like Cancun or Acapulco is a nice place to visit, but would you want to live in the city? I concurr 100% with Congressman Tom Tancredo comments about South Florida being a third world country (for those in other parts of the state, no offense…my comments are specific to Miami-Dade and South Broward ONLY)
OutofSanDiego, I feel for you. It must have been a shock to go from SD to South Florida. I left SoFlo six years ago and never looked back, but the third world lifestyle is spreading like a cancer throughout the state. I think your comparison to Cancun and Acapulco is a good one. Visit, maybe, but live there? Nope. Not for the middle class, anyway. Who is going to subsidize local governments? Not the rich, they avoid taxes. Not the poor, either. They can’t pay and many must be supported by taxes. Florida is going to eat itself alive. The capper will be another hurricane, or series of hurricanes.
pametto, someone who understands! We won’t be looking back either (except in the rearview mirror). We have done all the fun stuff we could (the Keys, Orlando, Tampa, Disney Cruise, etc). My wife wants to do St. Augustine on the way out of the state, and then we may NEVER come back! The one good thing about having lived here in South Florida for the last two years is that we KNOW we will enjoy where we are headed much, much, more than if we had relocated directly there from San Diego. Knowing we are leaving here makes our anticipation for our new home much sweeter. Believe it or not, I am actually a positive thinking guy…South Florida life just beats it out of you.
“South Florida is a shi@, hole. Maybe O.K. to visit if you stay in nice hotels and do the tourist thing, but not to live. Just like Cancun or Acapulco is a nice place to visit, but would you want to live in the city? I concurr 100% with Congressman Tom Tancredo comments about South Florida being a third world country ”
If you replaced the descriptive noun ‘South Florida’ with ‘Los Angeles Metro region’, you would still be spot on, except that LA is even bad for tourism.
Haven’t posted much lately, but my wife and I have decided to leave Sacramento this summer to return to Minnesota (where her family is). Even after seeing some really nice homes in Elk Grove that were approaching our price range, we started asking ourselves “As nice as it is, is this a place that I want to spend the next 10-15 years in?” And the answer was very clearly “no.”
So we’re looking at possibly buying our first home in the Twin Cities metro area later this year. I’m still getting up to speed on the market out there, though. Any thoughts or suggestions on this area?
After 8 years in San Francisco my wife and I moved to the Twin Cities. We fled after less than 3 years for a variety of quality of life reasons. Each by itself was serious enough to warrant getting the hell out. Number 1: The weather was completely unbearable.
Regardless of housing market conditions, rent first.
We both know what to expect. She grew up there and went to college in Northfield, which is where we met. I lived there for about 2.5 years before transferring (reasons had more to do with dissatisfaction with the school than the climate).
Walt, Please Please Please… if you do move, post your experiences here so the rest of us in California can figure out if we should move also. I would like to know if your quality of life increases.
Big Bob, that would be a great topic. People who moved from one area to another for quality of life reasons. I, too, would like to hear pro and con on this.
I moved from Silicon Valley to SW MO (Ozarks, near Springfield, MO) 1 year ago. I’d be happy to share my observations and experience if people are interested. By the way there are a LOT of CA people here — also people from MA, AZ, and NV. We are kind of changing the “landscape” of hillbilly country not sure if this is good or bad.
One good thing for sure is we come with a whole different attitude toward the family pet — e.g. putting a dog on a 6 foot chain outside without shelter or regular food and water for its entire (short) life is not OK. Most people here though still don’t get the link between spaying and neutering and the pet overpopulation problem. Of course here in the country they government sanctioned solution is to just shoot stray animals.
Sorry, didn’t mean to rant. There are some good things about the area though. It’s hard to think of all of them right now given that we didn’t have power for 8 DAYS (it just came back on yesterday) in our entire area all along I-44 for hundreds of miles thru TX, OK, and MO due to the worst ice storm of the last 100 years. It was getting pretty cold too (down to 5 degrees at night with highs of 20 on a good day). Luckily with plenty of dogs and cats sleeping on the “bed” we kept warm (kind of).
Now we are having a major snowstorm. But as long as the electricity stays on and the internet stays up I am happy as can be!
Seems like you are happy with your move, other than the winter storms.
Yes and no. I was an avid CA native plant enthusiast with a huge all native garden. Ceanothus and sages were my favorites. As far as I can tell there are only 3 native plants that overlap with MO and CA
I’m already experimenting though with MO native plants and trees.
