“We’ve Gotten To The Point Where The Trend Is Obvious”
It’s Friday desk clearing time. “Last year, 37,337 single-family homes were sold in Connecticut, the fewest since 1996, according to The Warren Group. ‘Overall, 2006 was the worst year for Connecticut real estate in a decade,” said CEO Tim Warren Jr.”
“The deepest decline so far came in December. ‘Every market needs a breather,’ said Warren. ‘That’s what I’d say we have here, a breather.’”
From New York. “Numerous for-sale signs have sprouted like dandelions across many a well-kept East End lawn. ‘Add to this a slowed market and signs remaining for 6 to 12 months, it can be demoralizing for the sellers,’ said Ann Rasmussen, a licensed sales associate.”
“‘Customers often remark, ‘Wow, there’s a lot for sale’ or, ‘Is everything for sale in this town?’ Sometimes this makes them feel like they can take their time to buy since there is ’so much on the market.’ In this way signs can be a detriment for sales,’ said Ms. Rasmussen.”
“Recent price increases are not sustainable, according to the co-author of TD Bank’s latest national housing market report. ‘The recent dramatic price gains in Calgary and Vancouver are unsustainable over the long term, and both cities are vulnerable to significant moderation,’ bank deputy chief economist Craig Alexander.”
“Townhouses under construction in Saskatoon are being bought up, sight unseen, by buyers from out of province who have no intention of living in Saskatchewan. ‘A lot of them may never see the property. They may never rent it,’ Agent Bruce Claggett predicted. ‘They will just sell it.’”
“Property listings in Sydney have skyrocketed as investors cash in their housing assets. The number of properties coming onto the market in Sydney and in January rose by 100 per cent and 200 per cent in Sydney and its regions, figures from property group Raine & Horne offices show.”
“‘This selling is going to free the market up … and really bring down the ceiling for first time home buyers,’ said CEO Angus Raine.”
“A report issued Sunday has said that speculations constitute a hazard to the real estate market in Kuwait. The report noted that if the chief aim of investing in the field is re-selling at higher prices, it is then considered speculation and no investment.”
“The report depicted a phenomenon that had appeared recently in the Qatari society, that is the wide emergence of ‘For Rent’ banners on apartments. Many were prompted to find what that meant as they thought it resulted from a surplus in new apartments offered for rent, triggering speculations for a decline in prices.”
From England. “The number of people living in the Whitby area threatened with having their homes repossessed has rocketed by 20% in the last year. Ian Scorah, an advice worker who specialises in debt and housing issues said: ‘Debt seems to be a major problem in our area. Our advice centre is inundated with debt-related issues.”
“‘People are borrowing more than they can afford as property prices are so high, this is leading to some very sad situations for local individuals and families,’ Scorah said.”
“Steve Brashears of Storm Lake, who is representing a leading builder of upscale residential developments in Iowa, will be promoting condos at the large Boat and Recreation Show in Omaha next week.”
“‘We have local people in town who are looking to downsize and leave larger homes for a lifestyle with less maintenance. We have people from places like Arizona and California who see it primarily as an investment opportunity, they may actually spend only a few weeks a year living in the units,’ Brashears said.”
“With an increasing number of newly-built homes available for sale and roughly 9,000 homes listed on the Tucson MLS, buyers have bargaining power, said Paul Olson, MLS President. ‘Sellers are making concessions now days. Buyers are taking their time choosing from all that inventory,’ Olson said. ‘We’ve gotten to the point now where the trend is pretty obvious. It doesn’t bode well for a seller who is in a hurry.’”
“‘Recent figures show there are 9000 resale homes available,’ said analyst John Strobeck in his newsletter. ‘Many of these homes are unoccupied. Estimates are as high as 50 percent. We could, and probably will, see a softening of prices in the resale market.’”
From Utah. “According to statistics obtained from Prudential Real Estate in Tooele, total January home sales in the county leveled off at about $14.4 million compared to totals that hovered around $20 million per month for the last nine quarters of 2006. The January total is well below the $24.5 million in sales set in June of last year.”
“‘We’ve received a bit of a breather during the first quarter of this year,’ said Michelle Warner, president of the Tooele County Board of Realtors.”
“More of the same. That’s the story of early February (Orange County) home sales. Median prices are 5.8% below June’s all-time revised high of $642,500. Sales volume runs 19.7% below the year-ago pace.”
“David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist stated that the fourth quarter would be the bottom for the current housing cycle. The report went so far as to fall back on reporting that typical sellers in metropolitan areas ‘experienced healthy gains on the value of their homes over the last five years in almost all 131 available areas, even in areas with recent price declines.’”
“Yeah, we know. It was called ‘the bubble.’”
“NAR stands to lose credibility unless it also loses its Pollyanna approach to reporting the data for which it pretty much holds a monopoly. Realtors and by extension their customers and clients, rely on this information to price homes and set business strategy.”
“It is time that NAR bites the bullet and get real about the full measure of statistics it collects. It is a public service to do so and even the most transparent of cover-ups eventually has drastic consequences.”
A great week and a bunch of data coming out in the next. My thanks to those who support this blog. Please check back this weekend for news, your market observations and topics.
Yeah, it was a great week for news.
Thank YOU Ben for arranging the articles and running the site. You do a great job. We all appreciate it.
Have a good weekend.
Agreed. Couldnt have said it better.
Good job, Ben.
I think we all know its takes alot of your time and we appreciates it.
“Yeah, we know. It was called ‘the bubble.’”
And it miraculouly ended before it even began. Because last year, DL would have never mentioned ‘the bubble,’ and now he speaks as though it is history.
What’s even more surprising is that the quote came from a mortgage industry rag. Even those in the industry are getting tired of Lereah’s BS now. Wouldn’t be surprised if he gets fired before this debacle is done with.
Maybe we like DL where he is … think of where he might go
if fired (remember the Peter Principle).
My guess is President Obama’s new Secretary of HUD in 2009.
Nah, chief spokesman for the Iraq war is a much better fit.
“The worst is behind us”.
