“Now We Have All These Empty Homes”
A housing report from the Idaho Statesman. “Treasure Valley housing sales fell 13 percent in 2006 because the market deflated in both Ada and Canyon counties during the second half of the year. According to the Intermountain MLS, 15,506 homes were sold in the Valley last year, down from 17,917 in 2005, but 15 percent ahead of the 13,515 sales recorded in 2004.”
“‘If we had 2004 numbers, we would all be happy,’” said Paul Rhoades, co-owner of Pioneer Homes in Nampa. ‘I think 2005 was an aberration.’”
“Trey Langford, (who) tracks local building-lot availability, subdivisions and new construction, said the housing industry struggled late last year because too many homes were built during the boom. ‘We over-built, over-sold and sold to people who weren’t going to live in the houses,’ Langford said. ‘Now we have all these empty homes.’”
“A possible sign of a recovery in 2007 is a shrinking inventory of homes for sale. The MLS year-end figures showed 5,887 available homes at the end of December 2006, a drop of 6 percent from the previous month.”
“But Don Hubble, owner of Meridian-based Hubble Homes, worries that inventory numbers are not falling because of new sales, but because frustrated sellers are taking their homes off the market.”
“As a result, builders have drastically scaled back their construction plans. The number of building permits issued in Ada County fell from 2,826 in the first half of 2006 to 1,223 during the second half, a decline of 56 percent. Canyon County permits declined from 1,797 during the first six months to 1,150 during the last six, a drop of 36 percent.”
“For the year, the number of permits issued fell 45 percent in Ada County and 3 percent in Canyon County.”
“The impact of the residential housing slump was felt throughout the Valley. The downturn is affecting local-government revenues. The Ada County Highway District reported that impact fees it received from builders to offset infrastructure costs were down $4 million in the latest quarter, or 30 percent. That occurred even though ACHD raised its impact fees in October.”
“Hubble said the duration of the downturn remains unknown. ‘Historically sales will start to increase in January and February,’ he said. ‘If they don’t, we’re going to conclude that the negative trend continues.’”
The Denver Post from Colorado. “Matt Rivette, a broker in Greeley, throws cold water in the face of home sellers unwilling to accept declining values and an extended stay on the market.”
“‘If you want to sell a house you bought five years ago, chances are that here in Weld County it has less market value than what you paid,’ Rivette said.”
“Large swaths of the Front Range from Fort Collins to Pueblo struggled with flat or declining median home values, according to Trulia.com. Home gains in Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver and Douglas counties were positive, but fell far short of covering the commission a seller would need to pay to get out of a home if they hire a real estate agent.”
“Anemic price gains contribute to foreclosures, making it harder for homeowners to sell. That, in turn, depresses surrounding home prices. Breaking the cycle is hard, particularly in Weld County, home to Greeley. Last year, more homes entered foreclosure in Weld County, 2,073, than were sold, 1,870.”
“The backlog of unsold homes in Weld County is huge. Assuming no other homes were listed for sale, it would take 27 months to clear out the inventory of unsold homes at the current pace of sales, according to data ProRealty has collected.”
“Once concentrated in Weld, Adams and Arapahoe counties, foreclosures are spreading south and west. ‘The guys who work foreclosures tell me that new filings in early January are just racing despite the weather,’ Boulder-based mortgage banker Lou Barnes said.”
“The inventory of unsold homes rose 30 percent last year in El Paso County, according to Stuart Scott, a broker working in Colorado Springs. Builders had to push hard to find buyers for about 1,000 speculative homes they had built or that were already under construction, said Scott.”
The Rocky Mountain News from Colorado. “A new state law has barred 10 people from registering as mortgage brokers. Some 3,465 people have been registered under the Morgtage Brokers Registration Act, which took effect Jan. 1, said Geoffrey Hier, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies.”
“‘It is too early to tell whether it is working because it has only been in effect for 16 days,’ Hier said.”
“Legislators passed the law last year after concerns continued to rise about record foreclosures, some of which can be traced to real estate scams and predatory lending.”
“One of those who was denied is Steven Thompson, who in 2003 was accused of bilking homeowners out of more than $1 million using sophisticated mortgage scams.”
“Mortgage broker Jim Spray, a longtime advocate of cracking down on mortgage fraud, helped several homeowners investigate Thompson in 2003. ‘If the others were denied for similar reasons as those which caused denial of Mr. Thompson, Colorado mortgage consumers should feel very relieved this new law is working as intended,’ Spray said.”
