Bits Bucket And Craigslist Finds For May 16, 2007
Please post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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the rise of china is impacting colberts wish to buy a ferrari…..
Financing capital flight / Brad Setser
bubble world tour / india
http://immobilienblasen.blogspot.com/
It is astounding how rapidly the foreclosure rates are rising. Here is today’s Boston Globe:
“The number of Massachusetts homeowners facing an auction of their homes from foreclosure jumped 54 percent in April, the fourth consecutive month of increases.”
http://tinyurl.com/2celdu
“Regulators have blamed subprime loans, targeted to buyers with poor credit, for driving the number of Massachusetts homeowners delinquent on mortgage payments to a rec ord 19,487 last year, surpassing 1991 in the depths of a real estate recession.”
Just once, blame the f*cking borrowers. That’s all I ask.
This figure appears to validate some comments yesterday that the east-coast version of the 1990’s RE bust came earlier (and finished earlier) than the Calif version of same.
“Just once, blame the f*cking borrowers. That’s all I ask.”
Sure… Papers are staying in business by their fingernails. And they’re going to come out and blame their readers. And they’re not going to blame the realtors, major advertisers. Or the big banks, who also advertise.
So much easier to blame the mortgage brokers, since they are already bankrupt, and therefore no longer advertising in the papers.
YES Darell, we have dumbed down America so badly reading newspapers is so uncool ….we must all learn to speak GHETTO! and read “Da Hip hop Newz”
=======================
Sure… Papers are staying in business by their fingernails. And they’re going to come out and blame their readers.
They’d be serving an ever declining self fulfilling idiocracy, by blaming readership…
I agree NYCityBoy. I’m so sick of victims. Losing your home? Blame the lender. Obese? Blame McDonald’s. But whatever you do, do NOT take responsibility for your own actions. Ever!
Yes, some people were preyed upon. Maybe a LOT of people were. But it’s impossible to say the majority are so intellectually challenged that they absolutely, positively believed nothing could ever go wrong when purchasing a half-million dollar home on a $40K salary.
Sheesh.
The worse thing is the scum politicians tend to agree with the individuals who deny responsibility for their mistakes. The remedy is bigger government, or the nanny state, if you will. California is the trendsetter in going toward the nanny state.
But people in general are so freaking stupid and retarded that you NEED a nanny state!
Observer,
But you are not retarded. They will make you the brother’s keeper. From each according to his ability to each according to his stupidity. Maybe we responsible types should pretend to be stupid?
Do it my way…
Retire and earn no income, thus, no tax bite.
We don’t need no stinkin’ Nanny State. We need curbs on cretins breeding.
A Kimberly Blanton article..Sigh! Last week she was on local TV saying what a great time it was to buy?? Now 4 straight months of foreclosures that will only affect the poorer communities. LOL! Do not worry Realtors; we will contain the fear as long as you send us your advertising money.
Good article Dawnal. Thanks for the link.
We have had no uptick in foreclosures at all in the towns I’ve been tracking although admittedly those towns do have a bit higher median income for the area. ($47k to $52k in towns where median home prices are $150k to $219k) I know some areas in the country that have not had bubble pricing still have foreclosure issues due to job loss.
But locally, I’ve seen the foreclosure numbers hold steady for the last year. The numbers above are over 2x, 3x income but so many bring $100k’s in equity from bubble areas that I think they are still doing pretty well. The entry level buyer is most likely feeling the pain at this point.
Please don’t flame me but does anyone think it possible that some areas (pending steady employment rates) experience this downturn realtively unscathed? I’m seeing lower numbers but not a lot of blood.
Yes, some areas will hold up. It may not even have to do with employment. As you say, there are places where people bring their “old” assets and don’t need local support. Just not all the places the builders were counting on.
az_
I live in one of those very spots…
Many of our neighbors are equity refugees, bought their houses for cash, like us, and retired from the rat race.
What drew us here?
We have 3 sources of freshwater (a well, a river and a perennial creek)
Tell me how good business is at your Wal Mart and Home Depot , and you will have a good clue as to where your town is heading real estate wise.
I was visiting my parents the other weekend and took a trip with my father to the local Home Depot. While it didn’t seem empty at all, the cashier acted like the $400 lumber purchase my father made was the largest she had seen in a long time.
Home construction seems to be going strong in that area, but only the reasonably priced homes are selling, mostly to residents from Illinois (my parents live about equidistant to downtown Chicago as many of the more developed suburbs in Illinois, yet prices are half as much because it’s in Indiana) who are now discovering the lower cost of living with the same commute time.
A few upscale subdivisions have been attempted but nothing is selling in them any more. The subdivision my parents just moved into has homes with about 2500-3000 sq feet priced in the $175-200 range. The farmland adjoining this subdivision is about to become phase 3.
I wonder how long this will continue. I certainly hope it doesn’t last until this area equalizes with the Illinois side - that many people would ruin everything.
The Washington, DC metro area is a classic example of people spending other people’s money. Why haven’t prices fallen that much in DC? Because lobbists, political appointees, and foreign diplomats have tons of money to spend… other people’s money to spend.
Actually, DC has been undergoing a renaisance for the past decade or so.
care to say where you’re from?
Yeah I read the article.
If you read it closely, you can see the formation of some sort of government bail-out.
“The other story in the March data? The big rise in US purchases of foreign securities. US residents bought about $40b of foreign securities, including an usually large amount of foreign debt — $32b.
It also explains the weak total TIC flow number in March. The $100b in headline foreign purchases of US debt and equities is deceiving. Net inflows were a bit under $50b – less than the March current account deficit ($75b or so)
If sustained, that level of “diversification” by US residents implies rather large outflows – about $500b a year. To finance that level of outflows and its current account deficit, the US would need to attract about $1400b in inflows.”
Paging Az_lender…
Ha, as you know, I am buying foreign govt bonds myself.
From Pimco’s Bill Gross
How We Learned to Stop Worrying (so much) and Love “Da Bomb”
“…The emphasis on emerging market currencies rather obviously suggests relative weakness of the U.S. dollar. We continue to believe that U.S. growth will descend towards the lower quartile of countries within a broad global composite. Such U.S. growth, despite relatively favorable demographic labor force trends spiked by immigration, will suffer due to reduced U.S. consumption and the need for higher savings. Even in the face of resistance by Chinese authorities vis-à-vis the Yuan and the Japanese via artificially low interest rates, this lower growth speaks to a weaker dollar and lower relative asset price appreciation in comparison to the rest of the world. PIMCO portfolios will therefore likely feature increasing international diversification in foreign currency terms…
We recommend as well that clients and other readers continue to diversify their asset mix with a growing percentage of commodities. In addition, Chart 8’s gap between G-7 financing rates and global economic growth indicates an asset bias towards owners not lenders. PIMCO, while continuing to be recognized as the authority on bonds will hopefully be able to assimilate equity-type returns into new products as well as many standard conventional portfolios.”
http://tinyurl.com/yrc37a
Aurum est potestas
Dr. Strangeloan:
Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the debt bomb…
So few will have the power…
Not me baby, I’m gonna keep buying US stocks and Bonds and lose 15%/year in currency adjustments. LOL
Here is some Ventura County Housing news.
http://venturacountystar.com/news/2007/may/16/county-housing-slowdown-lingers/
I wonder if the high cost of housing has anything to do with the fact that many folks have to move farther away from their work places?