Fired! IS that ALL? Good god man this human
trash needs a good public humilation and few
lawsuits keeping him busy with court…
I like to see this guy say to himself…
“I should have kept my mouth shut,
now everyone is sueing me for everything
I got, and i have all these legal fees to pay”
He mistyped it. He meant “fried”
Was he fired from his previous gig at the mortgage bankers association, or was he recruited?
it’s all part “realtor-speak”. it’s faster than a train, faster than a bullet, faster than an airplane; it’s the housing bubble. it came and went in a milli-second; only the keen sight of a realtor can spot it.
Faster than a speeding pullet, more powerful than a locomotive, leaps tall condo towers with a single bound…
Problem with leaping that condo tower is it can’t get back down again. Permanent plateau.
enjoyable isn’t it?
Soon, it will be called something else entirely; e.g. “housing bomb”, “housing meltdown”, “mortgage lendor crisis”, “foreclosure here I come”, or “death of the Realtor(TM) as we know it”.
Any other suggestions to give DL a new name for ‘the bubble’?
Ummmm…
Crisis of 2007?
This has only started.
Got popcorn?
Neil
how about “housing bombing us back to the stone age”
…or how about this headline “Today, several suicide lenders, in a coordinated attack, destroyed numerous subdivisions, lending institutions, homeowners financial futures, builders and the basic structure of the US economy. Also, many innocent bystanders where struck with the clean up costs, estimated to be in the Billions. The international financial terrorist Osama Bin Bernake was suspected to be behind initiating the attacks, while is mentor Ayatolla Greenspan is suspected in planning the carnage.”
…and for you Monty Python fans “No Parrots were involved”
That’s a great point Stucco!
Has anyone cornered Mr. Liar on that? “David, how could the bubble be over if there never was one?”
I think we’ll still hear that there was no housing bubble. However, once it pops (SOON), we’ll hear about the crazy credit bubble that popped and the spill-over is into the housing market. Bet on it.
Nope, you can bet that the Federal Reserve has more pull with the media than the NAR. Except instead of ad revenue at stake they’ll have shady old men holding rolls of worthless quarters waiting in the parking lot.
A roll of quarters in a sock would make a good weapon!
“shady old men holding rolls of worthless quarters waiting in the parking lot.”
Oh, God, why does this bring up the image of a pervert in a raincoat trying to lure a child with “Want a house, little girl?” Yuck-O!
Stucco, Stucco, my intellegent well informed friend.
You expect logic when there is none. This guys has lied so much, he’s lost track.
To be fair he didn’t say bubble, the article did. Yeah, I still think he’s a jerk.
Didn’t see this. Ignore my comment below.
I don’t think DL ever did mention bubble. It was the editorial comments of the writer referring to DL and the NAR. DL will get fired if he admits a bubble.
If things don’t pick up soon, maybe the NAR can merge with the NRA and shoot themselves……
The thing I like about the NAR is that I can spell it.
Hope you all didn’t miss my Is David Lereah an Idiot or a Genius? post.
I propose that DL might actually know more than he is letting on. But, like Andy Kaufman, he plays his part so he continues to get paid. Those book deals and speaking engagements really pay well.
Chuck Ponzi
http://www.socalbubble.com
Chuck;
“I propose that DL might actually know more than he is letting on. But, like Andy Kaufman, he plays his part so he continues to get paid. Those book deals and speaking engagements really pay well.”
Chuck, if we know he has to know. You’re correct, he knows. You’re also correct, He get’s paid well.
Most people would lie their ass off for what he makes. I don’t know about lying, but I would wear a dress and wistle dixie out of my asshole. As far as lying, exactly how much money are we talking about…my hpocrisy knows no bounds.
Kidding of course….although no one has mentioned an exact amount yet
Chuck;
“I propose that DL might actually know more than he is letting on. But, like Andy Kaufman, he plays his part so he continues to get paid. Those book deals and speaking engagements really pay well.”
You’re correct. If we know how can he not know. He makes a lot of money, correct again.
I’d where a dress and whistle dixie out my a**hole for what he makes. (Sorry for painting that mental picture)
Whew!!! I’m coming up for air now!!! I’m at 100%+ for BK cases post-new-BK-law now in San Diego and almost EVERY case has a house, or 2, or 3 that is being given back. Spoke to about 40 realtors/mtg. brokers yesterday and explained that, depending on their origination, servicing and foreclosure/sales practices, they may shortly be sitting across the table from a lawyer that looks like me (white, middle age, short, fat, balding, slurred words, you know the type) at their deposition in a fraud lawsuit. These guys are scared and know that their lending practices are under scrutiny. Glad Ben is still cranking away.
Thanks for the update, BKlawyer!
Glad to hear business is going well for you.
Lawyer;
(white, middle age, short, fat, balding, slurred words, you know the type) Hey, thats me without the law degree and with a wooden leg. I took engineering. Do you need a driver?
Now, thats some good, right from the front info. Let the blood flow. Lereah, Realtors who ever can say whatever but BKlawyer is living it!!.
BKL keep us informed, seriously. This is the real thing, noones opinion, straight from the source.
You now what would be a hoot, on top of all this? Fake BK Lawyers taking big up front fees from ussupecting “clients”. I mean if you’re at 100% plus, the whole BK system will get overloaded, creating opportunities for fraud.
Hey, I think this would be an ideal time for Casey Serin to start a new career. Why does his name sound like a chemical weapon?
At anyrate, my two cents (why is it that you have to put your 2 cents in but they only give you a penny for your thoughts? Somebody is making a penny.) It’s the Gub’ment, I’m tellin’ ya!!
They’re playing us!!!
‘From New York. “Numerous for-sale signs have sprouted like dandelions across many a well-kept East End lawn. ‘Add to this a slowed market and signs remaining for 6 to 12 months, it can be demoralizing for the sellers,’ said Ann Rasmussen, a licensed sales associate.”’
Don’t know and don’t care much about NY geography, but I assume this report refers to an area outside NYC? Because NYC is different, right Garcap?
Oops — google says this is part of Lawn Guy Land…
Stucco
I would have said “For Sale signs sprouted up overnight like mushrooms in a pile of s**t.
Everyone’s a critic!!!!!!
This is the Hamptons, where signs have sprouted up like flowers in Lompoc, California.
They are having a strong summer home rental year because nobody wants to buy.