“‘If someone can’t afford $200 to get a bond, they need to get out of the mortgage business and go work at a car wash,’ added Spray, a broker in Wheat Ridge. ‘I have seen a million dollars disappear in mortgage fraud in a week.’”
‘Are you a contractor operating in Idaho? If so, here are five things you need to do to ensure your success over the next several years: 1. Suck up to developers of planned communities. Builders should cultivate relationships with developers, financiers and other parties involved in building planned communities, Kastera Homes Director of Planning and Development Wayne Forrey said.’
‘This is where we need to diversify,’ he said. ‘Our buyers have kind of been getting bored of the cookie-cutter stuff.’
‘The large number of planned communities offers a huge opportunity for builders. Three planned communities — Hidden Springs, Avimor and The Cliffs — have been approved, and nine more have applied to Ada County, Ada County Development Services Director Gerry Armstrong said. Another 13 are in various stages of preparation, but have not yet applied.’
‘2. Find out where you went wrong. ‘Lack of sales is not a problem,’ Franklin Building Supply owner and Regional Manager Rick Lierz said. ‘Lack of sales is a symptom.’ If you didn’t have a banner year last year, analyze why, Lierz said. Did you buy land in the wrong location? Were your homes overpriced? ‘If you need to, cut and run,’ Lierz said. It’s better to cut your losses rather than risk more lost sales in a slower market.’
‘3. Build smaller houses. Some consumers are starting to be priced out of the housing market in the Boise area, said Gail Heist, a real estate broker for Professional Real Estate Services. Contractors need to keep their costs in line. 4. Cut costs, not corners. Boise real estate is becoming much more expensive, said Jerry Van Engen, industrial brokerage specialist with Thornton Oliver Keller. Contractors need to find ways to reduce costs without cutting quality.’
Better advice yet, get out of new construction in Idaho completely. Consider doing remodel work at FAIR prices. Eliminate all frivolous spending in your personal life. Unload the F350 4×4 deisel dually and get a Ranger. Opt out of those land deals if possible. If you already paid through the nose, you’re hosed. Get a good BK attorney.
Perfectly stated, BanteringBear. Contractors have to be some of the biggest spendthrifts out there. The F350 comment was so very true. And from what I’ve read here, you’re exactly correct in that the last thing Idaho needs now is more new houses. Last year, when I first read that Boise was booming, that’s when I knew this was going to implode magnificently.
A F350 4×4 completely jacked up with 3k worth of wheels and tires is ABSOLUTELY mandatory for a contractor here in So Cal!
I’m a contractor and I think the first think that tipped me off that something was wrong in housing was all the big trucks pulling up on jobs. Even the lowest guy on a crew seemed to “need’ a 50k truck in 04, 05.
Great post!
Great post!
Amen, Brother Bear. The era of “prosperity” and excess fueled by binging on easy credit is over. Outmoded concepts like responsibility and living simply and frugally, within our means, are the way ahead for those who intend to get through the coming hard times with their families and dignity intact.
The Arts & Crafts Revival movement, though small, is growing, and that gives me hope. I’d love to see a return to time-tested values and simple living.
http://www.artsandcraftshomes.com/#
Sounds like my dream house.
….and damn good looking as well. They have character and style.
Just like us, ay, Dan?
I currently live in a 1919 vintage A+C house my wife and I are fixing up. I know many here don’t think much of repairs, but I cannot tell you how interesting it is to work on these old, extremly well built homes. I found the sports pages from the time of the Black Sox scandal (Oct. 1919) used as a shim for some warped lath when the plasterers were finishing the walls. We have gone and looked at newer construction occasionally, when we think we are tired of dust–but we quickly come home and count our blessings. I bought this in 96 and am fixing it up out of current revenue–no big rehab loans here.
Back in the 80s when I was working in the pentagon they were doing some electrical work and found an old sportspage from when the builing it. I do love the old A+C houses, but beware the old post and tube wiring. People had far fewer electrical needs back then and most of these homes have had more outlets poorly added to overloaded circuits.
Arts and Crafts homes are lovely but please tell where you can by one for a reasonable price? No where that I know of!
Many of these old gems were kit houses. We have lots of these in Sacramento. The premise was that they were a very democratic form of shelter.
They were the “everymans” home and could be constructed by you and a few neighbors. You bought all the pieces of the home and it came to you on a train car. Here is a listing from Sears. http://64.66.180.31/archive/sears/index.shtml
Aladdin was another big manufacturer. I lived in a Aladdin kit for 10 yr downtown. I loved that place. I’d have bought the place if I could.
