“There’s Still A Buyers Edge”
The Capital Times reports from Wisconsin. “Developers of the upscale Bergamont golf and housing project in Oregon are turning their attention downtown. Fleming Development is seeking city approval for a 12-story condominium tower at the corner of West Johnson and Bassett streets that would include 197 housing units.”
“Developer Dan Fleming said he was not concerned about the current glut of new condominiums on the local housing market. There are more than 2,400 unsold condos in Dane County, up from 867 just two years ago.”
“‘That’s mostly in the upper prices ranges,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a different target market.’ That market includes students or parents who might want to buy a condo for their children rather than paying rent, Fleming said.”
The Detroit News from Michigan. “For the second year in a row, most Metro Detroit homeowners are facing higher tax assessments despite a continuing drop in the market value of their homes.”
“Charles Weir of Bloomfield Hills said he isn’t pleased about the possibility of his current $15,000 tax bill going up when the average assessed value in his area has dropped 3.62 percent, according to preliminary figures released by Oakland County.”
“‘I don’t feel good about that,’ he said. ‘I think it’s wrong. I think the taxing authorities are not being realistic or fair. The real estate taxes are not reflecting the state of the market.’”
“The math of real estate assessments is heavily tied to the quirks of Proposal A, the state tax law that took effect in 1994. That law kept homeowners’ tax bills from following the then-soaring housing market.”
“‘We’re already hearing people asking, ‘How can my taxes go up when my market value is going down?’ said Steve Mellen, director of Macomb County’s Equalization Department. He estimates that the gap between taxable value and assessed value averages about 20 percent.”
“Dawn Bettcher said she believed homes in her town were being overvalued given the moribund housing market. She cringed over her taxes jumping up again this year. ‘If our house was worth that, I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t think we could get that if we wanted to sell,’ she said.”
“Bettcher added that several homes in her neighborhood have been for sale for over a year, even after dramatic price cuts. ‘They keep dropping the price, and they’re still not getting anyone.’”
The Kansas City Star from Missouri. “Single-family housing construction slowed 21 percent last year in the Kansas City area in response to a glut of unsold new homes. There were 9,359 single-family units built last year, a decline from several consecutive years in which housing starts topped 10,000.”
“Builders put on the brakes partly because of the number of unsold new homes already on the market, 5,575 as of December, according to the Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors. Coupled with a slowdown in sales last month, the Realtors group estimated the area had a 10.9-month supply of new homes.”
“‘The past year has been a year of transition for the local housing market, with the primary focus of local home builders to reduce speculative new-home starts,’ said Tim Underwood, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association.”
“Underwood used the year-end report to warn that Kansas City builders and governments had to do more to ensure that housing remained affordable.”
“‘There is little doubt that Johnson County and other areas of the metro have lost market share due to a lack of housing choices for families and households headed by teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters, retail sales workers and many other professionals,’ Underwood said.”
“In August, the Kansas City area hit a cyclical peak in unsold inventory tracked by the Realtors, with 20,409 new and existing homes for sale. In December that number had been whittled to 18,030 unsold homes.”
“The inventory number isn’t shrinking because of a surge in sales. In December, 2,336 new and existing homes were sold in the area, down 14 percent from the same month a year earlier.”
“Builders are delivering fewer new single-family homes and shifting more attention to apartments. Some would-be sellers, meanwhile, appear to be holding their homes off the market for the time being while supply and demand rebalances.”
“The 2007 housing outlook in these parts depends on continued restraint by builders and potential sellers. But we haven’t nailed that soft landing just yet. Much depends on how many existing homes go on the market during the spring selling season. At this point, there’s still a buyer’s edge.”
‘the then-soaring housing market.’
This brings up a key point for those who say ‘it never boomed in xyz.’ Many areas had a boom at some point in the last 10+ years and never gave it up. This price move has been going on for longer than most realize, IMO.
Well people that haven’t had alot of speculators and overconstruction probably won’t do as poorly as, say Naples. But house prices EVERYWHERE will suffer due to the accelerationg credit contraction. All of those teaser rate, neg am, low FICO poo will disappear.
WRONG.. I bought my home in Mi in ‘94 and my compound rate of return is 2.5% to date and thats with the state assessment value which I most likely would not be able to get. Realisticly, I’ve gotten maybe 2% which didn’t even keep up with inflation. As an investment, its worse than passbook savings at a bank. The only good thing is I’ve gotten some enjoyment out of it and used the tax breaks.