The area is all second homes which means it’s an investor-infested area. They are in for a bloodbath.
hamptons is crazy. people rent out their homes for like $20,000 or more per summer. used to work with a guy where him and like 10 other people would pitch in and rent out a house for the summer and maid service was extra.
if you bought there a long time ago you are making bank. these days the cap rate is pretty low
Again, the area qualifies for the distinction “INVESTOR-INFESTED”. Even if these secind home owners like to think of their Hamptons second home as just another toy, don’t be fooled - they are huge investments and the ones bought in the past 2-3 years will be particularly bad ones.
Glad I’m not there to see it. I remember when the Hamptons were fun as a kid and even though many wealthy people had houses there, there were decent summer rentals that were still affordable for families and artists. Loved the beaches and the parties and the people. It was a great good time. And it was pretty, too. Now it sounds godawful.
“INVESTOR-INFESTED” aka “INFESTORS” (!)
INFESTORS should have come here first for their infestment advice. They wouldn’t have turned into Uncle InFester.
“there were decent summer rentals that were still affordable for families and artists”.
It seems a spartan 3 BR house nowhere near the water rents for $20,000 for the season between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
And the houses with the fanciest waterfront addresses could rent for hundreds of thousands of dollars for the same period.
The problem out there is it’s way too crowded on LI. So even if your little piece of paradise in the Hamptons offers privacy, it still takes you four hours to drive the 100 miles out there from NYC on a Friday afternoon. And it can be six to seven hours when you hit it at a really peak time.
Once you are there, expect lines at restaurants and expect tortoise-speed crawling the whole weekend on Montauk Highway, which is really the only road you can take to get any distance on the east end. In other words, after your horror drive out there, assume the bunker mentality and stay put. You have paid huge bucks for a weekend prison.
Oh yeah, and on’t drink the water. They have close to the nation’s highest cancer rates - following nearly a half-century of exposure to both toxic pesticides and documented emissions of strontium-90 from reactors at the nearby nuclear Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Another nasty little secret the RE agents don’t tell you is the Hamptons are an epicenter of Lyme Disease, rife with deer ticks having an extremely high spirochete incidence. The smart people out there avoid the dune grass, wooded paths, their own gardens and often their lawns. If you can’t afford to pay a gardener to catch your Lyme Disease, forget the Hamptons.
Holey Moley, Billy Boney. It sounds even more godawful than I thought. What a bunch of idiots, paying millions to have a home in a high-priced s**thole. It used to take us like an couple of hours to drive from Larchmont, in Westchester County. Anymore than that, and my parents would be really pissed off. Sometimes we’d stop at Casa Basso for dinner on the way out. Or we’d make a pit stop at the duck house just for fun. Lyme disease? Back then, who knew?
Wow, hearing all this makes me sort of sad. Is it just me getting old, or have a lot of formerly nice places gone into the sh*tter in a few short years?
My brother is one of those summer renters and I have to say, Montauk is probably my favorite damn place in America.
That’s spoken like a true local BIlly, who wants to keep the place off the map. Just sweat off the hangover on the train and get a cab when you arrive. Oh and the Lyme Disease isn’t so bad, makes the girls want to dance. I don’t know what spirochete is.
I was in NYC most of this week and did not see very many signs at all, but I do wonder if it is because of the density and or lack of space to put a sign.. NYCityboy, any observations?
last year the amount of listings jumped 30% or so, but that was because 2005 was a really tight year for inventory
OT: Was NYC experiencing the year of the Rat?
did you see the story about the taco bell-kfc in greenwich village? just think 3200 a month for rent and rats outside your door the size of cats.
the hamptons is for sale only problem is everyone is renting
go figure? the only people buying out east are super wealthy i.e howard stern etc etc
New York Times is reporting today on a beaver sighting in New York, in the Bronx River. And last month a beaver was sighted in the Hamptons. Maybe those rats are actually beavers? Or are the beavers actually swimming rats? You decide.
i m in nyc(brooklyn) lots of white elephants around (6-18 condo buidlings fully empty) lots of for sale signs on the houses next to them I even saw a few of these —> Building for Sale.
Inside NYC there is no such thing as a “for sale” sign. If you live in Manhattan you have no way to know what’s going on. I see a ton of new “luxury” buildings going up and the prices are ridiculous.
And we have the data to prove it…NOT. All the places where we can actually examine data (Long Island, Queens, Northern Jersey) are experiencing price drops, foreclosures and blooming inventory, but the places where data is unavailable are free to make whatever claims they want to about the health of the market — Surprise! things are just fine in Manhattan and Brooklyn -move along, nothing here to see..
Stucco;
I would have said “For Sale signs sprouted up ovenight like mushrooms in a s**tpile”
Everyones a critic.
From the original post:
“With an increasing number of newly-built homes available for sale and roughly 9,000 homes listed on the Tucson MLS, buyers have bargaining power, said Paul Olson, MLS President. ‘Sellers are making concessions now days. Buyers are taking their time choosing from all that inventory,’ Olson said. ‘We’ve gotten to the point now where the trend is pretty obvious. It doesn’t bode well for a seller who is in a hurry.’”
“‘Recent figures show there are 9000 resale homes available,’ said analyst John Strobeck in his newsletter. ‘Many of these homes are unoccupied. Estimates are as high as 50 percent. We could, and probably will, see a softening of prices in the resale market.’”
Did I just read some truth-telling from our local REIC? I’d better look out the window and see if the sun’s setting to the east!
This goes towards the old adage of going against the crowd just for the sake of it - it’s now getting impossible to not notice the large elephant in the room, no matter how much Kool-Aid these folks have drank. Even the REIC is having to admit there’s a problem.
The realtors are getting HUNGRY. They need sellers to drop their prices a lot to get sales moving, so they can EAT. It’s clear they can’t coax buyers to buy, so now they are eating their young, the sellers and risking breaking the golden rule of RE sales - Prices always go up. That has been replaced by Prices always go up, in the long term.
I’m sure the credit tightening is scaring the hell out of the REIC since it’ll wipe out the gravy train, completely.
Hungry Realtors? Next thing you know, we’ll see homeless people with “Will Sell Houses For Food” signs.
Nah…all the excess Realtors will just go back to their old jobs. Selling used cars, or answering phones in call centers.
DO reators pay unemployment ins… I mean, can they collect, in lean times until they get a job at Ace hardware or Lowes?