Awesome post Gwynster, thanks for the link. My great uncle built his own Sears Craftsman in west Seattle in the early 40’s. Great, great places. To hell with the sh!tboxes some of these builders are trying to pass off these days. As Sammy posted, there are still some good builders, but a lot of crappy ones came out of the woodwork during this boom.
Maybe Sears should get back into the kit house business. Seems a lot of us have expressed an interest in building our own homes. They ought to design pre-fab, “green” homes which can be customized to some extent.
We’d certainly be interested in something like that. Enough with the cookie-cutter McMansions.
If you are thinking about a “green” kit house, you should look at enertia homes. Constructed to save energy!!
Thread post ““Now We Have All These Empty Homes”
Why stop there? Empty wallets, empty heads.
“Now We Have All These Empty Homes”
Whats a builder to do? Build more, of course.
With 50% of the for sale inventory empty, the big builders keep building more. What esle can they do? If they they stop building, their out of business. They’ll just keep writing down land values, every qtr for the next couple years. Book values will shrink greatly over the next couple years. But, if they just spread out the write downs for the next couple years, maybe no one will notice.
Well the goal is to exercise as many stock options as possible. After the company goes tango uniform, the executives will be well placed to start a new company in time for the next expansion.
Personnally I think it’s mental illness. Start with the bankers that should all be medicated.
Personnally I think it’s mental illness. Start with the bankers that should all be medicated.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16757133/
London 77 square foot fixer-upper for $335,000……whattadeal!!!!!!!!!!!
Cells at San Quentin and Solidad are nicer. At least they have stainless steel bathroom fixtures.
After looking at that PoS and the realtor comparing it to a yacht, I could only think of Red Smith’s famous lead to his story after the Gints beat ‘Dem Bums in ‘51 after the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”
“Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again.”
I don’t know what realWHORES are smokin’, but if some yahoo buys that closet at more than 100 bucks, we have truly reached the end of civilization. If someone can throw a third of a million + repairs + upkeep + taxes on that, then nothing , esp. money, has any value and people have no brains.
CRAKPOT BLOODY BRITISH CRAZIES ! What else can you say ? It’s not worth it. Nice fat british bubble built on what ? Built on international sh-t. You clearly have the impression that the UK is like in another universe. Makes me think alot to Monaco and Andorra. Wonder what mob, which mafia or piece of international piece of sh-t is buying. The Nigerian gangsters or the Columbian war lords or the Russians sh-tsbags like Berezovski and Abrahamnovich ? Puffed up real estate like that smell coke and capital flight and banana republic. Puffed real estate prices like that smelly big big big sh-t. Goes well with Tony Blair and Margaret. Yeah the Brits are replacing Switzerland.
I find it hard to believe they are quoting as much as 60% price increases in London last year. I understand the Arabs are buying a lot of it, but… There must be some breaking point. There was here.
The London market is quite interesting.
In some sub-markets (notably Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster) prices are being rapidly driven up due to outside money (mainly Russian and Arab) with no concept of “worth”. The biggest rises are in the biggest homes - these guys are not interested in 2 bed 700 sqft apartments and so the price of that “closet” is crazy.
Funnily enough, there was a very similar story at the top of the last bubble…
Loafer
No concept of worth. You are soo right ! Most of their money anyways was stolen from their countries. A lot of money must be coming from Irak.
“Contractors need to find ways to reduce costs without cutting quality.”
Quality will be the first to go…..cheaper labor, cheaper materials, etc. Cutting costs take EFFORT while cutting quality, especially where people can’t see or discern is a piece of cake. They’ll take the cake every time.
Hey Dan, truthfully I don’t think there is much quality left to cut.
You sound like the type of contractor I would like to hire if I needed one. In other words, you call it like it is. Anyone who thinks there is quality built into these mass-produced bubble boxes is just insane or clueless. For the prices people have been paying, you would expect to at least have doors hung square, plumbing properly attached and working, etc. But no, you don’t. It doesn’t matter what trade they are, this bubble has produced some of the sloppiest tradesmen ever. I wouldn’t touch one of these crap boxes with a ten foot pole. I’d rather get something from days gone by that I could then improve myself, or with persons like my father and waaahoo, people who understand how to use a level.
Yeah, nowadays if I want a level handed to me I just ask for the “prybar” as that is just about all the use they seem to get lately.
I think I could make a nice living just repairing the crimes that have been omitted within a 5 block radius of my home.
