“Welcome To The Recovery That Wasn’t”
The St Petersburg Times reports from Florida. “When the flood of fresh home listings stopped rising last fall, the Tampa Bay housing market appeared poised for a recovery. Welcome to the recovery that wasn’t. So many for-sale homes continue to bloat the area real estate market, nearly 41,000, that sales as a share of total home listings are at their lowest point in recent memory. In February, about one home of every 20 on the market found buyers.”
“Realtors, usually a confident lot, are making few attempts to sugarcoat the recent numbers. ‘It’s pretty huge, pretty staggering,’ said Ann Guiberson, president of the Pinellas Realtor Organization.”
“Carlos Fuentes, who presides this year over the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors, said buyers haven’t turned out as expected this year. He blames the standoff mostly on sellers fixated on reaping top dollar for houses that have depreciated.”
“‘The buyers are on the sidelines waiting for the blood to continue to rise,’ Fuentes said.”
“About a quarter of homes bought in the boom were ‘non-owner-occupied,’ the National Association of Realtors said in a Tampa area market study last year. Adding to a sense of alarm is the hidden home inventory that swells the market further. It includes by-owner sales, most new construction and condo conversions, and bank foreclosures.”
“Other danger signs abound: About 36 percent of Tampa area home buyers used adjustable-rate mortgages in early 2006 and 11 percent with weaker credit took out subprime loans carrying interest at least 3 percentage points higher than market rates.”
The News Press. “Local real estate experts shared a positive outlook about Southwest Florida’s real estate market at the Bonita/ Estero Market Pulse ‘07 Thursday night. How quickly it will turn around, they said, depends on sellers’ willingness to reduce prices.”
“After the boom of 2004-05, said broker Jim Scartz, sales prices in 2006 reflected closings on newly constructed homes that were bought six to 18 months earlier. The prices were not reflective of the true market in 2006, and as many as 60 percent of the listings had unrealistic prices. Even now, Scartz said, about 35 percent of the inventory falls into that overpriced category.”
“‘Prices always take off with a roar at some point after the plateau, achieving far higher levels than in the past,’ Scartz said.”
The Bradenton Herald. “The real estate markets in Manatee and Sarasota counties have hit rock bottom, will stay there for the next 12 to 18 months and then begin a 3 percent to 4 percent annual growth climb. That’s the opinion of noted Florida economist and financial oracle Henry H. Fishkind.”
“Lunch attendees Jack Hubbard and his wife, Karen, were happy with the news, since they have had a home on the market in Greenbrook for 15 months. ‘I’m thrilled,’ said Jack Hubbard.”
“The Hubbards priced the home at $414,900 just before the market collapsed. Now, they have it listed at $319,900.”
The Herald Tribune. “Lennar Homes, the region’s largest home builder, cut another 56 positions in Sarasota-Manatee on Thursday as it and builders around Southwest Florida continue to grapple with one of the nation’s slowest housing markets.”
“The layoffs on Thursday coupled with the 35 positions eliminated in late February mean that the big Miami-based home builder has trimmed 40 percent of its local staff. ‘Everyone is downsizing and reducing their costs,’ said Pat Neal, president of Lakewood Ranch-based Neal Communities.”
“Other builders have taken a similar tack. In December, Bonita Springs-based WCI Communities Inc. said it would cut its work force by an estimated 15 percent. The company is now shedding 1,000 workers, or one-quarter of the total.”
The News Journal. “The slump in condo sales has been well-documented, but its impact is still being felt. Throughout the Volusia-Flagler market, stalled condo projects have left partially completed buildings, vacant buildings and empty lots.”
“By the numbers, there were 965 condos sold by Realtors in 2006, down 55 percent from 2,162 in 2005, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.”
“Local government officials feel helpless to do much about the condo sites, other than to make sure the developer keeps them clean. Mark Rakowski, New Smyrna Beach director of Development Services, said he’s not sure what the city can do if developers don’t ultimately build what they planned and let the site go vacant.”