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070516/gas_demand.html?.v=4
I think high fuel costs are causing prices for homes in the “exburbs” to slide and boosting/stablizing the prices closer into employment centers. At least that appears to be a trend here in METRO DC. Inside the beltway things ahve cools but homes are still moving and prices are stable, but the exburbs are getting hammered. I would pay more to live closer in, but I just hate commuting period. At these prices I’m not sure if the cost savings in commute offsets the higher home prices, but thats not the only variable in the mix. Good Luck.
I have no facts on this occurring, but it would make sense.
yes i’m in an exburb bakersfield ca is getting choked off as a bedroom community for l.a. it has been said that long commute times do not get better with time. on the contrary humans get more stressed out. 4032 homes avail.=17 months of supply. med income 45k household median price 300k and going down. posters pls say where you are from or at least have it in your name
Bakersfield is considered an LA exurb? It’s like what 100 miles away from downtown isn’t it? I cannot believe people commute that every day. You’re talking $1000 a month in gas cost and another $500 in depreciation on your car for all those miles.
Are there really people doing this?
I worked with a gent that commuted from Cambria to Van Nuys…
Sheer Lunacy
That is freakin crazy…He must be alittle cuckoo..
In his defense, he’d “only” do it 3 times a week…
And by the way, he died @ 47
I guess his weekends were worth it….Cambria is sweeeet!
Yes, there are a good number of people who commute to LA from Bako. Amazingly dense fog, dust storms, occasional snow across the top of the Grapevine on I-5… the area and the weather both offer some great things to that 2-3 hour drive to LA.
not to mention that I-5 goes over a major mountain range, essentially halving your gas mileage.
I would never do that commute… unless:
http://www.moller.com/skyc.htm
I would pay more to live closer in, but I just hate commuting period
I moved closer in. I’m now 15 minutes from work - on foot. I had a car when I moved here, but it sat in the garage for weeks at a time. So I sold it. My new total monthly cost for housing and transportation comes in between $1400 and $1600 a month (depending on if I rent a car for a weekend - surprisingly cheap BTW and how often I use public transportation). That’s much cheaper than when I was living farther away and driving everywhere. Full service, full sized grocery store - 5 minutes walking. Restaurants - more than I can count within walking distance. Target - 5 minute train ride (and I don’t even have to walk through a sea of parking to get in the front door). Sailboat - 25 minutes walking.
I know that most cities in the US don’t have the developed downtowns that NYC, Chicago, Boston, etc have and it’s not as possible to do. But it may surprise some people how low your cost of living can be when you live and work downtown.
I really don’t care what gas costs. I use it so infrequently that it has a negligible effect on me.
Truthfully That is why most people STAY in NYC…..my GF has Never drove in her life, born and lived in NYC all her life.
So it would be a Major Major lifestyle change to move to the burbs, Even New Jersey, let alone South Carolina, and be forced to have 2 cars to take care of …..my car is 10 years old old for and doesn’t even have 50,000 miles but insurance is cheap.
I really don’t care what gas costs. I use it so infrequently that it has a negligible effect on me.
That is until you wake up one day and realize that globalization depends on cheap oil. That your grocery store and restaurants depend on cheap oil. That heating your home requires cheap oil. You are somewhat more insulated than most by not having a car, but make no mistake you are still dependant on oil.
Josh
CNBC two talking heads argue for higher gas prices. The SF, CA guy says gas need to sell for $8.00gl. to protect the enviroment. The other said we need higher gasoline taxes to get it done.
CA guy says gas need to sell for $8.00gl. to protect the enviroment.
That’s what I was payin’ on a trip to England a couple years ago.
Not many soccer moms with Jr. and high wheel pig SUV’s & 3/4ton PU’s on the M25.
Higher gas prices wouldn’t bother me at all. Every second vehicle here in Colorado Springs is a giant Ford F150, Suburban, Lincoln Navigator, etc. I see all the lard-ass soccer moms sitting in their behemoths, engine’s running, at the park, gabbing on a cell phone, too self-absorbed to actually get out and watch their kids’ game. I’d also love to see all the NIMBYs freeze in the dark because we can’t build new refineries or do what we REALLY need to do and build new-generation PBMR nuclear reactors (that create far less radiological waste, and are meltdown-proof).
Rant off.
Oh, another thing I love about soaring energy costs: All those Californicator equity locusts who built those gaudy, gargantuan Garage Mahals in the once-beautiful Front Range mountains between here and Denver are being bled white by their daily commutes and utility bills.
“I see all the lard-ass soccer moms sitting in their behemoths, engine’s running, at the park, gabbing on a cell phone, too self-absorbed to actually get out and watch their kids’ game.”
No “junk-in-the-trunk” for Sammy?
Ewwww, icky!!!
Joe: I think high fuel costs are causing prices for homes in the “exburbs” to slide and boosting/stablizing the prices closer into employment centers
higher fuel costs will accelerate this trend
Oil is the most common commodity that we all crave, worldwide…
When hyper-inflation hits, you’ll see the results first, @ the pumps~
Per Zip:
There are 59,912 homes for sale in
Washington D.C. Area as of 8 minutes ago.
60k by tomorrow! It’s like New Year’s Eve in the middle of the year! woohoo!
Quite a jump from:
1/17 - There are 45,595 homes for sale in Washington D.C. Area as of 11 minutes ago.
I guess the inventory is still in the process of a broad cycle of stabilization.
Speaking of the Washington area …..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051502163.html
Two years ago, during the giddy real estate frenzy, some investors bought 300-plus garden-style apartment units in Fairfax County to convert to condominiums.
Yesterday, a California bank foreclosed on the group’s loan and bought the property — minus about 45 units that had been sold — for $60 million, outbidding a suitor from suburban Chicago at an auction on the front steps of the Fairfax County Judicial Center. The bank, Fremont Investment and Loan, said it hoped to resell the property.
The foreclosure on Ridgeleigh at Van Dorn Metro was just one of several foreclosures in recent weeks of condo conversion projects in the Washington area and was another sorry sign of the soft real estate market and an oversupply of condos, real estate experts said.