The only good thing is I’ve gotten some enjoyment out of it and used the tax breaks.
And isn’t that the whole point of home ownership? A place to live and enjoy?
A place to live and enjoy. That’s my house. Thanks for the reminder, people!
Well, it would’ve been nice to experience what everyone else seems to have with exploding values and sudden riches. We sure haven’t here in Mi. My neighbor bought his 2600 sq ft home on 1 acre in ‘00 for 280K. He’s retiring and wanted to sell this spring. His home is assessed at 339K. First he tried 325K to try to get a quick sale with absolutely no lookers. In late July he reduced to 309K. A few showings but no offers. The point is, hes quickly approaching 0% appreciation for 7 yrs and with my calculated rate of 2%, I hear Ben talking about ” bubble” areas not reported. If this is a bubble, me and my neighbor would hate to see what a bust looks like.
Look at Flint or Saginaw. I lived in Canton Twp when GM shut down the Willow Run plant.
Sometimes you’re lucky to get out at a 5% loss.
That’s pretty consistent with what we’ve seen in our area - although it seems there were a few higher than inflation years during some period 1989-2003. With the significant drops 2004-2006, we’re probably at mid-90’s prices. I wish had tracked this more to pinpoint it. I do know that we had bubble increases in 1978-1979, that far exceeded the high inflation rates of those years.
Hmmmm….
Somehow I sense a bit of disconnect between the ivory tower pundits continual talk of a “soft landing”, vs. escalating web stories using the verb, “plummet”…
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/25/D8MSCVBO0.html
Charlotte NC - 98-2002 houses went down in $$$. By 2002 Big Builders (centex, beazer, lennar, Hovnanian etc) switching from semi custom ($100 or so a sqft - 200K for 2,000 sqft) to tract ($50-60 a sqft - 3245 sqft for 160K in my neighborhood). worse yet, these houses were interspersed into the empty lots in older neighborhoods as the more $$$ builders bailed. 02 to now we barely kept up with inflation. That is in north and west charlotte. South of charlotte is total bubble city.
Cool.
Cow_tipping.
Houses in the surburbs north of Dallas are going for 60-70/sf (McKinney, Frisco, Allen), These are nice neighborhoods with excellent schools. These are less than 10 years old. I just can’t see a bubble here at $65/sf when other areas are at $300/sf.
The foreclosures are always high in Texas because:
1. Homes do not appreciate, so FB’s have no escape hatch
2. Keeping up with the Joneses. There’s not much to do in Texas except work and spend money
3. Killer property taxes average 3.25%
I don’t think there’s ever been a real property boom in Texas - only busts. I remember newer houses on Houston’s Northside were going for $40K during the late 1980’s oil bust.
“Single-family housing construction slowed 21 percent last year in the Kansas City area in response to a glut of unsold new homes. There were 9,359 single-family units built last year, a decline from several consecutive years in which housing starts topped 10,000.”
Ben — IMO, one of the most amazing revelations you have brought to light is the fallacy that the bubble was strictly a matter of local froth in coastal housing markets. Story after story documents that overbuilding was a national epidemic, and the aftermath is hitting in places like Kansas City which were presumed to be immune just a couple of years back.
BTW, I am guessing the 21% construction recession, though severe, is less so than the national average. Any thoughts?
Sorry if a repeat…
” ales of existing homes fell in December, closing out a year in which demand for homes slumped by the largest amount in 17 years. ”
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/01/25/D8MSCVBO0.html
they’re not all crashing at the same time.
…but they’ll all meet at the bottom…
“‘That’s mostly in the upper prices ranges,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a different target market.’ That market includes students or parents who might want to buy a condo for their children rather than paying rent, Fleming said.”
In the Madison, Wisconsin housing GLUT….This CLOWN had to be KIDDING or on DRUGS !
Kiddie condos, yeah, right. And after the coming credit contraction who will be left to write a loan for units in these planned “animal houses”?
Let’s see, the role call of all those being counted on to bail out the condo market: empty nesters, snowbirds, cosmopolitan boomers, widows/widowers/the divorced, alternative lifestyles (gays & lesbians), dead enders like me, and now the college kids.
Others here have said they’ll market to the unborn next, I don’t doubt it. But first please allow me to retierate my position: the Midwest condo market is toast. Time will prove that condos, although quite suitable for some segments of the population, will not hold lasting appeal for the sheer numbers being counted on to justify their construction. In other words, most Americans don’t want to hear their neighbors hump, burp, and fart. (And yes, I have been in numerous “new construction” units where the soundproofing is barely better than converted apts.) So there.