Ozarkian, if you are into native Cali plants it must have broken your heart to see a typical LA garden…
I can understand how you feel Ozarkian. I left a huge garden and thousands of plants behind in Washington. I grew many plants native to CA including Ceanothus “Dark Star”, Trillium chloropetalum, Fremontodendron “California Glory”, and Romneya coulteri. I want to say that I am sure you can have a beautiful garden in the midwest. Obviously it is not a year round gardening area like you are used to, but with some unusual conifers, and deciduous trees and shrubs, there could be great winter interest. I know there are tons of very hardy perennials you can grow as well. I have actually considered moving to the midwest to start a farm since the prices are right on land. I know it would be quite an adjustment for me, but I am keeping my options open.
I moved my cactus from Ventura Ca. to Phoenix Az. One would think they would do better here in the desert? Some did well and some just died. Too hot. Cali is an easy place to have a garden because of the mild year round climate. Ca native plants are interesting because they are winter growers and summer dormant. I have one Mojave cactus I have high hopes for here in Phoenix. My Coastal Dudleyas, I don’t know I think one is dead and the other not happy. So I know how you feel about your garden. I bet you figure something out though.
As far as the move from Cali? If I had a couple million right now and could go where I wanted to not where the work is.. It would not be here in Phoenix and it would not be back in Cali. But it might be in AZ. Up a little higher in elevation.
Thanks for your sympathies about my having to leave CA native plants!
cassiopeia - Agreed, most “gardens” in CA are just a mess of non-natives, weeds, and water-guzzling lawns. But the native plant movement has gained real traction in the last 10 years — there is hope. CNPS (the CAlif Native Plant Society) is doing a lot of good work along with many other organizations and individuals.
BanteringBear - I had all but one of those plants in my garden too. Native plants here in MO are gorgeous — there is a fabulous native plant garden maintained by volunteers in Springfield, MO and the state of MO really promotes native plant, tree, and prairie habitats. But there isn’t the mass of passionate people here that there are in CA. Of course, there are just plain a lot more people in CA overall. By the way, I assumed that the midwest was just one big breadbasket with great loamy soil. Here in the Ozarks it is all cherty (unglaciated). The native plants do fine but you can’t dig a single hole without a pickaxe and an hour or two of heavy labor.
Cactus - Right, the CA climate is one of the few “mediterranean” climates in the world the others being the Mediterranean, Chile, parts of Australia, and the South African coast around Cape Town. Dry summers and mild wet winters are an unusual climate that allowed the evolution of unique vegetation. I would have to say that the South African vegetation (Fynbos) is as compelling as that of CA.
———————-
Here’s are some useful links for those of you who are interested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_climate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fynbos
http://www.cnps.org
——————
Once you finally buy your new house, dump the lawn and plant natives!
ozarkian, there is also a nice Mediterranean climate in Mendoza, Argentina, on the other side of the Andes. There is a beautiful wine country there too.
Maui market is strange — when all other market inventories were falling throughout the last few months, Maui’s rose. Current inventory of SFH and condos (including Moloka’i) is 2,149, which is 9% higher than August, 2006. Inventory has been increasing steadily since Halloween.
I’ve been watching this one in Silverlake LA for a while as I used to live across from it. Finding it on foreclosure.com made my day.
1515 Murray Circle, 90026
http://www.zillow.com/HomeDetails.htm?o=North&zprop=20744724
Sales history…
06/23/2005 FB pays $929,009, foreclosed and sold 10/23/2006: $682,351
25%+ drop in under a year and half? Not bad.
Note the worthless zestimate is over 1M.
zillow is useless as tits on a boar.
Nice!!
http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1329007
Colorado Springs, which styled itself as “Silicon Mountain” (and attracted a lot of companies who left California due to the nightmarish taxation, workers’ comp, and real estate prices, is shedding high tech jobs as outsourcing to offshore (Asian) suppliers kills US fabs. Intel just announced they’ll be shedding 1,000 local tech jobs, which will be a huge hit to the local economy. Estimates are that up to 4,000 more jobs that depend on the Intel payroll are also at risk. In this town, population 400,000, the ripple effects will be widely felt, as Intel was one of the few non-government employers that actually paid decent wages. Sadly, that’s going to translate into financial distress for a lot of families, with a lot more mid- to high-end homes being foreclosed on or being dumped on an already saturated market.
The whole country suffers from California-style taxation and problems, or will shortly, as Californian soccer moms migrate and ruin other parts of the country with their big government “solutions”.
I wouldn’t start a company in the US, and close any one I had, due to the collectivist mentality that has taken over. Hopefully the housing bust will lead to a realignment.
Wow, I never thought of it that way, but you are right, the California mentality has been migrating and infecting other parts of the country. I can see it here in Florida. I agree with you about starting a company in the US.