“It’s part of the slowing housing market,” said Scott MacIntosh, senior economist for the National Association of Realtors. “Fewer first-time buyers are willing to take that risk and go out and buy. I guess they see it’s safer to put money in the stock market rather than buy their first home.”
And here’s a link to today’s Washington Post - first page, Business section. Condo projects being auctioned off…3.4 years supply…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051502163.html
The condo nightmare has just started in DC.
Home sales data comes out in 30 min, right? I have to try to see if I can catch some CNBC and see what spin we are going to get this time.
if you want a good laugh check out the article on home sales in the sun sentinel, I can’t wait for the comments to start.
I can just feel a BIG Florida post coming our way from Ben.
Come Ben… hit me!
Yeah, come on Ben throw us a beachball!
I know the CA posters will argue, but we are the very bubbliest of the bubble areas;-)
I agree with that. There’s real money in California, not so much in FLA, especially if you x out the drug money.
But no one beats californians at posing, and that what this is really all about. Do you have money, or are you just pretending you do?
One in seven people in the US live in California. Probably six out of seven people in Florida are like in the last 90 days of their life, or at least the part where they’re still lucid and Depends-free. Sorry, Floridians, but as California goes, so goes the nation.
I think the project down the street from me has been killed. It was supposed to be “The new luxury of Wall Street living”. The website at fiveninejohn.com is still up. But there is nothing going on with the building. This place is less than six blocks from the NY Stock Exchange and it is dying on the vine. Maybe Manhattan isn’t as strong as everybody around here would like to think.
don’t worry, it is different in nyc;-)
One of my clients is French, a honcho at Suez, the conglomerate.
We touched on real estate last night at dinner. Buy in NY, now?
A gallic shrug–”we rent”.
Awesome!
I’ve never bought into the idea that Manhattan residents are as rich as people make out. Sure there is a large crust of the hyper wealthy, I won’t dispute that, but the idea that everyone is a wall street millionaire just doesn’t fit with reality or census data.
I don’t imagine that it is ultimately going to be immune from a sharp downturn, just it might happen a little later is all.
I had promised further comments on Nashville area. It looks like it is the last up and may be the last down in this bubble. They are still on the bubble track because the price increases are not commensurate with salaries.
There was a comment the other day about how affordable the houses are there. It’s true that if comparing apples to apples, i.e. square footage, age of home, lot size etc. that houses there are quite inexpensive. However, one of the prime motivators for relocation is improvement of circumstance. I don’t want to move to podunk (by LA standards) and live in a 1000sqft cracker box on a 7000sqft lot. That wouldn’t give me any motivation.
There are many, many houses on acreage in the nicer suburbs of Nashville for sale. I limit myself to the areas with the lowest crime rates. Most are in the 500K to 1M range.
I saw many empty spec homes, some that had been finished and waiting for a buyer for over a year. They are in denial out there.
I was considering moving to Nashville as well. You don’t need to spend $500K to $1M for a nice home with acreage and low crime. $400K will do just fine, even $350K if you’re willing to go for a bit of an older home, yet still in a safe suburban area.
Compared to similar homes in LA or SD, homes in Nashville are practically free.
I agree that similar homes are price significantly lower, what I’m saying is that a home built in 1950 in Woodland Hills,CA and one built in 1950 in Brentwood,TN aren’t really comparable.
The single most important realization I got out of our fact finding tour last week was that we won’t be buying anything in TN that was built before 1990. The floor plans are just way too screwy. We’ll more than likely build custom, and we’ll wait until the specs are feeling the pain to buy.
$400k houses in Nashville? What are folks out there smoking?
Oh here we go with the left coast snob comments about the South. It’s $400K because them there purty little homes have ‘lectricity and dem new fandangled phone lines we hear so much about.
Hey, PDX has a ring of truth. When Tennessee’s GDP is higher than most countries, then $400k might be justified for the upper-middle class. Until then, not so much…
Ed no need to be offended - no offense was meant to the South. This is the issue of affordability of houses and the simple question is, What is the house price to income ratio in Nashville?
From Money/CNN 2006 ranking (2006), I see that the median family income is $53,751. (Median HOUSEHOLD income is usually a good 15-20% less).
House prices at 8X median income ($400K) is just as ridiculous as the coasts. Therefore your statement below is ridiculous when seen in the light of price/income ratio.
Compared to similar homes in LA or SD, homes in Nashville are practically free.
Don’t get me wrong, 400K will buy an outstanding house by most standards, just not what I’m looking for.
Why all the back-and-forth? 400K is high anywhere, anytime. One thing this bubble has done is skew our perception of what is an acceptable price. 400k w/ 20% down gives you a payment of roughly $2500 per month w/ taxes and insurance. What area has a median income of over 6 figures to support this as an acceptable number?
Spot on, Ex.
It probably isn’t valid to compare median income to a home that is higher than the median price. I’m sure there are people in TN that can easily afford to buy a $400k house and would have no problem with a $2500 per month payment. Doesn’t mean they should buy it now of course…
right on ex
I don’t think Nashville is last in the real estate bubble line — it’s Oregon!! Sales are brisk and the buyers still believe “buy now cause the price is going up” — and here’s the weird part, the prices ARE still going up!!!
More Happy Talk and Disinformation for the Sheeple…
“Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig on Tuesday night that he expected the first quarter would be the low point of the slowdown and the economy would pick up from here.
“My own outlook (is) the economy will slowly, gradually increase over the course of the year from our current level of 1.3% towards 2)%) and above 2% over the course of 2007 and … a higher growth rate going into 2008,” Hoenig said .”
http://tinyurl.com/2g4rlm
“In my remarks today I will address, from the 30,000-foot level, the challenges that financial innovation poses for public policy and the nature of the appropriate regulatory response.”
High flying Helicopter Ben
May 15, 2007
I’ve always had this great idea for a movie…
Gang of thieves rips off the federal reserve for $500 Billion, in brand new banknotes, sequentially numbered.
To be able to pass the loot, they seperate about 1/2 of the notes in a haphazzard fashion and in a series of 6 helicopter drops, over big city USA, they clean up their portion, by distributing it to the masses.
I thought of this one about 10 years ago, strictly fantasy…
Or so went my thinking, at the time.
Our current level is NOT 1.3%. It is less than 1% via a revision due to the expanding trade deficit.
Housing starts up, permits down.
NAR’s conclusion: now is a great time to buy of course!!
Comparing this with Mugsy’s comment below, I guess you are saying starts are up MOM. Sure, who wants to start a house in March when it is snowing. Thanks to both of you for filling in what I can’t get here in the woods. (Only get PBS, maybe CBS.)
Starts are up or down, permits are up or down, doesn’t matter to Wall St as Dow is up into yet another record.
I don’t know if you have ever lived in the “snow belt”, but residential construction in Colorado does not stop in the Winter. If it snows, work stops for a day or two, and resumes. Of course interior work doesn’t stop for snow at all.