“Vacant buildings seem to always serve as malfeasance magnets. That’s obvious at the former Waterside Plaza in South Daytona where graffiti now decorates the exterior. Vagrancy, theft and vandalism have been problems at the property, said Realtor Herb Lubansky, who is marketing the condos planned for the site.”
“‘We’ve tried to keep the property as clean as we could,’ he said, ‘but you always have those types of issues with vacant buildings.’”
The Keys News. “Investors who had hoped to flip their condominiums before they even closed on their properties are suing the Santa Maria to return their $1 million in deposits. A second suit by another attorney is pending.”
“Santa Maria attorney Ed Scales brushed off the suit, saying the investors are just trying to find a way out of a declining real estate market, in which their condos are not selling.”
“‘The plaintiffs were assured by the defendants that once the building was under construction, prices would increase dramatically as they were contracting at a bargain price, therefore there would be no issue with the plaintiffs being able to resell their investment contracts to somebody else at a profit,’ the lawsuit says.”
“In the suit, the investors admit they relied on the Realtors’ claims without reading the entire contract.”
“‘This has to do with people speculating in the real estate market. It was a nationwide trend in 2004 and early 2005. They got pinched…The market is bad. Even by their own words, they never intended to close on the units. Obviously, they were speculating and this is what happens when you speculate. Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn’t,’ Scales said.”
‘Julian Stokes completed at least three questionable appraisals for banks that lent money to Neil Mohamad Husani’s former partner, Michael Tringali.’
‘The appraisals raise questions because Stokes failed to notice that Husani bought the properties for one price and sold them to Tringali, often on the same day, for more than twice as much.’
‘Major metro areas in Florida are losing steam as growth engines, census data confirm. A prime example of the trend is the Hand family. The Hands moved to Lake Mary in 2002, ahead of the housing boom that drove up property taxes and the hurricane seasons that kicked up insurance costs. Last year, with costs mounting, they cashed in on their home and moved near Charlotte.’
‘To me, in Florida, it is so difficult for a middle-class family to make ends meet,’ said Sophia Hand. In Florida, Hand’s property-tax bill was $3,200. In North Carolina, she pays $592.03, she said. The Hands paid $1,200 in homeowners insurance in Florida. ‘Insurance is skyrocketing,’ Hand said. ‘Everything is going up.’ In North Carolina, living hundreds of miles from the coast, they pay $250 in homeowners insurance.’
FL has no income tax, so they make it up on property tax rates, NC has lower prop tax but makes it up with income tax….
never doubt the ability of the man to drain your wallet
Julian Stokes has been one of the most respected appraisers in Florida for many years. This is really sad. There simply has to be more to the story.
The only thing I can imagine is that the Flipper did not record the previous deal and then pushed the hell out of Stokes to finish his appraisal. Even then why the value difference?
Or just plain bad judgement and bad appraising. Even the mighty will fall in these environs. Damn shame!
It’s pure greed. He probably took a payoff.
Lord I hope not Jerry.
Then this lady in North Carolina is going to get old, and she is going to want meals on wheels and home health aids and her lawn mowed by the city and trash picked up at the door and a senior center and once-a-month squad runs to the hospital, and her property taxes will go from $500 to $10,000 per year and she’ll bitch about it. You get what you pay for.
malfeasance magnets - this is another term for the housing bubble dictionary.
Sounds like a misuse of the word malfeasance. More like a lowlife magnet from the description.
“Lunch attendees Jack Hubbard and his wife, Karen, were happy with the news, since they have had a home on the market in Greenbrook for 15 months. ‘I’m thrilled,’ said Jack Hubbard.”
I can’t believe anyone could be so stupid. Thrilled on the basis of a hokey prediction?
No, thrilled that they’ll still have a few threads left on their shirt after they lose most of it.
these chuckle-heads are toast
They were thrilled about a prediction which could be reworded as:
“Your investment will completely trail inflation for the next 12-18 months, followed by a climb where it trails inflation by only 1-5% annually.”
“I’m thrilled!”
and sat there getting this news after paying for a shty lunch= thrilling !