Yep, it’s happening here in Colorado, too. Really sad to see the transformation.
“collectivist mentality that has taken over”
Jeez, tell that to what remains of the middle class as the last job is shipped to India. Under GWB a corporatist mentality is more like it. Mark, if you’re looking for a true free enterprise zone, try Iraq! Bremer instituted the conservative wet dream of a flat tax in ‘03. No “government solutions” like water, electricity or security to bog you down.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A50031-2003Nov1?language=printer
The middle class Joe Soccer Moms are the problem. I am enjoying seeing their home equity disappear and leave them poor. They are the biggest supporters of government, so they deserve it. As a student of history, I know that the very existence of a middle class is an anomaly. Which is about to end.
As a (relatively) big-government type from Massachusetts, I am very sad to say that you are probably right.
RIP big, prosperous middle class, 1947-2010 (terminally ill since 1981, when PATCO strike was busted by Reagan). A pleasant sport, but doomed to a slow, agonizing death.
As a (relatively) big-government type from los angeles, I have no idea what Mark’s point is other than he has a problem with soccer moms (the term is a stale relic of 90’s election campaigns) and big government.
Mark is a Darwinian capitalist. I’ll go out on a limb and guess he’s very, very young.
Nothing like life experiences to change a young, idealistic capitalist (who believes “working hard” will make him/her successful) into a “bleeding heart” liberal. Give him time…he’ll get it, eventually.
The whole country suffers from California-style taxation and problems, or will shortly, as Californian soccer moms migrate and ruin other parts of the country with their big government “solutions”.
I wouldn’t start a company in the US, and close any one I had, due to the collectivist mentality that has taken over. Hopefully the housing bust will lead to a realignment.
Excellent point.
You can use the equity locusts from Mazzholeland as the East Coast equivalent to ruining the northern New England states socio-economic climate.
Wait until 2008, we ain’t see nothin’ yet. SHE is on the move.
A young single colleague of mine is out looking for homes in Phoenix. He is looking for 2 stories, around 2300 square feet. I don’t have the heart to tell him he’s nuts. But he told me and another colleague that he may eventually get married and needs a house that size. I had that same idea in 1990 just over the crest of the last bubble. The difference is I was in a small one-company town. But that bubble was smaller and I lost only 20%. He is going to buy at overly inflated prices and probably thinks that since 54,000 MLS listings in Phoenix are available, there must be very good buys. On his side, he is young, early 30s. He could be here another 15 years and break even. But it will probably be 15 years. And what if he doesn’t meet the girl of his dreams? When I was a studly 31 year old and bought a house, the house did not really attract women to me. It was a dull new neighborhood where there were no single women! Duh! Like most SFH neighborhoods!
Oh for pete’s sake, is this guy mentally challenged or what? He MAY get married so he needs to go out and buy a house? Tell him the first thing that is going to happen the very day he gets married is the new wife is going to gut the house and redecorate. Especially true if there is ANY indication that another woman had ANYTHING to do with the original decor.
That’s assuming that the wife even likes the location. A dumb idea and you may as well be the bearer of the bad news.
Auger-inn posts “is this guy mentally challenged or what? He MAY get married so he needs to go out and buy a house?
Auger you answerd you question twice, with proof. Yes he is mentally challenged. He is getting married and buying a house. Poor guy is dead just not buried.
“he may eventually get married and needs a house that size”
The first thing she will want to do is sell the house and get another. Otherwise it will always feel like “his” house.
Reminds me of a timeless adage:
When a man and woman (or woman and man) marry, the woman thinks the man will change, and he doesn’t. The man thinks the woman won’t change, and she does.
To this day, my wife thinks that quote is a slam on women in general and it really pisses her off when I talk about it. Go figure.
The man thinks the woman won’t change, and she does.
—————————
Unlike, of course, men who maintain their studly physiques, full heads of hair and boundless physical energy. And we all know how they continue to be attentive, empathetic, compassionate, engaging conversationalists…exactly the same in marriage as they were during courtship, right?
“‘There are so many of these foreclosures. But they’re in small quantities. ”
Sun’s so hot, I froze to death…
“But they’re in small quantities” = one at a time
I just came back from rental-house-hunting on Seattle’s eastside. We found a brand-new, 2000 sq ft, rental house in a condo-ish community for $1650/month including HOA. What’s even funnier is that the entire community appeared to be for rent. My wife and I have tentatively agreed to live the full bubble experience and rent the house on an 18 month lease.