Also, the snowfall must be heavy, if it only snows a few inches its business as usual.
This reminds me of a business trip I once took to Stockholm. There were three of us, 2 Colorodans and 1 Californian. It was snowing the morning we were to visit a customer (I’ld say 6 inches had fallen). Our California colleague just assumed that the customer would be closed for the day. We had a good laugh and told him to get into the taxi.
MSM reports seize on any MOM report that shows an uptick. But anyone who knows anything realizes that small upticks can be due to statistical noise which temporarily masks the underlying trend (the one Mugsy succinctly describes in his post below). Anything to lull a few more clueless GFs into making a regrettable purchase decision…
Permits are down 28% in the past 12 months, while starts are down 16%.
More pain to come.
Subprime Shakeout–Where do we go from Here
“Covering subprime here at Morningstar, my colleague, Ryan Lentell, and I are constantly asked a number of questions. What happened? What did we miss? What’s going to happen next? And with all the uncertainty, where should investors put their money?
We don’t claim to have a crystal ball showing us what the future holds for the mortgage market. But we are going to try to take a step back and answer these questions with the benefit of hindsight. Although sometimes we think we could write a book about what happened, we will try to be brief.”
http://tinyurl.com/2hcdlr
This article is comical. They try to wipe from their faces the mud that came from their 5-star rating of New Century; then they go on to recommend we all buy shares of Countrywide, WaMu, and Wells Fargo. Not me, thanks very much.
From the Morningstar article,
“Looking back, we believe the default risk was masked by the rising housing prices for many.” Really?
“However, as the housing market slowed, homeowners could often not refinance, as their house had not appreciated.”
Oooooh.
“Second, we didn’t recognize how quickly the company’s financing would disappear. New Century had been a darling of Wall Street, supplying banks with loans to package into new collateralized mortgage obligations. However, once the first problems arose, the very firms that had benefited from the flow of loans were the first to turn off New Century’s financing spigot, demanding their money back and effectively killing New Century. The firm was out of cash, could not fund many loans already being processed, and was eventually forced to file for bankruptcy.” Eventually? Actually, I think the process took about eight seconds.
More from the Morningstar article,
“So if we don’t think investors should dump their money into monoline players, where do we see opportunities? Three names pop into our head almost immediately, two of which are trading at or near 5-star territory right now. CFC, WM, WFC”
O……M…….G
Yeah. I can’t really figure out what these guys are up to…based on their track record with NEW are they trying to start a run at CFC, WM, or WFC?
“CFC, WM, WFC, WTF”
Fixed that for them.
Inventory tracking: Northbrook IL (wealthy, formerly white hot RE suburb of Chicago). Of the mix of places from 1.4 Mil McMansions to 340K old ranches, nothing is selling! Started tracking in early April of ‘07 and not a single place has sold. When we sold our parents place in July of ‘05, multiple offers were common & rehabbers were buying sight unseen. Pop goes the goes the fad of feeding an alligator.
where are you getting your data from? the Chicago tribune lists sales usually about 2 mos later, I just checked and 42 houses sold in the month of March in 60062. Doesn’t look like they’ve released the april home data yet.
I’m sure it’s slowed, but I doubt zero homes sold in April.
I gathered my data by visiting the area in question, tracking each of the houses I saw for sale. Then, looking up each listing on the web and squirreling away a copy on the PC , noting price MLS #, … AND finally visiting the realtor’s websites … Quite a bit of work, but 99.9% accurate. I am watching a 3 street area, not the whole town, yes there should be sales, but the rate is dramatically down.
According to DataQuick Northbrook’s median price was up only .8% from 4Q ‘05 to 4Q ‘06. Sales were down 56.5% for that same period.
http://www.dqnews.com/ZIPIL.shtm
Crain’s just started a new website for real estate info - their existing site has always been faster to post sales info than the Trib or Sun Times. However, they just let you download a text file dump of all the sales, which you may find less useful.
If you know what you are looking for specifically, the fastest method is to search the Cook County Assessor’s website for the property (by address) which will give you the PIN. Take that and go over to the Recorder of Deeds website and plug in the PIN. It takes about a week after recording the deed to get on the website - way faster than any of the local papers. As a plus, you can also see how much their mortgage was for.
I have my eye on a place not too far from me that has been for sale for nearly two years. I looked it all up and found that the owner did a refi last year, but amazingly didn’t do a cash-out loan. He can afford a low-ball offer… In fact, based upon what I think it’s worth, he’d walk away with about $50k. The Recorder of Deeds website is a very, very useful tool.
Brian: Thanks !!!! What a powerful tool @ the Recorder of Deeds. Took a look @ Mom’s old place, the rehabber who bought it took out a $1.8 Mil Mortgage … ooh this dude is going to be hurting …
You have to sign up for free access to the data, but it gives you the sale price, % of asking, days on market, etc. The most recent postings that I found in my search area had a closing date of 5/15/07.
http://www.sellmyhomebw.com/default.asp
60 Percent of Liar Loan Applicants Exaggerate Income
http://tinyurl.com/ysmdgc
An April 2006 Mortgage Asset Research Institute study found that 60 percent of applicants who apply for liar loans exaggerate their income by more than 50 percent.
Not one person who stated income should qualify for any help (or sympathy) whatsoever - IMO.
Well surprise! Surprise! (best Gomer Pyle voice)
I tend to be suspicious of that number. Is gathering a few pay stubs so onerous that 40% of these stated customers are willing to pay higher interest to avoid it?
that headline is very misleading. you have to read closely to see the truth - the study found that 60% inflated income by more than 50%. the other 40% also likely inflated income, as you point out, but they were not found to have done so by 50% or more. relatively minor liars they were.
“An April 2006 Mortgage Asset Research Institute study found that 60 percent of applicants who apply for liar loans exaggerate their income by more than 50 percent.”
“Is gathering a few pay stubs so onerous that 40% of these stated customers are willing to pay higher interest to avoid it”
Sure is , especially if you didn’t qualify in the first place why depress yourself…
Why don’t we let the IRS sort out whether these dolts defrauded the gov’t or the lenders?
Not sure what to make of this. NJ thinks it has weathered the bubble.
http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-6/1179291987251190.xml&coll=1
Methinks we’ll have to hold off discussing whether Jersey has weathered the storm, until Carmela’s real estate empire passes escrow…
The article starts out: While housing markets in many parts of the nation continue to struggle with slumping sales and falling prices, there are growing signs the New Jersey real estate downturn may be near bottom.
Of course. It’s different over in New Jersey.
Lots of rich people out here. I read that new lawyers in Philly at big firms can earn $145K their first year out. NYC lawyers make even more, of course. Then there’s all the guys in the finance arena, insurance, pharmaceuticals, commercial RE, PLUS the old money, etc….