Let me be the first to predict that the Hubbards’ house will be in foreclosure long before the market rebounds.
Just among people I know here in Tampa, several of whom are fruitlessly trying to sell, it is remarkable how sentiment has completely shifted. One person just accepted a job in another state, after buying in December 2005. His despairing comment? “Now I have to sell my house.” Another is attempting to sell an undistinguished townhome, and has reduced the price twice–she now is just $25,000 above her purchase price in the spring of 2005. However, there are new townhouses under construction just down the street selling for less than that 2005 price. Game over!
You can see the desperation and fear in people’s faces, and this is among people who have good jobs.
So this is what you do when you are in this situation….
Sell all your stock (if your smart enough to diversify your portfolio….most likely not), drain all your bank accounts (what is left anyway), sell your Lexus, Infiniti, BMW, or giant SUV (basically your really expensive vehicle), go to the bank and beg for a short sell and give them all the money you now have in hand. The bank will look at it, know that they have one of two choices, accept the short sale or take the more expensive route of foreclosure (I myself would take the short sale, but who knows what the bank would do….their stupidity got us into this mess anyway.)
In the end, you start over….unless you were really smart and invested a large chunk of cash into your 401K (which the bank can’t touch), but I doubt these knuckleheads did that.
sell your Lexus, Infiniti, BMW, or giant SUV (basically your really expensive vehicle)
Pretty close to 100% of these people are upside down on their car too.
Actually, having liquidated your assets you store them outside of the system, say for example CASH in a pillowcase. You then pack up and move out. From that time on you live on a cash basis…
I think they were being sarcastic.
After the meeting, Fishkind said if the Hubbards can hang on for awhile, they won’t need to drop the price anymore.
“I don’t know their financial shape, but if they can, they should stay with it,” Fishkind said. “We have definitely hit rock bottom. But it will take 12 to 18 months to chew through all this inventory.”
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By listening to this ‘noted oracle’ Fishkind the Hubbard’s just signed their financial death sentence and when olde Mother Hubbard goes to her cupboard in 18 months, it will indeed be bare.
Given a prediction like that, I would refer to Fishkind as more of a “noted orifice”.
Yeah I am thrilled too as Fishkind predicted a 4-6% increase in home values in Florida a mere 3 months ago. Dumbass Fish is right again.
Mr. Hubbard paid $235k new in 2004 for this 2000 sq/ft house. I know exactly where it is and can’t believe he ever was asking over $400k for that stucco box!!!
“Even now, Scartz said, about 35 percent of the inventory falls into that overpriced category.”
Make that 99.935 percent of the inventory falls into the grossly overpriced category.
Who are these fools trying to hoodwink? Oops, I forgot: the GFs.
Make that 99.935 percent of the inventory falls into the grossly overpriced category.
Rounding error - currently, 100% falls into the overpriced category - Not trying to be picky or anything
‘The appraisals raise questions because Stokes failed to notice that Husani bought the properties for one price and sold them to Tringali, often on the same day, for more than twice as much.’
No. The question is why aren’t these people in jail. Another question is why would anyone assume that Stokes “failed to notice” anything? That’s absurd. He’s a criminal.
OT - but look out for google!!! Google housing search is here.
http://www.google.com/base/s2?a_n0=housing&a_y0=9&hl=en&gl=US
Boy, that’s pre-beta! It brought up a map of Africa and the USSR, with Antartica at the bottom.
OTOH, it will be very cool when they get it working.
Nice….
and the listings are not from the MLS, wait till they negotiate access to the MLS, or better yet - ppl. figure out how to have their website listings picked up by google, and its game over for MLS… hooyaa…
got cash?
There’s no negotiating access to the MLS. Every single MLS around the country is an independent corporation. They all have their rules about who can publish the listings and what portion of the data can be published.
Google and a decent number of websites out there are simply creating their own national/internation MLS system. They are contracting with the individual brokers and corporations, asking them to submit a listing to them whenever they submit it to the local MLS.