I communicate with a lot of realtors from craigslist and they lie through their teeth all the time. I imagine they lie at the unemployment office.
Nearly every single Realtor is an independent contractor, mainly because their sponsoring broker doesn’t want to pay the taxes or deal with overtime issues with them. The IRS watches this like a hawk, so you can be sure they follow the rules.
Anyway, no, an independent contractor doesn’t get unemployment because neither side is paying into the state or federal unemployment funds (everybody is aware that people on unemployment are not sucking the government teet, right?)
AZ;
You’re correct to a point but here is what I see.
Prices are beginning to decline and it will have a positive effect on units sales. There are still plenty of sales, in real numbers.
Think about it. The Newbie Realtors are dropping like panties at a frat party, down this year maybe 30 to 40%. That leaves more “units” for the remaining realtors. With
the inventory glut and the bad press, prices are now coming down and will continue to do so until they reach sane, sustianable levels. One bench mark is when the median income can buy the median house. Put it another way when the median house is less that 3 times the median income. Most markets will go there, in fact most markets, IMHO will go below that for a time. Time to make money.
Realtors that hang in there and advise their clients to realistically price the house will make sales and do fairly well. The will have a bigger piece of a smaller pie, i.e. the buyer pool.
I’ve lived this before. The point of this blog is RE prices are high to the point of insanity, RE prices will correct, we kick around all the reasons why, we have great fun at the expense of the idiots, (David Lerah being our favorite punching bag) but the point here basically is RE prices will come down.
We will come out of this with some, but very little change in how Re business, lending (definitly will tighten, until the next time it loosens) and other links in the transaction chain are done.
This is cyclical, all markets are. A big differance now is that this situation has the potential of really hurting us all economically. That’s what we don’t want to happen.
You are in an exclusive group. You have the foresight to see this train wreck for what it is. All this Blah Blah on this site, mine included, is worthless unless you and everone else has a plan to profit from it.
However we cannot discount the entertainment value. I love to see bumb a**s get the shaft and make smart a** remarks. This is great fun, even if you don’t make money.
But life is a lot more fun when you do! Let’s make some money from these morons!!
192891 households/9000 resale homes (not to mention new homes) = 21.43 households/home for sale.
Nothing to see here folks, move along….
“Townhouses under construction in Saskatoon are being bought up, sight unseen, by buyers from out of province who have no intention of living in Saskatchewan.
If anyone had any doubt about the existence of a global liquidity bubble, let those doubts be banished by the aforementioned. A housing bubble in Saskatoon — good God.
This goes to something I’ve been wondering about - is the global liquidity surplus solely the result of Fed policy, or is there something bigger at work? Is there a structural change underway in worldwide financial markets that won’t become obvious until later?
The Yen carry trade
“Global competitive devaluation”.
Keep an eye on what assets are doing outside the real estate bubble. I think we are seeing inflation anticipation trying to be staved off with things other than pieces of paper currency. Yes, something is happening Mr. Jones.
But EVERYONE wants to live in Saskatoon, John.
It is, in fact, different there…
Yep… it’s friggin’ freezing!
Eight years ago on a bench outside the ruins of Uxmal (Yucatan, Mexico), a woman approached me asking if I spoke English. I said, “Yes, what’s your native language?” (Because I couldn’t recognize her accent.) She said something that sounded like “Swawtaw.” I had her repeat it, and then had her try to spell it in our alphabet, but she stumbled. I said, “Where are you from?” She said she was from near SASKATOON. I said, “Oh, are you related to the Inuit?” She said, “No, the Ojibwa.” I asked how she came to visit Uxmal. She was an employee in a Canadian chicken-packing plant, and someone came around there peddling package tours to Cancun. This all made me laugh inwardly. I kept picturing her in a fuzzy parka, and I wondered what I would think if I went to visit Hudson’s Bay and found a bunch of Mayans dancing in their huipiles. Eek. Well, getting straight to the point: what do people from Saskatoon do in winter? They go on package tours to Cancun.
And what’s your point? There is one wasted minute I’ll never get back. Roll eyes.
I just wasted a minute laughing!
Paul
jckirlan,
Then why do you read blogs? Separating the wheat from the chaff is a time consuming task on any blog. Geez…What a complainer.
They’re running out of land in Saskatoon.
Slim;
Didn’t they change the name of Saskatoon to Loonietoons, or am I getting my cartoons mixed up?
My grandmother passed away a little while ago in Winnipeg. My mom and her sisters sold the house shortly thereafter. It was recently flipped! Winnipeg? I’m sorry, I have many warm memories of visiting the grandparents, but if there ever was a sign that this bubble is completely out of control, it’s that people are flipping in the Peg. It’s a miserably cold place. Whenever Chicagoans complain about brutal cold fronts, it’s merely what Winnipegians experience as normal winter temps. And of course in the summer time there are mosquitos big enough to carry off cats and small children.
Funny you mention Winnipeg. The coldest day I ever experienced in my life was in Winnipeg. I left the airport and got into a cab and I asked the driver what the temperature was. He said, “Minus 40″. I asked if that was Farenheit or Celcius and he replied, “both”. Turns out that -40 is the convergence point of the two scales. Prior to that, I had always thought of the convergence point as some theoretical number, like absolute zero — not something I’d actually experience. On the radio, the metric they used to describe the temperature wasn’t degrees, but the number of seconds it would take before exposed skin would freeze. I would buy a house on the rim of a volcano before I’d buy one in Winnipeg.
John,
Please send a new keyboard to London…you owe me….
Loafer
Being someone born and raised in Winnipeg, I can verify all the above statements. The last year I lived there (1996) was the coldest winter on record. For 42days straight, the temperature never made it above -30. With the “wind chill factor” it often felt like -50 to -60.
A real estate bubble in Winnipeg is certainly a sign… yikes
How do you even go outside when it’s that cold?
That explains why last two months were the bottom of the cycle. DL was talking about Winniepeg.
In Winnipeg for $179,900 nice bungalow with hardwood floors, sunny, big yard. Wonder what this cost in 2000?
http://tinyurl.com/2g93oz
If you’re properly dressed*, even -55 degF is no problem (but if you have to go upwind, you go at an angle and tack, like a sailboat). In fact, if there’s little wind and you start doing physical labor, you may have to unzip your parka or even take it off (of course you’ve got more layers underneath) — getting too hot and sweating will ruin the effectiveness of your insulation.