More people going to college than I can ever remember, and more than ever are willing to move to where they can make the big bucks. And the DC-PHL-NYC-BOS area is the perceived place to go. It just might be different here….
75% of the lawyers at the big firms quit before 3 years. They make enough money to pay off their loans and move on to less stressful jobs.
By the way, NALP is a great place to find out info on how much law firms are paying to new grads, and how many they are hiring every year. Do a quick search for philly and you will indeed find $145k is pretty much the going rate.
All in NJ are rich? Bulls***. Here, in SF Bay Area, where people think everybody is a Google billionaire, 90% of all neighborhoods are of people earning 35K-55K.
I’m not saying “all,” I’m just saying there are lots of people making a lot of money in tried-and-true money-making industries (as opposed to the fluctuating tech market) and people do, indeed, flock to the NE for jobs and the big bucks.
Why Australia is no escape hatch…
http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSSYD7417520070516?feedType=RSS&rpc=22
“Prime Minister John Howard in April urged Australians to pray for rain…”
Yeah, and why not try a rain dance when that doesn’t help…
The rain that John Howard is urging Australia to pray for is the means to an end as far as he’s personally concerned. Re-election is the end.
The last Prime Minister from Howard’s party who went to the polls in a drought (in 1983) got tossed out of office. Howard won’t have forgotten, he was in Cabinet at the time.
The Australian currency has been so strong because of the nation’s resources - primarily, minerals and metals (base and precious). Guess what mines use in vast quantities to get all that good stuff out of the ground? - you guessed it, friends and neighbors, water!! Without water the mines could have to slow or halt operations, and at the very least, they’ll end up paying a lot more for what they use. Something to think about for those who are bullish on the Aussie dollar.
Some are beginning to see how we’ve taken freshwater for granted, when suddenly, it’s gone and the consequences, thereof…
Good eye Sammy~
The dc condo market has been doing quite fine of late:
http://dcbubble.blogspot.com/2007/05/believe-it-or-not-dc-condo-market-is.html
BS. Read the comments on your own blog.
Price have been up month over month in the District of Columbia, not suburbs, for the past four months in a row. Look at the stats PDXrenter.
Old: United States of America
New: Procrastination Nation
It rhymes well, but I prefer “I’m the victim - nation”
hows about “Whiner Central Nation”
no, its The United States of Generica
my bubble is bigger than your bubble, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah nyah
I think “Idiocracy” still rules
Look everbody! DC Bubble is back! With his crack pipe!
I posted this above - 3.4 years of condo supply in DC area - projects in foreclosure and being auctioned - today’s W. Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051502163.html
LOL.
I wonder what rock he was hiding under?
Maybe VA Infester got a sex change.
“On Monday, the Federal Reserve said at least “44% of banks had” tightened their lending standards for mortgages in the first quarter. While most of the stricter lending criteria involved subprime and “nontraditional” loans, a significant percentage of banks were also tightening standards for plain-vanilla prime mortgages.”
Anybody got a clue as to the names of the 56% of the banks that haven’t tightened their lending standards? Their board of directors must really be proud of the management on those banks.
“Anybody got a clue as to the names of the 56% of the banks that haven’t tightened their lending standards?”
Yes, the banks that required 20% down and full doc. Why should they tighten..
Why do MLS lising bounce so much in the mornings? Yesterday, 52,600 houses in Maricopa county. 6:30 this AM, down to 52,100. 7AM, back to 52,720.
And 11 months supply on the market, but average homes sold is 60-ish days on the market.
Do the realtors all get up at 6AM to rip their 90-day houses out, then put them back in as new so they show as new before they all start pulling listings to show their buyers?
Wow, you have a real active imagination there bubba…
Did it ever occur to you that since you are on a computer that some automation is taking place to update the database?
Short sale across the street from me. Oh my, this has been a very stable inner city neighborhood.
Description
Short sale! Bring all offers excellent buy in this neighborhood! Large bedrooms! Large yard with mature trees, great friendly neighborhood. Wood floors, gourmet kitchen, wonderfully renovated large master bath and a large extra room with alot of versatility. Many of the amenities of a new house, close to downtown! This house has been beautifully updated. Pride in ownership and it shows.
ZipRealty Price Track:
Price Reduced: 05/09/07 — $230,000 to $200,000
Days on Market: 103
I have been considering Canadian Oil Trusts as a place to put some cash while waiting through the housing crash and possibly hold better value as the US dollar declines. However, it seems I may be getting into these at the top of the oil boom. Anyone care to comment?
Currently, I have all my cash in a money market with Chase Bank and I am looking to at least diversify so as to not get burned by the $100,000 FDIC limit.
I wouldn’t. The time to buy those was 2003.
Pengrowth yields above 15%. So far so good with that. The new tax law in Canada still makes that stock worthwhile. I still get double digit yield on it.
We will never run out of oil…We will run out of cheap oil. I’ll keep buying more PGH stock from time to time.
“We will never run out of oil”
But we will run out of the need to use it…
As much as I disagree with GS on a few other issues, he’s spot on with this. The moment alternative energy becomes more profitable to oil, you will see the greatest single change in human history. Why do you think BP is putting out all of those feel-good green energy ads? Preparation for a massive diversification into ethanol, hydrogen, solar, and nuclear.
On the contrary, we durn well need to use it. Do you two think oil is only used in internal cumbustion engines? Plastics, jet fuel, fertilizer, pesticides, shoes, computer boxes, desks, buttons, paint, sporting goods, and hundreds more different items are depending on oil. Hardly any other substance is involved in so many different products these days. In other words, it will be very difficult to find substitutes for oil. For other items, few things depend on them, and substitutes are found. Oil-based products are too numerous to miss. We will be missing them.
Vanguard Total Market index fund - 25%, Oregon municipal bonds (if that’s where you are now) or 10 year treasury notes - 25%, Pengrowth - 25%, platinum bullion - 25%.
“10 year treasury notes”
Bill — trying to figure out the rationale for this part of your recommendation, when the former Fed chair is predicting higher l-t interest rates worldwide?
The reasoning is to hedge on the rest of the portfolio. Interest rates here in the U.S. could go either way. My own strategy in regard to treasuries is to buy mostly savings bonds, then a little bit of 3 month T-bills, and an even smaller amount of 10 year notes every year - that’s outside my stock investing, municipal bonds, CDs, money market funds, and precious metals. I will buy more and more of the 10 year notes if the rates go up. My investment style is like a big oil tanker - hard to turn.
Platinum is a big no no…
Mainly used in making catyltic converters for autos and woefully overpriced, because those that mine it, have said industry between the short and curlies.