It’s pretty clear that unless a local MLS becomes more open, specialized, and accurate, they are dead in the water. Once a critical mass is reached, why would a broker pay $500-1000 a year for local MLS fees when they can get the same results using Google.
In the long term, this will serve to cut out the buyer’s agent. In the even longer term, the selling agent is cut out. However, at some point in the game Google will have to make actual money; advertising isn’t going to cover it forever. We shall see how things shake out.
It’s a loss leader. What people don’t understand is that Google is using all of this human-generated data in order to better understand human intelligence vs. artificial intelligence, and to better refine their search algorithms. Most everything Google does will be just ad-supported because of the vast importance of the information that people generate.
Yep. I will be glad to see NAR out of the listing business. gordo nyc/fl
Very cool. Thanks for sharing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t pick up all the stuff on realtor.com (or the MLS), does pick up some great FSBOs and other stuff. The map feature is cool too.
Fortunately, they don’t seem to be able to tie in to my spending habits or assets. When I clicked on the link, it pulled up “houses” from $7-22 million. A tad out of my range.
“Local real estate experts shared a positive outlook about Southwest Florida’s real estate market at the Bonita/ Estero Market Pulse ‘07 Thursday night. How quickly it will turn around, they said, depends on sellers’ willingness to reduce prices.”
This is funny all these people in a room telling each other it’s gonna get better, “things are changing” ” I can see it changing by May” “the buyers are ready” and “things will get back to normal” keep dreaming. Beer Me
Translation:
It’s going to be so easy to sell houses as soon as these stupid sellers realize their POS homes we sold them last year are really worth 1/2 of the price they paid. Then the market is going to start to move again!
Once homes are priced correctly, it still won’t be easy to sell. Given the number of “buyers” out there that are qualified to buy, want to buy, and have the credit to get a loan, it is going to take at least a year or two to absorb all the correctly priced real estate.
There really is no end in sight. Yet.
Brian - I suspect that is what Hoz was referring to yesterday, when he predicted a much longer price-recovery period than almost any of us (none that I remember) had ventured previously.
That’s where my thinking has more recently changed - the time horizon. I was thinking that we could invest in real estate in 2 years. But given the long recovery period suggested on this blog, I’m thinking 5 years now, if not longer. Better to buy just before the upswing.
“‘Prices always take off with a roar at some point after the plateau, achieving far higher levels than in the past,’ Scartz said.”
Yup. Same thing happens to my tomato plants in hot weather. That is, until the first frost hits them.
This plateau claim is simply not true, and there is no way the junk for sale today can achieve far higher levels than in the past. It’s already in outer space, in a collapsing orbit, and headed, however slowly, back to Earth for a crash.
I have to believe you, Incredulous, but madness and the cheerleaders aren’t ready to stop here in New York yet. This is some news today on some new rowhouses in a questionable spot in downtown Brooklyn. Makin me ill.
When Jim Cornell and Leslie Marshall decided to hike prices at the 14 Townhouses at the beginning of February in the face of reports of slow sales, it looked a little crazy to an outsider observer. After all, as far as anyone knew, there hadn’t been a sale in months. The hikes, in retrospect, were brilliantly timed. According to yesterday’s Brooklyn Eagle, February turned out to be a “record month” for the project, with the result that only one of the townhouses (the model house) remains unsold. Number 269, for example, one of the houses whose price was jacked from $2.75 to $2.9 million is now in contract.
The back-story is pretty interesting. When the houses hit the market early last year, there were three quick sales. Then, for eight months, nothing. Cornell and Marshall pulled the listings towards the end of 2006, rephotographed them, and then threw a big relaunch party in mid-January. They then proceeded to sell ten of them over the next couple months, three to Brooklynites, five to Manhattanites, one to a Greenwich family and one to Chicago family.
Sounds like Wall Street bonus money.
Manhattanites with Wall Street bonus money don’t move to Brooklyn.
who said they were moving in?
Real estate is the ONLYway to create millionaires akak
leverage is even better when asset prices are dropping!
Easy come easy go I always say!