Dan, I’m not so sure. I know an excellent builder in the Midwest, a guy I’ve known since my teens, who is thriving even in these times. He has a well-deserved reputation as a true craftsman with a solid work ethic and that rarest commodity of all, absolute integrity. Guys like him, with a well-deserved reputation for quality work (and hand-picked crews that stay with him for years) won’t resort to shoddy materials and cutting corners, especially not with copper, lumber, and most other material prices looking to drop substantially this year. He’s never advertised, and never had to. He’ll come out of the bubble implosion just fine, as will other builders who never sacrificed quality and integrity for easy profits during the boom years.
Sammy,
Yeah, those guys are out there, but are the exception to the rule. We’ve lost most of the “old school” guys.
If I hear another agent go into their “custom quality” routine while touring a house…..I’m going to puke. I’m waiting for them to ban a spirit level and marble from the inspection process.
Your story reminded me of an old finishing carpenter from my area. Everything he did was plumb, square, and level….period. There was never a year he didn’t turn down jobs…..regardless of market conditions. He did have one quirk, but you put up with it if you wanted him to do the job…..fishing. The running joke was he would drop his hammer in mid swing if he heard a fish jump and would be gone ’til they stopped biting. LOL
OT - Any idea how drought affects RE sales? I keep hearing rainfall is below average in many parts of CA.
A seller might find the neighbors lawn is brown instead of lush green during the summer months.
Not a problem… in Santa Barbara, there are lawn-dying services. They simply dye it green. Seriously.
My BIL was stationed in Yuma, AZ with the Marines. They would paint dirt green.
I’ve seen two things:
1. Use of green rocks in Arizona.
2. Astroturf in Vegas.
“OT - Any idea how drought affects RE sales?”
We learned last year that sunshine kills sales in Seattle. There people buy houses only when it rains.
Because they get so few days of sun per year, who the hell wants to buy a house on those days???
“Trey Langford, (who) tracks local building-lot availability, subdivisions and new construction, said the housing industry struggled late last year because too many homes were built during the boom. ‘We over-built, over-sold and sold to people who weren’t going to live in the houses,’ Langford said. ‘Now we have all these empty homes.’”
Same in San Diego (51% of homes sold in Dec 2006 were vacant) and the rest of the country as well, according to one of yesterday’s posts.
This raises a couple of basic questions:
1) Has the country every had so many vacant homes before (I think the answer is “no” and that it has already appeared here, but I would still enjoy seeing it in print again
).
2) Is there any way for this situation to resolve without a massive price correction to the downside?
3) How long can prices stay on a permanently-slightly-below-all-time-high plateau before gravity does its work?
1) I’ll bet you’ll never be able to find stats on vacant homes but, no, I’ll bet there’s never been anything like today’s vacancy volumes.
2) No. An inventory of occupied homes for sale that’s high is one thing; a massive inventory of unoccupied homes is a totally different animal. Unless they are consumed by utterly new buyers, every purchase of an empty home by a current home owner merely shifts the problem of inventory.
3) Its started already. Anecdotes of home sales, auctions and foreclosures indicate a 20% decline from peak, already. That this hasn’t been revealed in the median price metric that the NAR and media hang their hat on is something that will soon become meaningless.
Prices are set at the margin. When every idiot and speculator could get a virtually unlimited, no downpayment, loan prices HAD to be maximized at the margin.
The illiquidity that worked “wonders” for prices on the way up will work disasterously (for sellers) on the way down. Falling prices will make “uncertain” potential buyers more wary. They’ll want more, “visible”, confirmation that prices have “stabilized”. They won’t get it. More confident, “rude”, buyers will make “ridiculously” low bids……some will be accepted by sellers who’s need to liquidate exceeds their desire to be “respected”.
Builders will continue to build and sell at whatever price they can get to clear inventory and just keep them in motion.
I think the process will unravel far more quickly than ever due to the distribution of well documented transactions over the internet. This will be communicated, like “liar loans” and 80/20s and “flipping”, in unprecedented fashion.
The NAR doesn’t get this. They are going to get hammered. They are like dinosaurs in the business and political world…what you once thought you could hide with your buddies in the media and other powerful places you just can’t get away with (very often) anymore. Realtors who tell sellers the truth will be hated but (ultimately) trusted. Realtors who lie won’t get either sales or their credibility back.
Its going to be a nasty, unavoidable, spring.
Nice post, jag. The NAR is clueless, as is the homebuilder’s association. When this is all said and done realtors will be likened to used car salesmen.
“Anecdotes of home sales, auctions and foreclosures indicate a 20% decline from peak, already.”
I mentioned earlier that comparable homes in my zip (92127 Rancho Bernardo) are off 25% from the 2005 peak already. And the official statistics are way behind the game (except I believe DataQuick did show a 20% YOY drop in a recent report for at least one of the RB zip codes…).