Aladinsane,
Platinum will be strong for a long time to come. While you can use Palladium (at $360 vs. platinum at over $1200 an oz) for gas-engine catalysts, you can only use platinum for diesel engines, which more and more car makers are making. Also, China has just now started paying attention to clean air for vehicles, at a time when the number of cars & trucks sold on their domestic market is soaring. Also, most platinum group metals are mined in South Africa - not the best bet for a stable long-term supply, especially if you look hard at what’s happening in Zimbabwe (failed state). Stillwater Mining (SWC) is the ONLY significant US-based producer of platinum group metals, and a good long-term bet, in my humble opinion, if it drops below $11.
Everything you’ve mentioned is car related…
Take away autos and then the demand is, where?
Update on that 1031 outfit discussed this weekend.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/stories/MYSA051607.01E.1031Bankrupt.2b09441.html
Wow. 1989 redux. Great case for lawyers and accountants, bet the “investors” get somewhere between 10c and zero on the dollar.
Do bylines and opening paragraphs of financial news reports seem increasingly disconnected from the details these days? Case in point:
—————————————————————————-
A hedge fund manager in a frantic hurry to buy some U.S. stock shares for his client before missing out on the next panic rally might only have time to read this leader:
May 16, 2007 10:48 A.M.ET
BULLETIN
Buys inspire a buying wave
Bausch & Lomb deal, big Citi share purchase send Street a signal
Housing data read as a reason to buy. Citi rises as hedge fund takes a big stake.
…
But in the bowels of the actual news article is this passage:
Economy
The market showed little reaction to news that U.S. home builders pulled back on filing for permits to build homes in April, but started construction on more houses than they did in March.
Building permits fell 8.9% to 1.429 million in April, the lowest since June 1997, and the largest percentage decline in 17 years. The number was much lower than the 1.51 million pace expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch.
Meanwhile, the number of new houses started increased by 2.5% to 1.528 million, higher than the 1.48 million pace expected.
“On a trend basis starts and permits tell the same story,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. “But looking at the data over short periods, permits matter much more than starts because they are less affected by the weather.”
“The drop in April permits is therefore alarming,” Shepherdson said, although he noted that an early Easter may have impacted the data.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/us-stocks-rise-after-economic/story.aspx?guid=%7BFD54BE4E%2DF232%2D4EBB%2DB67A%2D8671A90F75C1%7D
I dreamed last night that I was driving towards the ocean and saw a huge tsunami rolling in to the shore. For some reason, today’s stock chart, and the “buying wave” mentioned in the byline of the story linked in above reminded me of that dream…
http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/marketsummary/
The marketwatch.com headline went from describing a “buying wave” to “gains pruned back” (aka a selling wave) in only 22 minutes time…
May 16, 2007 11:10 A.M.ET
BULLETIN
Indexes’ gains pruned back
Bausch & Lomb deal, big Citi share purchase send Street a signal
Yeah….
Headline:
“Housing construction posts small rise”
month over month…. because no one starts houses in March.
“Even with the improvement, housing construction is 25.9 percent lower than a year ago. And in a worrisome sign for the future, builders cut their requests for new construction permits by 8.9 percent in April. That was the sharpest drop since a 24 percent fall in February 1990, another period when housing was going through a significant downturn.”
The numbers: #1. 11 million illegal immigrants could get amnesty. That’s what it will be even if they call it by another name. #2. Property prices dropping until 2010 or 2012. #3. Massive housing inventory on the market for several years but let us say 2 million vacant homes. #4. Democrats in control in 2009 thru 2013 who will help “new immigrant citizens” get onto the bottom rung of the property ladder by giving them cheap interest loans via the new Department of First Time Buyers (which they will create). Conclusion: Ho-hum. The usual manipulation.
I still don’t see how an unskilled immigrant making $10/hr can buy a 500K house, even if the loan was interest free.
Simple;….Just times the $10. per hour X 10 immagrants and bingo, there ya go….Just Kidding ??? Not a bit…I saw it happen….
I am wondering (NOT!) what this phenomenon will do to property values in tony new McMansion tract home developments?
I’m sure the multiple beater cars in the driveway and parked on the street will do wonders. Plus the blaring Mexican polka music (corridos) just adds a certain “je ne se qua”.
The print version of the SD Union Tribune this morning makes some very tricky spacing and positioning of the DataQuick April home sales report.
The large bold letters in the main byline say:
Prices gain 1.7% for resale homes,
but the small print in the sub-byline state:
“April sales overall down 13.5 percent compared to (April) 2006″
and the accompanying table shows the overall median price down 3 percent from April 2006. (Don’t the SD Union Tribune writers know that one month’s change is often primarily reflective of statistical noise, and not indicative of the overall trend?)
Then there is the front page positioning of noncommittal remarks from two of SD’s local real estate experts:
“I don’t think the bubble has burst yet, but we may not have a soft landing either,” University of San Diego economist Alan Gin said.
and
“The sky is not falling, it just looks a lot different than it used to,” (DataQuick’s Andrew) LePage said.
“It’s still unclear where we will be in the fall. If we have an interest-rate spike or a recession, things could get ugly.”
versus a rather more committal inside page remark from one of the leading national experts:
Homeowners hoping to hold onto the equity they gained between 2000 and 2005 are watching for signs of weakening prices. Ed Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, said it’s unclear whether they would decline rapidly or gradually, “in a chronic, persistent way.”
Inside page scoop:
Leamer suggests that while it is unclear whether prices will decline rapidly or gradually, lower prices are in the bag.
Yes, isn’t it surprising how the one positive number in a bunch of negative numbers makes it to the headline? And that number is even a false positive, since the low end sales have dissapeared.
Why all the mellow yellow above ground will have to satisfy…
http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/resources-boom-drought-clash-as-newcrest-uses-region%e2%80%99s-emergency-water/2007/05/16/#more-933
the link is self described as a site for “gold bugs and doom enthusiasts.”
Doom enthusiasm, now there’s a concept. I bet you could really market gold to those folks. Everything’s going to shit, hooray!!!
The sooner everything goes to shit, the better, IMO.
““The drop in April permits is therefore alarming,” Shepherdson said, although he noted that an early Easter may have impacted the data.”
Why, did all the builders spend Holy Week in church praying?
When I drove by a tiny neighborhood around 2 month ago in Fairfax, VA, I saw six for rent signs. I had a talk with an owner and he is pretty confident about his a small 3BR TH ($1800/m) on the market. Recently I found out none of these find a tenant. Plus I count a new rental sign. I guess today’s rental market is tough as well.
And it’s going to get worse. More stuff on that (including a genius Brandeis economist’s failed predictions about rents rising) in the other post from Ben today (”“The Housing Outlook Has Deteriorated”):
“Brandeis University economist Stephen G. Cecchetti said yesterday that last year he ‘was warning that rises in OER would eventually push core inflation over 3 percent. Well, that hasn’t happened.’”