Manhattenites who fantasize about telling their rug rats to go outside to play (just like when they were a kid on Long Island) occassionally move to Brooklyn, though not to really marginal neighborhoods.
Wall Street bonuses hit new records this year. They were in the stratosphere. Don’t expect the mid to high end of NY to get rational until November at the earliest and only if the market remains sideways for the year. If they can see the writing on the wall for bonuses paid in January 2008, things will slow down.
Fascinating. Similar thing happened here in Philly recently. A developer raised his prices on some rowhomes and they sold faster. (Keep in mind that other Philly RE has been slumping.)Perhaps the buyers are getting suckered into buying “on the way up” by these savvy developers?
Another theory: a developer raises the prices and brings in a shill buyer at the higher price, leading potential buyers to believe that a real sale at the higher price had occurred.
Shill buyers! D’oh. Dirty times call for dirty deals, all right. Guess we’ll see every trick to keep this going, and then some new ones when it begins to crumble.
It’s kickbacks more than likely….more to this than meets the eye.
I’m guessing the price increase becomes cash back outside escrow to the straw buyer. The price difference is the going rate for half a dozen years of bad credit.
He probably had it priced at the high end of the lower price bracket and then jacked the price, winding up at the bottom of a higher price bracket. Some poor fool does an MLS search in the higher price bracket and sees a steal at the bottom end. Oldest trick in the book.
Prices always take off with a roar at some point after the plateau…
Always? I guess this infamous graph is incorrect, then. http://www.biggerpockets.com/images/blog/shillerbig.gif
Perhaps you should mail it to the realtor. What people can’t comprehend is that in the yin and yang of things, contraction always follows expansion, and everything that goes up eventually comes down. Think of the tens of thousands of once elegant American neighborhoods than fell into ruin for decades till the mid-1980s when “This Old House” became popular, spurring yuppies and yuppie-wannabes to dive in and rehab everything. Now many of these old neighborhoods are beautiful again, but for how long?
I remember when one could buy a gorgeous fifty (or more) room mansion on Long Island for peanuts (under 100k); nobody wanted such white elephants. Now, everybody wants to live like Saddam Hussein and his relatives, oblivious to the vulgarity.
No wonder the 20’s were roaring! Look how cheap housing was!
I’m not that old, thanks. I was speaking of the early 1980s. Florida prices, incidentally, went very high in the 1920s, with fools paying almost as much for land in Miami as others were paying in 2003.
Median home prices 1940 (unadjusted) Per Capita income
FLA = $2,218 $522
CA = $3,527 $845
NY = $4,389 $869
ILL = $3,277 $752
Aren’t we rich.
The FED has done a great job with the “stable prices” mission statement. In one life time (67 years)
Just think another 60 years of this excellent money supply management houses will cost $50,0000,000 and avg. wages will be $8-12 million.
All will be well with the House of Morgan.
Per capita income? That would mean that, given it is likely that there were 2-4 people per household in 1940, the average household income would be double to quadruple the per capita income. This would put a median home at 1x to 2x household income!
Wait, when did the Bradenton FL “plateau”??? This has been one of the most distressed markets in the country and prices are down a solid 20% from peak. Of course we now have 3 years of inventory and skyrocketing foreclosures. Yeah, it’s just a plateau……
People want to believe. But down deep they know the truth.
The Hubbards hope the bottoming thing is accurate, while computing the 8-11 more years until inflation bails them out?
Condo fall out just around the corner. Who will get financed? At least they have a down payment that won’t cover theequity lossses!
This is the only hope for those who can still make the payments, otherwise they realize that they might be better off mailing the keys to the bank.
Jobs report is out! Surprise! Everything is great and the economy is healthy (according to the government). Added to that, incomes have risen by 6 cents an hour. That means property prices should now start to turn up as people rush to buy. There you go America! No recession in the works and now your incomes are up by 6 cents an hour, start looking to buy one of those those $650,000 sh*tboxes…and remember….there’s no inflation, we are winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, yada-yada. I’m starting to think that in my lifetime we will see giant tv screens on each corner with the image of George W. Bush continually repeating, “To be happy and own the things you must work and continue to consume.”