But it’s quite true that exposed flesh will freeze in 30 seconds at -50 with some wind. If you have to do any work requiring you to remove the arctic mittens, you do it in 15-second increments, with a minute or two rewarming in the mittens between each increment. I once had to take a photo with a manual SLR at 86 deg North latitude in February, -55 degF with 30-knot wind (wind chill far off the charts, extrapolated to around -130 degF); it took many minutes, because adjustments for focus, shutter, and iris required multiple out-of-mitten experiences — fingers started to hurt within seconds after the mittens came off — but with the mittens on I was quite comfortable just walking around.
*Down-filled arctic parka with wind-tunnel hood, down-filled overpants, gloves inside of enormous mittens with down linings, mukluks with felt liners (canvas tops, so the water vapor transpiring from skin escapes instead of condensing inside and soaking the insulation).
You think they play this album at the open houses?
Winnipeg is a Frozen $hithole
Pablo, wow, that’s a gem. I’ve passed it along to my siblings.
do you walk the dog in the basement?
My mother was born and raised in Winnipeg. I just remember being there in the winter and seeing people plug the cars in.
I still remember waking up at 2am thinking “Did I plug the car in?”, putting on my parka and going down 4 floors to check to see that in fact I did plug it in.
I don’t think the city has seen huge price increases. It has the gap between rents and ownership costs in Canada i believe.
Edmonton on the other hand had price gains over 50% in one year. This is after several years of 10% gains. The winters are harsh, but it rarely goes below -30 C. The economy is extremely overheated here due to the oil boom. No much mention of a housing bubble, or liquidity bubble, just the hoards of people from the east coming looking for work. The motto “it’s different here” is still a talking point as prices increase 2+% a MONTH.
lowest gap
Yep record low is minus 45 and record high is 105. Now that is a temperature swing of 150 degrees.
It seems the rapidly declining prices in northern NV are wreaking havoc upon the lending industry, and folks are getting a little hungry. How about this gem from Reno loan officer Angela DiMauro, found on the RenoRealtyBlog:
“…I have to say that buyers should realize that while they are willing able and ready to make an offer way below asking price they are also lowering value not only for themselves but also for the neighborhood. A good rule of thumb is to try to stay as close to the comps to keep our market values up. Does anyone realize out there the repercussions of offering too little could be? Try to get your house refinanced lately? I know a lot of people who have. Guess what? They couldn’t because the last house that sold in the neighborhood drove down the values. Buyers set the bar for the next person who purchases or refinance. After you buy, you’re not in the driver seat any more regarding your value, the next person is. so think twice before you offer.”
Posted by: Angela DiMauro | February 22, 2007 at 03:39 PM
Now THAT”S rich.
so now they expect buyers to help “protect” the property values? I can’t wait to see how that works out for them.
Lets try this in another market, say stocks, so the board of directors says to the trading floor “guys, you know if you only offer xx dollars for these shares the rest of the shareholders will lose money, now you don’t want that to happen do you?” unbelievable.
Anyone interested in buying my Yahoo stock at 350 plus 10 percent?
LOL !!!!!
My response would, “I need to talk to someone else,’cause you’re evidently stupid. I get all I need of that at work.”
My GOD is this guy an idiot. And to think he used a couple of long paragraphs to explain it to all those prospective buyers that desperately need an education on markets.
That’s totally amazing and confirmation that most realtors are even dumber than their chief economist. And realtors are there to offer advice and information LOL!!!!
It’s not a guy, it’s this chick
I sent her the following message on her website:
“I read your comment on supporting comps by not offering too low and I wanted to ask you if you could pull your head out of your a$$.”
Wow, 1998 called, it wants its website back.
Imploder says she has D cup. I hope he meant D “cups”
angela@theloanqueen.biz
loanqueen says it all.
I think she was refering to her coffee cup. She has the alphabet set.
However, ther is a quandry here: why is it you buy a pair of panties but just one bra? Her statement makes sense in this contex.
This is not denial…it is a total disconnect.
These are the majority up here…..complete friggin morons!
Thank you BanteringBear for providing the funniest thing I’ve read on this Blog in ages!!! “You can get this product for $5, but you really should pay $10, because if you get it for $5 then other people will too.” Wow…
F-ing retard! I don’t know what else to say….
Yeah what Inland Empire said — We waited so long and it’s getting better than our wildest dreams.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this on the RenoRealtyBlog. I was going to respond, but Bantering Bear is so much more eloquent than I am. Sounds like a bit of fear is finally starting to spread through the area. What did they expect to happen in an area that is overvalued by such an incredible amount? When I do finally purchase my first home I will have absolutely no interest in protecting the home values of my neighbors - not my fault they were dumbasses that got in way over their heads.
I just posted a comment over there and then realized it’s moderated. Waste of time IMHO; they’ll clamp down on it pretty fast.
You see what we are up against? Like I said earlier this week: That’s not regular stupid. That’s trained stupid. No one is born this stupid. It takes hours of Casey Serin like course work and tremendous energy and effort to get this stupid.
You are right mrktMaven. But, there is something more malicious than stupidity in her post.
It sounds like this (newbie or ignorant) loan officer may be parroting some “training material” intending to keep comps artificially high.
In short, the RE/ml industry is *not* an unbiased arbiter.
That mrktMaven posts is the funniest thing I read all week. I can’t stop laughing and I am still at work. People are looking at me funny.
After you buy, you’re not in the driver seat any more regarding your value, the next person is. so think twice before you offer.”
Posted by: Angela DiMauro February 22, 2007 at 03:39 PM
Can one of you blogger guys please send Angela DiMauro flowers? I thought John from VA’s Winnipeg story was the funniest post all week, but Angie baby topped him.
(Sorry, John from VA…:-()
I think Angie’s brains have relocated to her D cups.
everytime I laugh my azz off after that.
it feels like the Moron Olympics and each moron
is training harder and faster to top the one before him or her.
I really cannot believe she wants others to overpay in order to boost homevalues for people they do not know… is this a communal initiation into idiocy or what
What a maroon.
Would that be a moron in a maroon outfit?