I beleive the official gov statistic for new household creation is 1.15 million a year. Building peaked at a little over 2 million. And as of a few months ago was at a pace of about 1.51 million. It dosen’t take a math genius to see that there’s a tremendous amount of inventory levitating out there, about to go thud. Add to that the affordibility issue and the loose lending about to start biting. The problems are just starting.
Great observation Vmaxer. I figure that there are somewhere between 4 and 5 million excess homes out there right now, and the number is still increasing. The root problem has not yet even started to correct.
I remember reading that 10% of the homes use to be investment purchases during more normal times . If you have 50 to 60% of the supply being speculation purchases along with them being vacant thats a serious inventory problem .
Thank you RIEC ,along with the sub-prime lenders ,for turning the general market in a speculator/flipper market of excess inventory .End user buyer move in right away ,so if a house is vacant these days its a speculator in most cases .
I’m sure that a number of these speculation purchases were with the help of seminar and investment groups that sought out people who had not purchased yet .
We are going to find out that alot of this speculator activity was in tracts designed for the flipper/speculator groups.
It really is a shame that end-user were pushed out of the market in favor of the speculator/flipper on these tracts . The lenders could of stopped that by making requirements in any given tract and usually the CCR’s limit speculators ,but the builder didn’t abide by their own CCR’s .
Again I say , the sub-prime lenders that cater to the crooks, speculators,flippers ,and the unqualified need to get out of the market because they caused alot of damage .
I believe that the RIEC borrowed from the future ,used up the end user future buyer pool as well as the speculator pool ,and the rest of the first time buyers were priced out of the market .
Regarding the question: “3) How long can prices stay on a permanently-slightly-below-all-time-high plateau before gravity does its work?”
In the Boise area it took until 2005 for inflation adjusted prices to exceed the prices of the mid 1980. If it takes that long again, and it could, current prices, adjusted for inflation, may not be exceeded until around 2025. Fasten your seat belts.
There’s no particular reason to expect that 2005 prices will EVER be seen again, after adjusting for inflation. See once again the famous NYT chart:
http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/08/26/weekinreview/27leon_graph2.large.gif
anyone have some lot prices ?
I see Pocanos going for 1200 for a lot assessed at 8K
Realtor.com Frederick, MD. Far suburb edge city outside DC.
$200K/acre with drilled well (no mention of e-) seems most common.
Found a 1.1 acre lot with gas/septic/electric heat: $498K. That wouldn’t leave too much room for profit, even for a $1M McEstate.
read ‘em and weep:
Media, PA 19063 MLS ID#: 4842903
$65,000
0.23 Acres
West Chester, PA 19382MLS ID#: 4918750
$185,000
0.25 Acres
Chadds Ford, PA 19317
MLS ID#: 4768565
$225,000
0.85 Acres…………………from realtor.com
If I’m serious about building a house, it will be a while until I can afford a decent sized lot. :rolleyes:
go slightly west of west chester to the pocanos
double lots $2k
Here ya go, phillygal.
BayQT~
tx, QT! I copied your code, let’s see if it works:
Crooked appraiser’s are the grease which make the mortgage fraud wheels spin.
FB’ers who have been screwed by the collusion of RE agent, L/O, and appraiser’s better get their lawsuits lined up real quick.
The E&O insurers for appraisers are a pretty undercapitalized group.
Pay-out money is gonna dry up fast, once this debacle starts playin’ out.
Shed no tears though…when one appraiser sends in his policy questionaire noting he’s done 1500 assignments for “one” specific client and an underwriter blows it off…
It’s TS when the piper calls to collect his due.
If the FB got a liar’s loan, I don’t think they will want to bring it to the attention of the courts.
This is AMERICA…nothing is ever YOUR fault.
Strange, they say the same thing in the ex-USSR.
Suzanne posts “This is AMERICA…nothing is ever YOUR fault. ”
I do not say this lightly. America is not a Country anymore it is only a place to make money.
My family came to America in 1635. I do not think I am any better than the person that took the Oath yesterday, As far as I am concerned he is my countryman.
But the fact remains.
GetStucco,
Yes, the country has seen this amount of empty homes before, during the Great Depression.
Most people remember the Stock Market crash of ‘29, as the cause, but just before that, there was a ridiculous housing bubble, complete with Condo scam in florida.
History, it repeats.
Watch “The Cocoanuts” sometime, FL real estate was laugh fodder for even the Marx Bros.