War is peace.
Hate is Love.
Ministry of Love or Department of Defense
We have certainly taken on some 1984 qualities in this society.
I will leave you with one other. If anyone remembers 1984, the real breaking point is when, while being tourtured, Winston tells them “Do it to Julia!”, to end his own tourture.
Reminds me of Save our Homes in FL.
Do it to my neighbor! Anything to end my suffering under the crazy tax burden. They have broken the spirit of the homeowner, and turned them against one another; anything to stop the pain.
“Mike has entered the “Twilight Zone”
The land of milk & no more honey {bee hives collapsing}. Where construction and real estate finance jobs increase monthly as the monthly pending resales data rise {yet never closes, nor discloses the detail by state that bankforeclosures are now included in thesalescolumn.}
Mike finds himself on the street called “Perpetual Confusion” where all government data is spun for the Wall Street’s merry men casino. Everything in his being says none of this passes the smell test. Yet all around him have smiles and go whislting to their jobs “flipping burgers and retail cashiering at WalMart”. Where 2 job families barely earn the money to feed themselves and gas their newly leased cars.
By day, the janitors and housekeeping maidens smile and go to work, but by night upon recieving their NOD’s, they yank out every appliance and fixture from their $500,000 homes before leaving the “Twilight Zone” of empty homes, to return to their subsidized apartments.
Mike’s only daily solice “thehousingbubbleblog”, where the daily spin sorts through the confusion with regional & local news items that reports everybody’s now common local experiences. The place where local and state governments are wondering how to make up the tax shortfalls, as tax receipts drop off the cliff.
Yes Mike, is stuck in the Twilight zone.
Rod Sterling
“‘The plaintiffs were assured by the defendants that once the building was under construction, prices would increase dramatically as they were contracting at a bargain price, therefore there would be no issue with the plaintiffs being able to resell their investment contracts to somebody else at a profit,’ the lawsuit says.”
I can’t imagine this lawsuit going anywhere. You know what they say about verbal promises.
Yea, try that one on Judge Judy. She’ll verbally assault you, and humiliate you while she’s at it.
OT anyone have the average employment number for the REIC ?
I had it at 6% with a peak of over 9% in 05
the emp number today includes 56K increase in construction= wierd
The increase in construction employment is no doubt due to non-residential construction. Most segments of the commercial market (office, industrial, lodging, hospitals, etc) are still doing quite well. Retail and rental apartment construction has slowed but has not yet started large-scale layoffs.
“The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.”
John Maynard Keynes
Keynes said that? I thought he was all about debauching currency to stop those horrible people called “savers” from causing a recession. People that actually wanted to be self sufficient and not dependant on the government teet. One of his ideas was to have money have an exparation date on it so that its value dissapeared if it wasn’t spent when government types like himself felt it should. The saying you hear most from that a-hole was “In the end we’re all dead..” so go ahead and debauch the currency during my lifetime, screw future generations.
Actually I believe Keynes was quoting Vladimir Lenin who said “The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.” and that this was an opening to a speech on preventing currency crises.
yes, he said Lenin was right, and repeated Lenin’s quote.
I don’t go to seminars. It’s just a collection of self-fulfilling prophecies.
If housing wasn’t bad enough now you are started to see $4 for a gallon of gas in Cal. First you can’t afford the house and the price came down a little, now you can’t afford to drive to see the houses that have started to come down? a double whammy i would say.
I gotta wonder what $4 gas is doing for the finances of someone in a $450k house in Modesto or Los Banos who commutes all the way over to the bay area. Ouch!
pretty soon the monthly gas bill will rival the mortgage.
we’re at $3 here… another 50cent hike, and i’m ditching the gym membership and walking to work… and buying Exxon stock
got cash?
as the rich get richer and the middle class join the poor
The best part about this mess, the rich are drinking their own Kool-aide. Caught with their panties down, they have already gone to the government bail out card.