I though Rummy said that there were only a few dead-enders.
He misunderestimated.
It’s another version of “it’s different here”.
Daddy, buy me a car, pay my tuition and drop another $200,000 on a party condo at UWM Whiskey Tech. Make THIS the best 4=5 years of my Life Poppy…Pleaseeeeeeee . ha ha ha…IN your Dreams kiddo !
‘We’ve got a different target market.’
We are targeting only the very dumbest of all possible buyers…
Californians or Floridians?
Funny, Kansas City has a 10.9 month supply of homes right now and they state “The buyers have an edge” and then there is this, “Much depends on how many existing homes go on the market during the spring selling season. At this point, there’s still a buyer’s edge.”
So when spring hits and there are thousands more on the market the buyesr WON’T have an “Edge”. Gotta love these people. Where do they get these interviewees?
I think markets like KC, St. Louis, Indy, Cincy, Columbus, Louisville are in a lot of trouble. One of the big differences these markets have compared to some of the coastal markets is the local media has been very quiet about the supply build up and jobs that are being lost. I know in the Cincy area the local newspapers have be very careful on how and what they report on related to the housing bust. The local builders associations appear to have some major pull with the media. The one area they are starting to report on a little more is the foreclosure rates, its hard for the media to pass up these sad stories. At least its a start.
As a side note, I can tell you that housing permits are way off in the Cincy market and many of the homebuilders are really starting to fell it in the pocket. I talked to one builders the other day and they quietly stated they think the market will not improve until 2008. I think it will be longer than that, but at least they are starting to realize this year is going to be a bust.
Yet they keep building and selling in Warren county, north of Cincy. The varous Shaker run developments down the road from me are all going steadily forward. And the San Mageal (sp?) project will be starting soon.
I don’t know about those specific projects, but in general the amount of building even Warren County (the hot market) is slowing way down. We will see a pick up in new building by builders hoping for a spring bounce. After that we will see a lot of empty houses.
and thats corn land -where it’s all subidized ethanol bs
Check out this page on the Kansas City HBA for a good laugh. 10.9 month supply on the market NOW and they state this garbage.
http://www.kchba.org/cgi-bin/news/viewnews.cgi?category=1&id=1164818492
I love this type in the Q&A:
Isn’t it better to “play it safe” and keep renting until things are more certain?
No. The best way to “play it safe” is to actually buy a home. And here’s why. Studies show that owning a home is the best way to builder household wealth.
“builder household wealth” — Yup, buy that house and you’ll surely increase the builder’s wealth, by gum!
Yep, It builds wealth for Brokers,a few former barristas (agents), and for a while for construction firms (Granite countertop makers). If you bought at the peak, and you don’t get a massive reset, wait a decade, and your wealth will come.
2 comments from this peanut gallery:
That market includes…parents who might want to buy a condo for their children rather than paying rent.
Way to make your kid independent! What a bunch of spoiled young adults out there.
How can my taxes go up when my market value is going down?
How can your market value soar 200% and you NOT expect to pay much higher taxes? I’m willing to bet most people’s taxes did not increase during this unprecedented run-up and that only now are towns reassessing.
Actually this is a great way to teach your children financial responsibility(the hard way), as long as only their name is on the mortgage. In todays market they would learn a lesson they won’. t forget. Get them to join the herd now, and sit back and enjoy your popcorn.
Did you teach your child not to run out into the street by backing over them with your car?
Man that was hilarious!!!
Yes real funny and hilarious ! Nothing like a vicious joke.
Probably prop 13 style assesment rise caps. I just got my Maryland assesments and my county taxable value hasn’t even caught up to my 2004 assesment. It’s likely to take a decade of for my taxable value to catch up with my assesment.
So what happens in a few years? Let’s say, for the sake of argument, prices drop 25% from peak values. If the taxable value lags so far behind, is it possible that at some point the taxable value will be higher than the assessed value (taxable value catches up to 2005 assessed value, but current assessed value is lower than that)? Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I’m curious.
I think the way it goes w/ Prop 13 (in CA) is that taxes can raise “up to” 2% every year. I’m not sure if they raise everyone up 2% per year just because most tax assessment as so much lower than present-day value. It would be interesting to hear how that works with declining property values…
Generally you have to request a reassessment, but there’s no limit on downward adjustments.