The rent / own ratio in Seattle is nuts. I currently pay $1195 ($145 of which is HOA) rent for a $350k condo. I’m now moving to pay $1650 rent ($150 of which is HOA) for a $480k place. For that $1650, I get a brand new upgraded house with all the flipper upgrades. My wife is estatic. If anyone else is interested, let me know - there are at least 10 more units for rent.
FYI, Amazed, the new term in Seattle is condom… not condo…
http://seattle.craigslist.org/est/apa/265841481.html
Hilarious, Lionel.
In my original note, I should also have added that the community is “sold out.” Did I mention that to rent the house we want, we need to pay approximately $5k cash (first, last, deposit)? The agent (who used to sell houses in the community, but now leases them) said…”wow, most of my buyers don’t have hat kind of cash”
The crash will be very bad, and very painful for many.
Amazed… which community is this? We might get booted out of our condo (440k comps which we’re renting for
Search for “Tiburon heights” in Bothell (off 195st off 405). You can rent a brand-new SFH for $1695 asking (you can get it for $1650). LMK if you need additional info; I’m a regular reader of this blog.
that’s the 3rd area posted at that ratio !!!
1200 for a 350k joint ?
what happended to 110 x rent = price
was good for 100+ years
The market here just continues it’s slow downward push. But the following applies to every US market I think:
A grad school friend who I lost touch with for a couple years just called from L.A. Turns out they bought a house down there at (she acknowledged) the “top of the market” in ‘05. They’d been renting for years, have 2 small children and just got sick of the wait and scared they were going to be “priced out forever”.
She’s a lawyer with her own private practise, her husband’s a physicist. They make a lot of money. Husband loves his job, she’d rather write novels.
So, they bought a 950K early 60’s home in a good neighborhood with a good elementary school in walking distance. Used a 30 year fixed.
As she complained about her job, I asked if she could just quit someday, or at least, take fewer cases. She said no, absolutely not, as her husbands’ WHOLE SALARY goes to pay the mortgage. Hers pays for food, clothes, repairs, taxes, everything.
Before they bought, they were living high on the hog in a 2 bedroom 1200/month apt. Extra money for whatever they wanted. Now it all goes to feed the beast.
This governments been yammering since 9-11 for everybody to get out there and be a good consumer to prop the economy up. Did they never see the big picture here: if you’re spending all your money on the mortgage, there’s nothing left to support other things.
A 2,400 s.f. 1960’s home in a crowded neighborhood for a million bucks? Ten years ago every single American would have told you you were insane to even consider that such a thing MIGHT happen.
What. A. Joke.
Collective insanity. As a nation, we’ve finally topped the Salem Witchcraft Trials for mass hysteria.
As someone coined on this board, they are now “priced IN forever”.
spd,
I think there’s a lot of what you describe going on here in LA. Not as much pure speculation as in other places, but many upper middle class mortgage serfs living on “borrowed” time.
Luckily, according to the LA Times RE section today, the market has normalized. Phew. Now I can relax. Apparently Downey is going to be hot this year. They also recommended South LA as a good place to start. In other words, we’re done screwing the middle class, now it’s time to screw poor people too. Boy, the Times stinks.
Yeah, the latimes is pathetic. For a while the business section seemed to be running honest articles but that looks like it’s over. They have a writer named Annette Haddad who’s the Niagara Falls of industry horse poop. She must have a few “investment” homes to protect. This whole thing makes me sick.
I like your lionel web site btw
Seattle price drop, you wouldn’t believe how many people are in that situation. Whenever we considered buying, one of the things that scared me the most was that buying a 1M house, even with a 20% downpayment, does not leave any leeway for your every day life. We are not consummerist types, but we don’t like to calculate the cheapest dish in the menu when we go to a restaurant. If my daughter wants a ceramics class, we can afford it, and if there is a really good sale I can afford to stock up on something and save money in the long run. Oh, and we save money too. Having a 6,000 mortgage would change all that, and I can’t see how people did not bring that into their calculations. What a mess.
Yes. It’s very sad. Best case scenario is that they are “priced in forever”. Worst case scenario, her husband loses his job and they’re out on the street.
I’ve been thinking for a while now that this could be just the thing to get Americans to stay put for a while. We’ve been moving around like crazy for about a generation now.
In the meantime, my friends are coming up for a visit this spring. The four of them will be sleeping on the floor in the back room. Something tells me that if this had been pre- home buying spree, they would have gotten a hotel - lol!