“At that time, Cecchetti said, he thought that years of rapid increases in home prices had so outstripped the change in rents that once house prices stopped rising, it would take years of rent increases to close the gap.”
“‘What I failed to see was that the combination of a high inventory of unsold new homes, combined with increased mortgage defaults could flood the rental market,’ he said. That glut ‘is holding OER down now and is likely to continue to do so in the foreseeable future. The result will be falling CPI inflation,’ Cecchetti predicted.”
From delphic oracle to master of the obvious…
———————————————————————————-
Greenspan Joins Fellow Legend, Pimco’s Gross
By Greg Ip
Word Count: 863 | Companies Featured in This Article: Allianz
Two of the world’s best-known interest-rate experts, the “Maestro” and “The Bond King,” are now playing for the same team.
Alan Greenspan, returning to his roots as an economic consultant, has signed up Allianz AG’s Pacific Investment Management Co. as his first client since leaving as chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Pimco’s chief investment officer is the widely followed bond king Bill Gross.
Among the predictions Mr. Greenspan has made for his new client: World interest rates are headed higher in the next few years.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117927258793704109.html?mod=home_whats_news_us
Flippers are crowding the exit door from our zip code (Rancho Bernardo 92127) and hoping to get paid top dollar as they wave good-bye. Here are the wishing prices and hypothetical capital gains for three homes identically priced at the current median list price for 92127 of $1,299,000. (Bear in mind that the April 2007 median sale price was only $850,000, according to DataQuick…) The data are from redfin.com :
14435 ROCK ROSE
SAN DIEGO, CA 92127-3617
Sales History
Date Price
12/11/2003 $793,500
Hypothetical capital gain = $1,299,000 - $793,500 = $505,500
4418 CAMINITO LAZANJA
SAN DIEGO, CA 92127
Last Sale: $716,000 (07/29/2002)
Hypothetical capital gain = $1,299,000 - $716,000 = $583,000
14385 CAMINITO LAZANJA
SAN DIEGO, CA 92127
Last Sale: $907,000 (02/12/2004)
Hypothetical capital gain = $1,299,000 - $907,000 = $392,000
Buh-buy Pancho…
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/05/gonzales_must_g.html
PRI’s “This American Life” radio show had a recent episode on the Habeas Corpus issue. The podcast is available at http://thislife.org/Radio_Archive.aspx (April 2007, show #331 Habeas Schmabeas). You can also get it (free) through the iTunes Music Store.
Well worth the time.
Can anyone tell me how much it really cost to rehab a house ( new roof, windows ,siding, bathrooms, kitchens, heating/air unit) > I was doing my drive by’s today and came across a house beeing renovated with a FSBO sign. Went home looked it up on zillow and it sold for $226,000 in feb. It’s in our school attendence boundries so that’s why i was really interested
I called the number and the flipper told me all that had been done to it, Kept asking if I was an inverstor ( NO! we want to live it him…i told him 3 seperate times). He thinks he’s going to get well over $500,000 for it. No way, no how is he getting that for that neighborhood. I asked for an AS IS price and he again asked am i an investor.
I told him good luck and that he was going to need it.
So does anyone know what is fair price for a rehabbed house. It’s just a standard 4 bd 2.5 bath colonial house in a so/so neighborhood?
Lots of variables. Depends on if the flipper was the GC, what kind of materials he used (retail or wholesale price, etc.). Sounds like your guy has been watching too much TV. Way too much.
Good windows (Pella, Anderson, etc.) can cost 20K or more, a roof maybe 5-6K unless it’s really ornate or has tile, copper, etc. If you get custom cabinets, in the kitchen and BR, that can be another 50-60K. Doubt any of that was done. Probably slapdash Home Depot materials and a lot of fantasizing.
Roof: 5K
Windows: $200/each (decent, not great, quality)
2.5 baths: 40K (decent, not great or chincy, quality)
Kitchen: 20K (decent, not high-end, no chince)
Air/Heat (no new duct work): 5K
Siding: 30K (cedar clapboard) or 5K (vinyl)
$100,000 is plenty to do a decent job on a place like this. That is the retail cost - if the flipper is a contractor the cost will be less.
I think he’s a contractor. I looked the house up on the county web page and it was bought by a real estate company that rehabs houses. He’s put in too many upgrades for the nieghborhood IMO.
I figured he ‘d know better or at least know the market by now. I also don’t undersatnd why they got a for sale sign up already. There’s no advertising it, i just happen to stumble upon it. That’s why i was hoping for an as is sale.
Oh well. When he can’t sell it for over $500,000 it’ll be fun to watch the price drop and drop and drop again
Most of the average rehabbed flips that I have seen advertised around my neck of the woods (San Diego) are usually marked up about $90K - $120K over the price paid for them. Like txchick57 mentioned, a fair price would definitely depend on the quality of the work and the materials used to do it. I’ve seen plenty of rehabs around here using the cheapest stuff available. There are also plenty of these guys now eating the costs they’ve sunk into their house flips, and are trying to sell for what they paid or less. Mmmm… laminate flooring.
Completely off topic -
Since this blog is filled with financially savvy people, I thought I could get a good concensus opinion here:
What should a person’s net worth be to afford a $300,000 Bentley?
And for a $50,000 Lexus, BMW, or Mercedes?
Thanks for any answers (bonus points for some rationale)
My answer…..
The question is moot. A car is a tool to get from one place to another.
If having one of those cars helps in your line of business, like you’re a salesman that need to project success to be sucessful, then the RoI dictates.
If you’re buying one of those cars, not for business, but doing it to feel better about yourself or to compensate for something, then take the money to a psycologist instead.
IMO
I think you’re interpreting this as my personal question for a purchase decision - I assure you that it is not ( I drive a paid for 5 year old pickup truck)
My wife and I came to the concensus that in order to comfortably afford a $300K Bentley you should be worth $10 mil - and can easily spend about 3% of that on a fancy car if you want to. But for the $50K cars (of which there are plenty these days), I doubt most of the owners are worth anything close to $2M. Most are probably worth whatever is in the checking account that week, minus what’s due for the bills waiting in the mailbox. We see several new Bentleys regularly in our part of AZ, and hundreds of the $50K “luxury” cars daily.
Have a friend that has not one but two…A his & hers….My best guess would be they are worth north of 40 mil….
If you have to get a loan, it’s too expensive.
From a financial pespective, the rule used to be not to spend more than 8% of your income on a car loan (or savings). With 10% down, the Bentley would be about $5k/mo on a 5%/60mo. note. This would take an income >$750k to make that
post got cut off…
This would take an income >$750k to make that payment under 8% of income. For the $50k lux car, the same fundementals would result in a $125k income. The incomes could reduced 15%~20% if you save up to purchase instead of using a loan.