Funny thing is that Groucho (of “You can even get stucco” fame) understood the ridiculous nature of the real estate bubble, yet still managed to get his @$$ whomped with his stock investments a couple of years later in The Great Crash. I guess it is still fairly common these days to fall into the mistaken belief that the national real estate market and the stock market are somehow independent of each other?
“I guess it is still fairly common these days to fall into the mistaken belief that the national real estate market and the stock market are somehow independent of each other?”
Well, if you believe what CNBC reports, then yes! I think the big boys are just stringing this along and milking it for all it’s worth before they pull the plug and let the carnage flow.
As for the vacant houses, this is fairly common knowledge, I think. That is what just blows my mind. All these idiots saying that things should start picking up come spring and summer. I guess we need to explain it to them in terms of plasma tvs. When retailers have a whole butt load of plasma tvs in the warehouse, what do they do: a) raise the price, b) keep prices static, or c) hold a blow out, rock bottom sale? Jesus Christ, common sense is dead in America. To any RE kool-aid drinkers that may be lurking here: the cycle is over! You are up the creek! There will be no spring bounce! You will chase the builders and foreclosures all the way to the bottom! Idiots!
Yes, very easy… even without mortgage fraud, fake multiple biddors make it happen every day. What else do real bidders do when the realtor tells them is a counter offer from another party (fake). They offer more unknowingly falling for the oldest con in the book.
Edgewater John - do you live in Edgewater? I am in NSB
Yes, pretty original, huh? I should’ve have went with “Ikea Boy” as a moniker instead, though.
How are things looking from your prespective? I’m trying to ramp up my work on my grad project and so far what I’m seeing is mixed, but still somehow quite ominous. The condo situation here really needs recording.
DEPRESSION it will be McGee.
“‘If someone can’t afford $200 to get a bond, they need to get out of the mortgage business and go work at a car wash,’ added Spray, a broker in Wheat Ridge”
But Mr Spray, what if all the car wash jobs are already taken by broke, starving, HS-equivalency-diploma-carrying RE agents?
Casey sez he’s trying to work out short sales and “settle his debts” so he can go back to “making sweet deals.”
You think he’s saying stuff like this to get increased activity on the blog or is really that delusional? All I know is I have a tolerance level of 10 seconds for his site. Thank goodness I read quickly.
I haven’t been able to bring myself to look in the past month or so. It’s too revolting.
My tolerance level is 0 seconds. Never visited Casey’s site nor plan to.
You really should. The funniest damn thing is his spreadsheet listing about $2m in debt, with $80k or so on 25%ish credit cards!
Maybe Casey Serin could get Donald Trump to help him ? You are right. It’s really funny. It’s not just Serin that is crazy. What about these sh-ts, yeah the bankers, these total nutcases bankers ? They don’t care. After all when the sh-t hits the fan, Uncle Sam will be paying the bills. Bastard bankers.
txchick posts about Casey “making sweet deals.”
That bums next sweet deal will be for a pack of smokes.
My thought on Casey’s “sweet deals” was: when has that retard ever done a deal that wasn’t a complete and utter train wreck? I sincerely hope that fool never procreates.
Bubba can’t wait to have Casey as a room-mate.
Nice room-mate. Bubba will give Casey a sweat deal.
Right in his sweat che***s
He should start taking Yoga… that down like dog move will come in handy.
so he can go back to “making sweet deals.”
So in addition to all his other problems he talks like the kid in Napoleon Dynamite?
Nice!
Yea, and Casey’s business deals aren’t even as well planned out and successful as Uncle Rico’s and Kip’s Tupperware business.
Uncle Rico:
“We need like some name tags with our picture on it, all laminated and what not. I mean, we gotta look legit man.”
Kip:
“That’s true, that’s true.”
Casey never met a deal that wasn’t sweet to him. Idiot.
Casey doesn’t qualify for a “short sale” in MHO .Casey has admitted to cash-back deal when he purchased his POS’s houses and this is fraud to the lenders yet he expects them to cut him a deal . He also ran up 80K in credit cards knowing he had no ability to pay . This Casey is playing the easy money situation for all it’s worth .
I also want to know when his real estate agents are going to get busted along with the sellers that gave him the cash back on RE deals (which is fraud to the lender ).
I can only hope that Casey is under investigation ,along with any one who worked with him, and he will soon be taken away before he creates more damage .
“The backlog of unsold homes in Weld County is huge. Assuming no other homes were listed for sale, it would take 27 months to clear out the inventory of unsold homes at the current pace of sales, according to data ProRealty has collected.”