Interesting wrinkle, though… if you’re taxes are lowered, then they can be “recaptured” up to the prior level if prices recover, regardless of whether that upward adjustment exceeds the 2% annual limit.
A Huntington Beach homeowner challenged “recapturing” in the California Supreme Court. Despite the unambiguous language of prop 13 against such things, the court ruled it legal (likely because it would’ve decimated public coffers).
OOPS! …your taxes…
I can speak from personal experience on that one. Here in Tucson, I’ve had the “privilege” of living across the street from a student apartment complex. (It was called Park Place. We neighbors called it Party Place.) Now I own a house across the street that was bought by daddy so that daughter could live there and rent rooms while she attended the University of Arizona. Neither she nor her roommates have any notion of property maintenance, repair, or yardwork. That’s for daddy to do.
I had the same thought in 2001 when I sold my 2 bed, 2 bath 1500sf condo in Boston to a guy who bought it for his kid that was attending college here. I sold it for $650,000 and the guy sold it last year for $975,000 with no improvements. That’s sure better than paying the kids rent for 4 years.
975K for a 2/2 condo ?
Watch for fraud.
No way. We bought a very modest house in 1998 (Midtown KC) and taxes have increased for us every year, some years by more than 10%.
(“The math of real estate assessments is heavily tied to the quirks of Proposal A, the state tax law that took effect in 1994. That law kept homeowners’ tax bills from following the then-soaring housing market.”)
People have such a sense of entitlement that no good deed goes unpunished. Prices soared, incomes did not, and Michigan had rules in place that limited property tax gains to gains in income (and thus the need to pay state and local workers to maintain services). Good for them. Well, now prices are returning to income levels. So why the complaints? They should talk to people in states where assessments and taxes soared and tax money was squandered.
Moreover, I can tell you that state and local government employment in Michigan has been plunging for near a decade. They have an ongoing fiscal disaster. It isn’t like they have been hiring like they have in Upstate New York, because they have no New York City to exploit.
What to do? I would have suggested what Michigan has as a solution here. Perhaps not.
hwy not tie taxes to population increase
what other factor is there?
theft by pols?
“For what are states but large bandit bands, and what are bandit bands but small states?”
-St. Augustine of Hippo
“ If everyone votes they’ll vote themselves circus and bread.”
-Thomas Jefferson
“The 2007 housing outlook in these parts depends on continued restraint by builders and potential sellers. But we haven’t nailed that soft landing just yet. Much depends on how many existing homes go on the market during the spring selling season. At this point, there’s still a buyer’s edge.”
So many ridiculous statements.
Ok, let’s start with the obvious “edge” statement….yeah, like a razor, pal.
Then move on to “restraint by builders”…an oxymoron if there ever was one. Those two words do not go together. No restraint on the upside, and certainly none on the down.
Then the ubiquitous “soft landing”…ah, that’s sooo 2006.
I’m goin’ to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come.
They got some crazy little realtors and I’m a gonna get me one.
-”“The 2007 housing outlook in these parts depends on continued restraint by builders and potential sellers.
- But we haven’t nailed that soft landing just yet”.
I swear that I heard a hammer dropping…
I love the way they say it’s “still” a buyer’s market. Uh, yeah.
Guess we can all get used to hear that, though. It will “still” be a buyer’s market for a loooooooooooong time.
msm - always w the median bs- I can find a home 10% off peak in any county in the USA- 15% off in most
Even with the sharp drop in sales last year, the median price of an existing home sold in 2006 managed to rise a slight 1.1 percent.
This RE market is so manipulated by the RE soft brains that it is any wonder the average Joe can figure out what is a good buy and what is not. I live and rent in Irvine,Ca after selling my home and would never buy again in Calif. unless a BIG drop to pre 2001 levels were to happen. I see big homes in Woodbridge in Irvine that have been on the market since July and originally sold in 1977 for 35K and they are asking over 800K. Where do these crazy sellers come from?
And since estimates are that the OC owes up to 25% of its productivity to R.E. related industries, prices in places like Irvine will be dropping greatly as those folks begin losing jobs en masse.
Wonder how the fraud is affecting the property taxes . Would not imagine that those 200k cash backs lower the taxes in a area .