It means that you’re 1/8th moron.
It’s Bugs Bunny pronunciation.
I believe the quote is: “What a maroon. What a ta-ra-ra-goon-deay!”
Correct?
A moron in a maroon outfit, moreroomed on a desert island with MORE ON the way to join him in his more-wrong devotion to selling less or more rooms for more rupees.
They don’t call them “bugs” for nothing.
A good rule of thumb is to try to stay as close to the comps to keep our market values up.
My God, I don’t usually get this worked up about some silly comment in a blog, but this is the limit. So everybody should agree to overpay with their hard earned money in order to sustain her job? That was exactly the attitude that spooked me out of the market a couple of years ago. It is astounding that someone with (presumably) a college degree could even think in those terms, let alone putting it down in black and white for the world to see. God, she is not even thinking of how people can afford these prices with regular jobs, she is only wondering why there are no more new buyers to keep up the ponzi scheme so that the ones who bought into the scam can cash out and keep the cash cow flowing for her. It is so sick it defies any definition I can think of.
Keep in mind, they expect the buyer to turn around and use them for selling it next year at the latest so they are naturally trying to keep the buyers price up for them
Sorry, Pet Peeve Rant!
Your presumption of a college degree is awfully generous.
A good rule of thumb is to try to stay as close to the comps to keep our market values up.
This isn’t even a full sentence! As-close-to-XXXXX-as-YYYYY
In the absence of logic, I propose the following ending:
“A good rule of thumb is to try to stay as close to the comps (to keep our market values up) as you would to a monkey throwing feces.”
Good one! Hee hee!
I think, though, that given the situation in a lot of places now, given the choice of paying comp price with that realtor or being attacked by a monkey throwing feces… it’s hello, monkey!
(I bet the monkey is smarter as well.)
Nova;
If I cought my monkey throwing feces, I’d have to spank him.
Bad Monkey!!
I have to say that buyers should realize that while they are willing able and ready to make an offer way below asking price they are also lowering value not only for themselves but also for the neighborhood. A good rule of thumb is to try to stay as close to the comps to keep our market values up
Now I’ve seen everything. That has to be the stupidest real estate quote I’ve read on this blog, which is saying a lot.
I doubt that she was advocating this asinine “rule of thumb” when prices were going UP.
Consider the source: Reno!!! Best known for…ummmm…hicks, and Reno 911.
Appropriate punishment: cut off her thumbs.
Makes you wonder where her thumb has been. Thumbelina the Realtwhore.
“Now I’ve seen everything. That has to be the stupidest real estate quote I’ve read on this blog, which is saying a lot.”
I’ve thought same thing myself but a bigger idiot always comes along.
Sounds to me like one of those, “my friend is having problem X” sob stories, told when you are too embarrassed to say admit you are the object of derision.
I don’t even know where to begin or end on this one, so I’ll spare all of you my spew. Besides, if I was to comment on this one, the blog would run out memory.
Bear, it makes sense if you repeat it as Groucho Marx would have.
“After you buy, you’re not in the driver seat any more regarding your value, the next person is. so think twice before you offer.””
n-way prisoner’s dilemma, or should I say prisoners’ dilemma. These never end well for the good guy.
Should be corrected to read as….
“…I have to say that buyers should realize that while they are willing able and ready to make an offer way above asking price they are also raising value not only for themselves but also for the neighborhood. A good rule of thumb is to try to stay !00% above to the comps to keep our market values up. Does anyone realize out there the repercussions of offering too much could be? Try to get your house refinanced lately? I know a lot of people who have. Guess what? They could by the Bong of their dreams because the last house that sold in the neighborhood drove up the values. Buyers set the bar for the next person who purchases or refinance. After you buy, you’re not in the driver seat any more regarding your value, the next person is. so think twice before you offer.”
Dumb Women Talk
I have little to add about the astounding stupidity of this statement. Of course we here tend to regard the money paid for a house. This is just another example of people regarding the money paid for a house as some sore of abstraction divorced from real life. Money is always a bit of an abstraction, but I worry that as we’ve gone from specie => currency => checks => plastic => electronic fund transfer people lose the idea that every dollar is a store of value that represents some period of toil, either by themselves, their ancestors or employees.
“‘Customers often remark, ‘Wow, there’s a lot for sale’ or, ‘Is everything for sale in this town?’ Sometimes this makes them feel like they can take their time to buy since there is ’so much on the market.’ In this way signs can be a detriment for sales,’ said Ms. Rasmussen.”
It’s all the damn signs’ fault.
It’s so rich and quick,
that you can’t cruunchcreedit sloow…
That’s the saddest sound I know…
Saw this earlier today:
The Bulls are full of bs
Man, that Schiff interview was too short. He didn’t even get to raise the issue of mounting defaults and foreclosures and $1T+ in resets coinciding with tightened lending. ANyone would recognize that’s a recipe for complete disaster, but the bulls were totally dismissive, claiming easy 10% returns lol! When do they go into retreat?
There are no signs of popping yet! (Not if you don’t take off the lens caps!)
Those ReMax twits are slimeballs - the dude with the long greasy hair stating that 10% gains for 2007 - sounds like he is Gary Watt’s love child. The other joker incoherent ramblings about macro economic figures was ridiculous. Upton Sinclair’s quote “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it” definitely applies here. This interview is a prime example of why TV sucks when trying to discuss complex items since everything is condensed into 30 second sound bytes. Peter did pretty well given the chance - what was up with Ben Stein? I thought that he was smarter than he showed during the interview.
Well, well, well… it finally happened. I know it’s OT, but I had to post this: condoflip.com has finally closed up shop. You know - the site with the scraggly-haired 21-year-old condo tycoon and the brash tagline, “Bubbles are for Bathtubs”? Well, it turns out that bubbles are indeed for bathtubs, not for real estate. Here’s a direct quote from their site:
How Did The Market Change in 2004 and Beyond? We saw a dramatic shift in how preconstruction condos were bought and sold. The condo boom was driven by overly-ambitious speculators, many of whom had been successful in flipping condos in the past. As condo inventories grew and prices rose many speculators realized that further purchasing was increasingly risky. So, buyers just stopped buying.