27 freaking months supply…….!!!!!
And they say the worst is over…………B/S
Well, we could go to plan C.
Or straight to Plan 9 from Outerspace!
“Stupid humans…stupid, stupid, stupid!”
“You people of Earth are idiots!”
ha-ha!
Many of Marks suggestions of what’s in and out for 2007 are intriguing. His overall market predictions are just that, national and mid-west oriented. (Mark’s predictions for 2007 are at http://tinyurl.com/y53uhc)
For the Hamptons, I predict a 5% increase in the number of sales for 2007 and a 10% increase in values this year.
http://tinyurl.com/2mvbpl
Let me see if I have this straight:
1. A home is typically the biggest purchase one makes in their entire lefetime.
2. The agent who sells this to you is licensed by bthe state.
3. Inventory on the east end of LI has skyrocketed; prices have begun to slide
4. This licensed SOB is allowed to predict a 10% increase without any substantiation.
Fckn’g unbelievable.
The Fools are back at it in Montgomery County, MD. - they are coming back in to the market. Someone has convinced the buyers that this is the best time to buy - I’ve been tracking and they are buying. I hope this is temporary - I will continue to wait!@#$%^&*(
Don’t fret. These fools will be buying all the way to the bottom. And yes, some are even paying peak pricing right now since, in their warped little cranium, real estate always goes up. I know, sounds ludicrous, but these are the same people bashing each others brains in at Toys R Us over a Tickle Me Elmo at Christmas time. They haven’t laid off the glue, nor will they ever.
I just hate the idea that they think they are getting a deal and then the rest of the folks start doing the same and next thing you know the Agents are cheesing how well the market is doing…I’m hoping for the worst - I sound terrible saying that.
This will be so short-lived. There are just a bunch of buyers thinking that “prices always go up in the Spring” so they think they are being clever by purchasing last year’s leftovers.
Most of last year’s leftovers, however, failed to sell, and will likely be put on the market again, along with new inventory. Here in N. VA. we are starting out at a higher inventory level than last year at this time, and it appears to be rising quickly.
The buyers that thought they were getting a “deal” will have already purchased by the time Spring and the highest level of listings come on the market. The inventory will likely spook the buyers that are left.
Not to mention those buyers who likely thought they were being clever by buying new from a builder this winter and will have a house to unload this Spring. I am sure there are still fools who are doing this.
Jim at bubbleinfo.com posted a chart last year that showed every selling season for his area (Carlsbad) getting shorter and shorter in the past few years. It seems like a trend that will continue.
I read the Washington Times Friday Home Cheerleader yesterday. Sample blather: “You’ve heard rumors of the condo market slowing down. Is it a good time to buy? Surprisingly, yes. There’s a lot of choice and inventory, and sellers are offering help with closing costs…”
What bull. If they are charging $300K for a 2-bedroom condo, what good is $10K on closing going to do? Jeezoos!
The Journalist prob make a few bucks for supporting RE agenda
After spending three days sick in bed, my wife finally learned that a “one day only fish sale” is not a good deal. If it’s a good time to buy, then it must be a good time to own. If it’s a good time to own, why are they selling? Why are they paying the closing costs? Why the heck is it on sale?
It smells like a fish sale to me.
So what would be the best measure of vacant homes? does anyone really track it? How can you determine seasonal vs vacant? Any ideas out there?
The Census Bureau has good records going back 40 years or more, I believe. There are record vacancies in almost every catagory except apartments. And that’s probably because of all the conversions.
Good point.
Except that multi-family (apartment) construction starts are up… so that vacancy rate is about to get legs again.
I plan to state the “buy now or be priced out forever” line a bit. I used it last weekend with a Realtor ™. The expression was priceless (as I was talking about my industry).
Got popcorn?
Neil
This is to funny, if the bubble had not burst we surely could have seen prices like this one $4,340 a square foot.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sns-ap-tiny-apartment,0,4742068.story?coll=sfla-business-front
77 sq ft.
“If you thought of this as the cabin on a boat, you’d say, ‘It’s pretty spacious,’ ” Scott said.
Sounds like a Monty Python line:
Sounds like a prison guard in a Monty Python movie taunting an old man chained up in a Tower of London cell.
LMAO
Wasn’t there a movie called Cabin Boy?
the classic line from cabin boy Chris Elliott “…and when I return, I will be cabin man.”
‘The MLS year-end figures showed 5,887 available homes at the end of December 2006, a drop of 6 percent from the previous month.”’