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Sales of U.S. existing homes fell 0.8% in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.22 million, a national real estate group reported Thursday. Sales in December were down 7.9% compared with December 2005. Inventories of unsold homes fell 7.9% to 3.51 million, representing a 6.8-month supply, the National Association of Realtors said in the report. “It appears we have established a bottom,” said David Lereah, chief economist for the NAR. The decline in sales was close to the 6.24 million expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. The average median sales price was $222,000 in December, unchanged from December 2005.
Thank God someone came along that has a crystal ball which actually works and can foresee the future. Thank you Mr. Lereah, I think I’ll go buy now.
sarcasm off
median price means half of new buyers purchased over median and other half bought below median.
if median is $222,000 there are a lot of new buyers purchasing homes for way less than $222,000. Who are these people and where are they buying?
Ive been an avid reader of this blog going on a little more than a year, and I would like to share my new house story…
I lived on the Big Island of Hawaii, and for some reason I could not pull the trigger on a home purchase…..reasons, too fricken pricey, too termite ridden, not enough work(aka solid job base). Lots of fun in the sun swimming with dolphins, kayaking out to the whales, hiking to unbelievable waterfalls….but it was time to grow up after renting and working for 5 years out there.
Anyway, I moved with my wife and 2 daughters to Oregon, got a great job and began the house hunt. That’s also when I began reading this blog. I watched the market (avg home price here is above 200k, but I know that’s BS).
I found a house that was listed for 199k, it is just down the street…1550 sqr ft. 4 bdrm 2 bath, duplex. Craftsman style, hardwood floors. Owned by little old lady. I was the only one who looked at it in six months, and I made a lowball offer, rejected, and the house went off the market. So my search continued, I found another one… You have to remember we only make 50k year combined, So I new it had to be 150k or less, or I would be making a mistake… this one new, 1200 sqr ft, ask 169k… I marched my offer all the way to my 150k and the seller didn’t even have the decency to reply. So, I looked at the sqr ft price and realized I was up to 180k on the little old ladys house.
What to do? I went and sat down with the old lady, and I bought her house,30% down 5.75, 15 yr fixed. Now I pay 900.00 a month (my rent was 750 for a 3 bd rm 1 bath POS.)
Morale of the story, save money, and don’t use real estate agents. Find one you want and approach the owner after it goes off the market.
“It appears we have established a bottom,”
Does he say that every damn month, or is it just me???
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070125/BIZ03/701250387/1001/BIZ
This Home values down = Taxes up is an article about Detroit but IT will be spreading throught the US very soon. I was chit chatting with an older bank official yesterday. His biggest Fear war local reassesments DOWNWARD…Can you say….Left HOLDING the Bag ?
If David Lereah crosses his fingers and toes one more freakin’ time…!!!!
Yeah, what a way to restore confidence, speak like a child! Of course his target audience already has a thing for statues.
You know, I heard an interview with him this morning on WTOP. Lereah said something about a bunch of speculators “myself included” who bought properties where the cash flow wouldn’t support the price bought in the DC area who had to flip the property to make any money. He said those investors got caught “with their financial pants down.”
Any other questions about why Lereah is pushing hard to recreate an up market? Where are the disclosure laws for realtors?
I would expect that as the market continues to soften, that builders will switch up what they are building to something that the market wants/afford. It’s fine and dandy to build $600k luxory condo’s, but there are only so many luxory buyers. At some point, one would think they will build 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath houses with a carport under cutting a majority of the market.
Atleast, if I was a builder in a declining market with affordibility issues that relied on cashflow. That seems to be the only course of action that makes sense.
I called the KCHBA and talked to the webmaster. We had a good laugh. The site has been corrected. LOL
Ah, now why’d you go and do that???
No it hasn’t. It still says the BS about the best way to build wealth being buying a home
Now, could any of us predicted this at all? Yahoo picked this up from AP. And they quote the DL $HIT
Existing home sales plummet in 2006 By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
34 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Sales of existing homes fell in December, closing out a year in which demand for homes slumped by the largest amount in 17 years.
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The National Association of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes were down 0.8 percent last month, a bigger decline than had been expected. For the year, sales fell by 8.4 percent, the biggest annual decline since 1989, when existing home sales fell by 14.8 percent.
The sales figure underscored the sharp contraction that is going on in the once high-flying housing market, which before last year had set sales records for five straight years.
Even with the sharp drop in sales last year, the median price of an existing home sold in 2006 managed to rise a slight 1.1 percent. But that was far below the double-digit gains during the boom years. The median home price had risen by 12.4 percent in 2005.