It’ll be fun to have them here. But there’s just one little example of money that just got taken out of the local economy.
seattle, if nothing else, these stories make me realize that it is not only the guys who took out liar loans who are going to be messed up.
local channel 7 “destination condo” wow that’s expensive
Heard a developer in Mchenry county Ms. gulf coast is going to build an 8000 home development…Great they need to rebuild the coast…but! starting prices will start at 200k! ..That in the lowest medium income in the country.Build it and they will come? I think not……
It will take lots of transfer payments from the rest of the country (in the form of income support + subsidized insurance programs) to prop up prices over $200K.
I would steer way clear of that. There is no McHenry county in Mississippi. Nor anything close to that — no Mc-anything and no Henry County.
The Gulf Coast counties of that state are: Wilkinson, Amite, Pike, Walthall, Marion, Pearl River, Hancock, Harrison and Jackson.
http://tinyurl.com/22s97w
Colorado ‘A house divided’
Things are still out of whack in west sonoma county,more incentives by builders,lots of inventory,and a big jump in inventory expected in the next month or so.it amuses me to see th rent/buy ratios listed here.my wife and i (now separated) leased a 2800 sq ft home on 5 acres in a great neighborhood for $2k a month.it would have sold at the time for $1.2m.I can’t tell you how many people told me how foolishe we were not to buy at the time (june 05) and i always responded that i had no interest in losing $,and could do simple math.the house is now worth $1m tops,or a $200k loss since 6-05
An auction in flyover county, the “revitalized” downtown St. Louis. My brother-in-law had his car stolen right across the street last year. http://www.westgatelofts.com/
You put your finger on the problem with buying in revitalized areas within driving proximity of blighted areas. Gangstas have rides, and they factor travel costs into their “business” decisions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrbKw-TnFdw
Come to think of it, there is even a bigger problem with buying during a boom in “revitalized” areas, which is that during the next bust, the “blighted area” might expand to subsume the revitalized area where you bought. Crime rates always increase during a real estate bust.
SD Zip today: “Your search has returned the first 200 of 17027 homes”
- Only four are shown with today as the listing date.
- But 200+ homes have been listed since Friday (1/19/07).
Conclusions:
1) An average of 98 homes / day were listed since two days ago.
2) There were actually probably more than four new ones today.
Does zip deliberately delay listing the most recent additions to inventory? Because trying to hide an elephant under the living room rug strikes me as a collosal exercise in futility. Wouldn’t it be far more pragmatic for all parties concerned if Realtors collectively focused on getting sellers to adjust their wishing prices down to levels where a buyer might be discovered?
SW Florida auction results. A huge auction in Lee county where 120 properties were up for sale. Notice the property featured in Friday’s article of 777 Coral Dr. Highest bid, $525k, Value $862k, HA HA.
BIDS AND VALUES
Here’s a sampling of how bids compared to property values set by the Lee County Property Appraiser’s Office
• Single-family home, 5252 Nautilus Drive, Cape Coral: Bid $385,000. Value $690,000.
•Single-family home, 2706 SW 54th Terrace, Cape Coral: Bid $400,000. Value $255,810.
•Condominium, The Greens in Estero: Bid $120,000. Value $163,000
•Single-family home, 717 Polk St., Fort Myers: Bid $85,000. Value $76,820
•Fifth-floor condominium, Tarpon Landings, Cape Coral: Bid $400,000. Value not available for new condo. Sale price $702,000 last October.
•Condominium, 610 Victoria Drive, Cape Coral: Bid $225,000. Value $175,000.
•Single-family home, 1115 Enrique St., Lehigh Acres: Bid $150,000. Value for land $40,300. Building permit value for home $238,890
•Single-family home, 2372 Bay Breeze St., St. James City: Bid $425,000. Value $465,380.
•Single-family home, 777 Coral Drive, Cape Coral: Bid $525,000. Value $862,410
•Single-family home, 5237 Seminole Court, Cape Coral: Bid $390,000. Value $596,680
http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070121/NEWS0101/701210377/1003/ACC
Hilarious observation, not much unlike the band playing on the deck of the titanic as it was sinking. A pinhead of a real estate agent put “Too Late” on the sign of a recently sold townhome. The townhome is just a cookie cutter home in a subdivision that is a cookie cutter subdivision of greater community. The entire area is just a sea of for sale & for rent signs. Too late?? Too late?? No, the buyer was “TOO EARLY”!!
How did it sell? Two price cuts, first from over 500k down to 499k, then down to 459k and who knows what the amount of the bid was that was accepted. If they had waited until the spring flood of homes for 07 it would likely have been down to 400k!!
The Seattle Tmes finally printed the “Map of Top Ten Crap Loan Markets” (my title, obviously) that came out oh, I dunno, I guess it was about 10 months ago now.
WA. is on the map.
Thank you for the nice article. It is very informative.