Has there ever been a December in which active listings did NOT drop by 5-10%? It’s seasonal, but this year lots of people did let their listings expire and put their faith in the “spring bounce” which we all await here with Vladimir and Estragon…
What are the key ingredients of a flip gone bad that’s sitting empty? Greed, Fraud, and Stupidity… see here
I thought some dude named Casey had to be involved…
Ouch! That was funny!
“Trey Langford, (who) tracks local building-lot availability, subdivisions and new construction, said the housing industry struggled late last year because too many homes were built during the boom. ‘We over-built, over-sold and sold to people who weren’t going to live in the houses,’ Langford said. ‘Now we have all these empty homes.’”
Sounds like there is plenty of room for “Lawyers in Love” .
Jackson had it right, just in a different way. Unfortunately, there are just not enough lawyers in love to stop the downward slide.
I couldn’t resist.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-tiny-apartment,0,4055757.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines
And if you think of it as a place to live, you’re mentally defective. I picked that up for free by reading the article, but some moron will learn that for $4,340 a square foot.
I think there may well be a spring bounce. A dead cat bounce.
Here’s how I think this will play out.
1. j6p is still clueless, and many will buy into NAR Bs.
2. Builders are cutting prices until they sell.
3. NAR will lay in on thicker as sales data isn’t too bad, compared to 2006.
4. Here’s your bounce, until.
5. This will drive prices down faster than 2006.
6. Foreclosures will continue and accelerate.
7. Specuvestors will finally panic. seeing the huge price drops.
8. bottom falls out by july 2007.
BUT.. buy s
testing
Can anyone comment on the seemingly large number of tax liens in the LA county area compared to other areas? I saw this on Foreclosure.com and I thought it was interesting. Just in the Granada Hills area alone, which isn’t that big of an area, there are over 600 homes listed that are either have tax liens,in some stage of foreclosure or for sale by owner.
Compton showed a whopping 2600 homes listed! Though who wants to live in Compton I know.
The sub-prime lenders haven’t been requiring impound accounts on taxes from the FB’s in spite of the loans being over a 90% loan . The FB’s are not paying the taxes because again the sub-prime lenders aren’t doing the job .
There are alot of sub-prime borrowers that just can’t pay the tax bill . A property will go to tax lein sale in 5 years ,but usually the lender, who is in second position to any tax lein, will impound the taxes or require payment for the taxes by a additional payment to the mortgage .
Help us!!!!
We are trying so hard to keep those lying Army recruiters out of the local Schools, and trying to keep the credit card pushers away from our kids, and now we can’t keep the lying realtors trying to put our kids into houses, out of the schools. We try to kick them out and they say “but my son goes here”
I long for the days when we were just trying to keep the drug dealers out
Are you kidding me ? Are you saying that the realtors and sub-prime scum are hitting up young high school and coolege kids trying to get them to buy houses ?
sorry ….college not coolege
Return to basics, Realtors told
At RISMedia’s 11th Annual Power Broker Forum in New Orleans, Re/Max chairman Dave Liniger told a gathering of 1,000 real-estate professionals that people in the industry have developed poor habits.
“We have to be more proficient than ever before and get back to the basics,” he said. “We should turn down a listing today if it isn’t priced right rather than let the client down 90 days from now. If you walk away from a listing that’s overpriced, that’s powerful.”
““We have to be more proficient than ever before and get back to the basics,” he said.”
Should have read:
“We can be more profitable than ever before and get back to the basics.”
Money grubbing Realtors.
SKB
Well , we knew the realtors would start turning down listings once they realized that they were a waste of time . But ,any attempts to just control inventory by turning down listings is another matter . If a seller is within 10 % of current comps there is no reason to turn down that seller (most sellers like to maintain a little bargining room ).With the REIC/NAR sending mixed messages to the public it’s any wonder that any sellers believe anything that is said . The REIC has a ad campaign saying ,”now is a good time to buy’, yet they are telling sellers the opposite . Nothing adds up with the realtors these days and that’s because they are dishonest about what the real problems are . It’s a escess inventory market that was the result of a mania of high speculation and sub-prime low down loan demand . As long as the speculators ,builders ,and foreclosure bound people have
to unload ,a regular market is impossible . I can understand why sellers have a hard time understanding that they can’t sell because of the past buying and building excess of 2002-2005.
This is why I think its just better to be honest about the market and maybe some sellers and buyers can make better decision if they understand that a great amount of homes need to be sold to “end users “that can qualify ,at lower prices ,so it will take a long time to get to a normal market again .
Link to my blog about Chicago RE.
Urban pioneers settle in, hoping their investment pays off