What Kinds of Results Did Condo Flip See? We saw thousands of sellers, and very few buyers. It didn’t make sense for us to maintain a marketplace where there were few buyers. But, we learned much from this transitioning marketplace, and we are actually very keen on what we see coming next.
So guess what they see coming next? [drumroll....] Foreclosures! That’s right:
The Condo Super Center is an online shopping gallery for condos of all types, new, old, resales, flips and even foreclosures. We have brought the Condo Flip Panic Buttons over to the Condo Super Center for sellers who get into trouble situations and need to sell fast.
Good thing they didn’t leave those panic buttons behind! But wait… there’s more: Condo Super Center is both a floor wax and a dessert topping!
The Condo Super Center is also a series of retail locations to be located throughout Miami and Miami Beach. Buyers can walk into a Condo Super Center 7 days a week and learn about all condos for sale in and around Miami, and meet with trained real estate professionals.
The bubble is dead — long live the bubble!
My other favorite comment was “The deepest decline so far came in December. ‘Every market needs a breather,’ said Warren. ‘That’s what I’d say we have here, a breather
uh huh, so what kind of breathing is this? the hyperventilation of panic? or application of a ventilator to keep the patient alive? I vote for the latter.
When you’re underwater, a breather is not a good thing…
–Shannon
This is supposedly the busiest time of the year for home buying .
In Connecticut- nothing is selling- it is just sitting. ‘Worse year since 1996′
That was the nadir of the last real estate cycle.
Break out the pom pons
http://yochicago.com/magazine/columnists/gail-lissner/housing-watch_952
I think she went to the Gary Watts School of Real Estate…
course, they only ride the short bus.
Hey, she is talking about downtown Chicago specifically.
I know people that got murdered trying to sell their McMansions in the burbs, but in 2006 most stuff downtown was of pretty high quality and isn’t getting flipped. The only problematic parts of downtown are the South Loop (too many mediocre buildings) and parts of the West Loop (lots of uninspiring loft conversions, especially as you get out towards Racine and beyond).
A problem I see downtown is that there is a lot of SPECTACULAR stuff that’s under construction and in the pipeline and it’s going to paint an unfairly rosy picture. Now that the curtain wall is up to the first setback, Trump Tower is looking better than anyone could have hoped for, 340 on the Park is not letting anyone down, 30 W Oak is a stunner, 1 Museum Park is looking to be the class of the South Loop. Even Lakeshore East is getting another success with Aqua set to break ground soon. Can’t forget about Waterview Tower either. Hell, MoMo even looks decent.
These great buildings are going to completely cover up the messes that we have coming with Printer’s Corner, Burnham Pointe, Library Tower, The Emerald, RD+659, and who knows how many more.
my wife made me drive her out to the hamptons last year. i don’t know if it’s normal thing, but last may everything was for sale. if i can i will take some pics, but it’s beyond belief.
From the article:
I love how DL always prefaces his BS with “hopefully” or some other pollyana phrase to give away his bold-face lying.
It’s like when your kid tells you a like and can’t keep a straight face.
(emphasis mine by the way).
Didn’t he say something recently like: ‘I’ve got my fingers crossed?”
Really, how anyone can take him seriously is beyond me.
From the article:
I love how DL always prefaces his BS with “hopefully” or some other pollyana phrase to give away his bald-face lying.
It’s like when you ask if your kid washed their hands, and they say “yes”, but can’t keep a straight face.
(emphasis mine by the way).
What a few forget is the NAR also provides non-public data to the FED.
It was AG who said they were going back and reviewing data
provided by the NAR. I suspect recent FED speak of a bottom was supported data from NAR. Data which the public will not see.
“Townhouses under construction in Saskatoon are being bought up, sight unseen, by buyers from out of province who have no intention of living in Saskatchewan. ‘A lot of them may never see the property. They may never rent it,’ Agent Bruce Claggett predicted. ‘They will just sell it.’”
I never understood how destructive the world-wide bubble was until this line. This town in in the middle of Canadian prairie (think North Dakota), surrounded by nothing but farmland as far as the eye can see, with the major employer being the local government.
If the bubble has reached here, then nowhere in the world can be untouched.
Saskatoon is Canada’s Science City
Actually what’s probably happening is Saskatoon is that Calgary equity locusts are buying up houses in Canada (like the article says), and since they didn’t anticipate it the inventory is getting low which is pushing prices up. They are where US was in late 2004.
Wow, I shouldn’t be writing posts within 10 minutes of waking up.
Here’s a new, fixed post.
Saskatoon is Canada’s Science City
Actually what’s probably happening in Saskatoon is that Calgary equity locusts are buying up houses in Saskatoon (like the article says), and since they didn’t anticipate it the inventory is getting low which is pushing prices up. They are where US was in late 2004.
“NAR stands to lose credibility unless it also loses its Pollyanna approach to reporting the data for which it pretty much holds a monopoly. ”
I would like to say that in defense of the NAR, I believe they, and Mr. Lereah are using the bestest data possible for their economic and real estate reports and predicitons.
…and if you believe that, I have piece of cr*p apartment-converted condo built on swamp-land I want to sell you!
have piece of cr*p apartment-converted condo built on swamp-land I want to sell you!
….Have any zero down financing???
BAHAHAHAHAH! You had me going there for while…
“‘The recent dramatic price gains in Calgary and Vancouver are unsustainable over the long term, and both cities are vulnerable to significant moderation,’ bank deputy chief economist Craig Alexander.”
********
“significant moderation”?
Well, good thing it’s not “drastic moderation” then!
I thought Canadians usually didn’t exhibit this kind of behavior.
An ability to be obtuse nearly to the point of lying.
Many economists don’t like to use the word ‘Crash’.
They fear it will create panic in the streets, mayhem, cats and dogs living together…that kind of stuff.
Well the term for an economic contraction went from panic => depression => recession.
NAR stands to lose credibility unless it also loses its Pollyanna approach to reporting the data for which it pretty much holds a monopoly.
It’s time to start talking about the class action lawsuit.
At the end of the dot com boom, analysts and their banks were sued for painting rosy and overly optimistic predictions. We all remember those analyst-to-broker emails like “dump this dog on our customers before it tanks”. This is no different. Brokers have a legal obligation to represent the interests of buyers. What we have here is a long pattern of deceiving buyers to the benefit of both agents and sellers, and a mountain of data to back that accusation up.