After a five-year boom, housing slowed significantly last year, which has caused ripple effects throughout the economy with rising job layoffs in construction and other housing-related industries.
But economists said they believe the low point for housing has been reached and they are forecasting a slow rebound in 2007. Because of that optimism, analysts don’t believe the slump in housing will drag the overall economy into a recession.
The 0.8 percent drop in sales in December came after two straight months of improving sales, the first back-to-back sales gains since the spring of 2005.
David Lereah, chief economist for the Realtors, said that even with the December setback, he still believes that sales of existing homes have hit bottom and will start to gradually improve.
He said that in 2005, 40 percent of the market represented purchases of second homes and investors buying homes looking to resell them for quick profits.
He said that speculators had now left the market and that should leave sales at a more sustainable level.
“With fingers and toes crossed, it appears that we have hit bottom in the existing home market,” he said.
In other economics news, the number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits shot up last week by the largest amount in 16 months, reversing two weeks of big declines.
The Labor Department reported that 325,000 newly laid-off workers filed claims for jobless benefits last week, an increase of 36,000 from the previous week. That was the biggest one-week rise since a surge of 96,000 claims the week of Sept. 10, 2005, when devastated Gulf Coast businesses laid off workers following Hurricane Katrina.
The increase of 36,000 was bigger than the 20,000 rise that had been forecast. Analysts, however, cautioned that it is difficult to read the claims figures at this time of year because of unusually wide swings caused by the holidays and other factors.
Based on past trends, claims numbers often surge in third week of the month as retail businesses shed seasonal workers hired to help with the crush of holiday shoppers. However, this year, the layoffs were much higher than in past years.
The jump in jobless layoffs followed a string of reports showing the economy was performing at a better-than-expected pace at the end of 2006 and the beginning of the new year. Employers added 167,000 new jobs in December, helping to keep the unemployment rate at 4.5 percent.
Economists believe that while growth has slowed because of the steep downturn in housing, they expect the United States will be able to avoid an outright recession.
In this Bizzaro World of Bush Enronomics and his great “OWNERSHIP SOCIETY”, the WORKING Americans are finally discovering that the REAL Axis of Evil is really your Local Realtor, Lender and your City Tax Assesor. The rest of the REIC riff raff are contributing Evildoers.
But what the Hell, moneys no object and Baghdad can VOTE with Purple Fingers and eat “Freedom Fries”
“OwnerSinkingShip Society” would be more adequate term. The ennemy is within. And when you have problems, you make a little war to the bad guys with turbans and dirty breads, that the f-ckers from the CIA financed 20 years for fighting against the bad bad bad bad russian communists. Yeah the World is ripe for another war. That way you forget all the problems of the “OwnerSinkingShip Society”. But you hit on the nail. It’s ENRON accounting applied to real estate.
I thought it was dotcom economics applied to RE. It was the 1990’s when they were all saying that it’s a new paradigm and the fundamentals don’t matter anymore.
I wonder if you guys were as angry about the dotcom bubble and blamed Clinton. Alot of retirees were wiped out. Let the good times roll.
“‘We’re already hearing people asking, ‘How can my taxes go up when my market value is going down?’ said Steve Mellen
But the problem is that the sellers and RE agents don’t admit that the market is going down.Why should they lower taxes when everyone one knows that in the spring that home prices will be going up again. Let’s get honest people which is it, up or down? MI isn’t as telling as LV will be when they have falling property values and at the same time will be trying to find funding for police, fire, infrastructure and the unemployed! Oh yeah, I forgot, CA legislature said that all these unemployed people could move here and get unemployment rates at CA rates and not at the state rate from which they crawled.
And as Cali gives out free medical care, I’ll establish residency so that my cares will be fewer, thanks to the tax-paying suckers who support big gov’t.
“I’m not a person who thinks he can have it all, but I certainly feel that with a bit of effort and guile I should be able to have more than my fair share.”
- George Carlin
Just wait until all the people with heart disease, diabetes and AIDS flock to California for free healthcare. The homeless already flock to SF and SoCal for the free money and nice weather.
In Simi Valley, CA there is a new “infill” townhouse development… In November, the starting price was $499,000 for a 3 bedroom. Just yesterday, I saw an advertisement in the local real estate sales rag and the new starting price is $449,000. They’re offering free washer/dryer and other incentives as well as NO MONEY DOWN FINANCING!
OUCH! The neighborhood just got a 10% haircut!