DOW 12550 equates to less “real money {gold} then in Dow $1000 in 1962. They live & spend like they are rich as the government confiscates over 35% of their profits plus inflates @ 12-20% annually gaurenteeing future confiscations.
The Dow’s high in 1962 was 741 and the low around 525. Where did you get 1000?
I paid 2.60 this morning
for-sale homes continue to bloat
inventory nearly 41,000
sense of alarm - hidden home inventory
merely one home of every 20 [sold]
“staggering”
waiting for the blood
a quarter of homes bought ‘non-owner-occupied’
danger signs abound
36 percent of Tampa area home buyers used adjustable-rate mortgages
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Any ‘soft-landing’ proponents still out there? Anyone?
If someone can explain to me how this wont end in devastation, I’m all ears.
Mrs. Hubbard after the luncheon: Oh honey, Im sooo happy. The market has hit rock bottom and we only have to wait 12 to 18 months before it takes off again.
Mr. Hubbard (kisses his wifes cheek and rubs her back to reasure her): Yes honey by this time in 07, we should start seeing the bus loads of speculators stopping in our neighborhood.
Sorry, should be 08
“‘The buyers are on the sidelines waiting for the blood to continue to rise,’ Fuentes said.”
Notice how he portrays buyers who don’t want to overpay as blood-sucking leeches.
” How quickly it will turn around, they said, depends on sellers’ willingness to reduce prices.”
Yes, and now its not about a recovery in housing prices but a recovery in Realtor commisions, an important distinction.
Oh, that’s what he meant. I was thinking like “waiting for blood in the streets.”
Do any of the Realtors have any hard evidence on how many buyers are really on the sidelines? I have yet to see a number, or even if there are enough first-timers to fill all the inventory coming online.
Speaking of housing recoveries that aren’t underway, here’s an Arizona Slim report from Tucson:
Yesterday, I had a lunch meeting across town. To liven up my ride to the meeting, I decided to count the “for sale” signs. Here’s a summary:
Distance traveled: 5.5 miles
Number of signs seen: 31, including one that said “sale pending.” (We’ll see about that. Sales have been falling through right and left around here.
Condo conversion attempts seen: 2, including one that’s on its third real estate agency. And this particular complex is about to have a big sales promo touting the fact that NOW is a good time to BUY! (For the curious among you, this is a converted cinderblock apartment complex at Glenn and Columbus. Not a very upscale area.)
“The real estate markets in Manatee and Sarasota counties have hit rock bottom, will stay there for the next 12 to 18 months and then begin a 3 percent to 4 percent annual growth climb. That’s the opinion of noted Florida economist and financial oracle Henry H. Fishkind.”
Looks like this guys is the east coast version of “It’s in the bag”, Gary Watts. How anyone can even listen to these shills amazes me.
“‘The buyers are on the sidelines waiting for the blood to continue to rise,’ Fuentes said.”
How melodramatic… buyers are not interested in blood, they are interested in sane reasonable prices that they can afford, so they can raise their families and go about their lives without a monsterous and destructive mortgage hanging around their necks. As for the flippers, who thought they would turn a quick profit on someone elses dime, too bad…
“stalled condo projects have left partially completed buildings, vacant buildings and empty lots.”
———————
homeless problem solved. I wonder how many projects here in downtown San Diego will have the same fate.
Insurance rates tied to HOUSING PRICES.
really? who’d a thunk it?
http://www.tboblogs.com/index.php/newswire/story/insurance-costs-tied-to-rising-property-values/
I just want to say thanks for all the information this board has provided to me. We just closed on our house and went back to renting until things calm down. We broke even which is all I wanted. Tampa is going to be a blood bath in the not to distant future.
JB,
Where do you think prices in Tampa Bay will be after the cleansing blood bath? I’m curious.
JB — good for you. Breaking even these days, depending of course on when you bought, usually is cause for celebration.
“The plaintiffs were assured by the defendants that once the building was under construction, prices would increase dramatically”
As that late great Cajun chef Justin Wilson used to say “I GARONTEE !!!!!!!”
These flippers were definitely swallowing stupid pills each day