I hope the NAR is prepared to fight a lawsuit with numbers reaching well into the billions, because IMHO one of the big changes that’s coming along with the crash of housing prices will be the end of the de facto monopoly of real estate agents.
We shouldn’t forget that the dot-com era ended with banks and analysts parting ways, and the birth of thousands of boutique analysis groups. What we’ll probably see here is a strict legal regulation forbidding those that broker housing sales from ever offering economic analysis on the state of the market, and the potential of investment opportunities in housing.
At least we can hope…
In most cases, they have the interests at sellers at heart, even if they are a “buyers” representative, since the seller pays the fee. The only real standards is “GET THE DEAL DONE.”
Well, the class action firms better be paying Ben for his archives for the “evidence”.
“At the end of the dot com boom”
DL was the face of this boom and should face the music.
People will want their “piece of meat” at the end, and
his the the prime candidate.
At the end of the dot com boom, analysts and their banks were sued for painting rosy and overly optimistic predictions.
To the best of my recollection, none of the suits were successful. And the securities industry has much more clearly defined responsibilties than the RE industry.
Won’t be any different this time.
sohonyc;
I’m with you but I don’t think you’ll get your wish.
Nothing will fundementally change because of the housing bubble. Nothing fundementally changed after the dot com bubble. Oh, a few rules changed, there were some sacrificial goats, slain in public so the regulators would be seen as “protecting the public”. After the dog and pony show it was biz as usual. It’s pretty much the same as it was.
RE will be the same. Heads will roll, some rules things will change, politicians will pull their “appalled at the complete disregard for the law and the little guy” act, as they castigate a few of the more public and nasty of the offenders and than biz as usual.
Effective, permanent market change happens when the market and it’s participants. i.e. market forces change it. Period. Whens the last time you bought a record, beta tape or a typewriter?
Besides the American Public has collective HDHT. Plus most people don’t have a clue. Lets have a 1 hour TV show, on National TV, explainin gthe situation. Don’t have it duirng American Idol, a football game or a NASCAR race. The people that could change it don’t know it exists and wouldn’t understand it if you explained it to them.
You can buy a house on the internet now. Most people use the internet and than call a Broker. It’ll be like that for a while.
The NAR? They should be burned at the stake for painting a rosey picture of the market which no doubt caused thousands, maybe millions of people to make bad decisions and lose real money. They should dip Lehreah in gas and use him to light the rest of the fires.
Reality?? The NAR is amoung the top three political contibutors in the US. They ain’t goin’ anywhere.
Biz as usual my friend.
you guys have got to read some of the responses from the sac bee comments section regarding the mello roos/bond stuff i’ve been telling you about…these folks are not happy, but hey it’s “different here”
http://www.sacbee.com/dyn/comments/standard/comments_separate.html?uri=http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/127187.html&o=d&ud=u&avatar=n&tie_to=127187
crush
US Housing Market Crash to result in the Second Great Depression
Scary reading the parallels between 1929 and 2009. It could easily come true if this was a global bubble and it bursts.
Time to buy gold and AVOID all debt.
debt might be good if there’s actual deflation. I’ve got $5000 @ 3% with Citi that I’m not in too much of a hurry to pay off, given the 6% it’s earning for me at HSBC right now.
oops inflation, of course.
A Citi carry trade? Hilarious.
i’d say be careful with hsbc…if they continue to lose a bunch of cash, they could fold, and your money may not be safe…even if they claim to have gov’t backing
Surprisingly, there are only a couple of sentances in that piece where he sounds a little tin-hatty. Most of it sounds perfectly reasonable.
Lots of newly listed and recylced junk properties just hitting the market in the New England the last week or so - getting an early start on Spring season
They just need some fool buyers to pay 95 to 97% of full price
We’ve owned for a long time - but if I were a buyer in this market - I would be shopping at TENT CITY
From Bloomberg’s stock market close story:
“The consensus has been it’s going to be contained. Now people are questioning that,” said Bill Strazzullo, the Boston- based chief market strategist at Bell Curve Trading. “It’s going to start with the weakest credit and work its way up.”
Hi,
I lurk here alot to educate myself about this bubble. My “adopted” grandparents like many other seniors here in Phoenix are facing increasing property taxes based on the bubble. They can apply for senior protection for no further increases, however it is based on 2007 values which are high. Since prices are falling lower than the last assessment should they file the Notice of Value Appeal and get another assessment?
they should sell and GTF out of Dodge
http://www.mlive.com/columns/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1171986312284490.xml&coll=2
“With delinquencies already surging, it is inevitable that a combination of higher mortgage payments and weakening home prices will cause many homeowners to default. ”
No kidding genious!
David Lereah’s first book was “Are You Missing Out On the Real Estate Boom?”
Suggestions for the title of his next book:
“Are You Missing Out On the Real Estate Implosion?”
“Are You Missing a Big Chunk Of Your Life Savings?”
“Did You Miss the Fine Print in the Mortgage Paperwork?”
“I Sure Didn’t Miss Out On the Get-Rich-Quick-In-Real-Estate Book Boom”
John, heres a few more:
“Why NAR unjustly fired me and why you should send me a dollar”
“Lereah does not ryme with diareah.”
“Lereah does not ryme with gonareah”
“When your wife divorces you, how to get her to take the house”
“Why Namibia will be the next Real Estate boom”
“How to lie with a straight face”
“How to make 2 plus 2 equal 7″
“Why I am now wandering naked in my neighborhood at night shrubbery”
thats” talking to shrubbery”
This is worth a read…………….
From the text……………
On the affordability issue, Seiders said: “For [the Chicago market] we’re talking about flat pricing year over year. But we’ve got to get affordability restored” for the market to recover.
Amen……..
http://www.chicagotribune.com:80/business/chi-0702230167feb23,0,5178193.story?coll=chi-business-hed
I have a great idea!!!
Concerning the DUMB relator whom is attempting to defend the current pricing on homes.
Lets all make an offer on properties she has listed at extreemly lowball prices. HAAHAHAHHAAAHHAHAHA
MASS LOW BALL OFFERINGS!!!! MWWWHAHHAHAHA MWWWMMWWMHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
“Release the hounds”