There are guys in this town that still live with their parents and drive Bently’s so I’m sorry your question is lost on me…
The only reason I know to buy the 300K Bentley is because it is the only car I know of that does a four wheel launch!
So if a person likes a car for that reason then a net worth of 50K should be sufficient to lease the car and drive it into the ground before its repo.
Most financially saavy people have better uses for their money than to put it in a car that screams “look at me - I’m under-endowed!”
Just for fun I compared income stats between Larimer County, CO and San Diego County, CA (source Wikipedia):
Larimer County:
“The median income for a household in the county was $48,655, and the median income for a family was $58,866. Males had a median income of $40,829 versus $27,859 for females. The per capita income for the county was $23,689. About 4.30% of families and 9.20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 6.80% of those under age 18 and 4.40% of those age 65 or over.”
San Diego county:
“The median income for a household in the county was $47,067, and the median income for a family was $53,438. Males had a median income of $36,952 versus $30,356 for females. The per capita income for the county was $22,926. About 8.90% of families and 12.40% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16.50% of those under age 18 and 6.80% of those age 65 or over.”
So the medians are higher in Larimer County and the percentage living in poverty is lower. Yet the median house price in San Diego is more than 2X higher.
At least I now know what they are building al these new stores here. We’re supposed to be rich!
I’ve done the same thing a bajillion times with Minneapolis vs San Diego and Mpls vs San Francisco.
(since I moved from SF to SD then to Mpls)
There is a hell of a weather tax to live on the left coast.
In San Diego they used to joke (when I lived there) that we were paid in “sunshine dollars”
Yesterday at work, I had a couple come through (grocery store) with their realtor name tags on. I asked how the market was going. The guy says, oh we can negotiate now, if you’re interested. He says, “lets say you see a million dollar home, I can get you a 200k reduction plus closing costs.” Uh, I’m a GROCERY CLERK!! This is in Covina, Ca. About 25 min east of downtown L.A. When does this madness stop?
funny how “million dollar home” rolls so easily off the tongue, as if the house is so worth it…
Its sheer insanity. I’m guessing that their mindset is that you will buy an 800K “bargain” and resell it next year for 1 million.
But just think, the commissions on the 800K sale are more than your annual income.
Aint that the truth? And for this I sweat everyday? I’m in the wrong business, but my mom taught me not to lie, cheat or steal, so I guess I’ll stick with the honest works day for an honest works pay.
But you can look at yourself in the mirror every morning with no regrets.
You might consider relocating to flyover country. The pay is about the same, and your standard of living will be much higher.
I bet the realtor couple was buying cat food, even though they already ate their pets.
Fight, over at the Portland RE Blog (a realtor’s blog).
nailed him, good job.
What a slapdown! With civil, well-defended points. Ouch.
I didn’t feel it was that civil or a slapdown. PDXrenter has an issue with an industry and he has chosen to take it out on me. We don’t have to agree, we should be able to debate without calling it a fight and nobody should have to question ethics.
The industry created its own monster with too-low barriers to entry and, in my not popular opinion by most Realtors, allowing dual agency.
http://activerain.com/blogsview/41979/How-to-Sell-Your
A few months ago, uber-realtor Barbara Corcoran posted her “how to sell your house in a weekend” column to gushing praise from her NAR groupies. Then some HBB sallied on over and rampaged through their la-la land, turning their sacred cows into hamburger. Now the gushers are long gone and the thread’s gone dead. I suspect Queen Babs has become a quivering buddle of neurosis as she waits for the nice man in the white coat to give her that special hot chocolate that turns her peaks and valleys into gently rolling hills.
I thought a $1,000,000 home was a MANSION, not a CApt Crunch box. Oh well.
I have a beef with this housing bubble that I don’t see being discussed a lot. THere’s a lot more congestion and crap in the states now versus just a few years ago. Here in SIoux Falls we had our traffic really pick up in 2005 (ironically we crossed the 140K population mark) and ever since it seems that not only is traffic really bad, but people in general are a lot more ornery and combative now. My belief is that larger cities are always going to be nastier overall, but if this attitude is spreading from LA/NYC/Boston/Atlanta/etc. and going to the smaller cities, we have a big problem on our hands. It seems like the stress and frustration in the whole Union has gone up rapidly in the last couple of years. In about 2000 I had a feeling that the United States were going to experience some real nasty politics in the near future, and I fear that we may be hitting this in 2007. How I and many others could figure this out and yet your political ‘analysts’, much older and supposedly more educated than me, could miss out on this, is a mystery to me. The housing bubble I fear could lead to some real nasty political hot air anytime soon.
What we have here is a tremendous amount of retail (shopping mall) space being constructed while older malls see their customer’s drop. 20 years ago, Cristown and Metro Center were the place to be. Now they strugle as stores close to be replaced by Ross and other low end retailers.
Of course, 20 years before that, it was downtown that was the place to shop.
Old neighborhoods rot while we move further and further out, giving ourselves longer and longer commutes.
As gas goes to $4, $5, $6… over the next decade those outer areas of the Phoenix metro with all the houses, retail, and dining, but no professional jobs will begin to recede, like the edges of a water hole drying up in the desert heat. All those Anthem and Queen Creek people who commute 50+ miles each way to the jobs in downtown Phoenix, Scottsdale, or Tempe will come to realize that there was a reason their new house was so cheap (if they were the original buyer) back in 2000-2003.
What we have here is a tremendous amount of retail (shopping mall) space being constructed while older malls see their customer’s drop.
Same here.
in Montrose, Colorado, they just ruined a beautiful riparian meadow and cut down big old-growth cottonwoods (nesting for eagles, people here tried to stop the bulldozers with no luck) to house yet another mall that looks like a wanna-be prison. may they all go broke slowly and in great distress, kind of like Chinese water torture. Better yet, may they turn the damn thing into a prison to house all the fraudulent brokers and realtwhores.
May 16, 2007
The Latest Foreclosure Victims
Maya Roney
Speaking of foreclosures in Ohio…it turns out that an evicted man in Cincinnati recently walked away from his home without alerting anyone about the 60+ cats and kittens he left behind.
These innocent creatures, trapped inside without food or water, cannot be accused of biting off more debt than they could chew. Rescue groups are now looking for foster homes and donations. Visit http://www.foreclosurecats.org to help (“Foreclosure Cats” could also be a great band name).
A few days late, but I just saw this, and gave a donation, and put the link on my own website to help spread the news.
Could we forget about the FBs and have a bailout plan for their pets, please?
sorry, just to be clear, not my blib, but an extract from business week
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/
*** Anyone wanna send comments to the FRB ***
Release Date: May 3, 2007
For immediate release from the Federal Reserve Board.
The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday announced that it will hold a public hearing under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA) on June 14, to gather information on how it might use its rulemaking authority to curb abusive lending practices in the home mortgage market, including the subprime sector.
The Board will invite consumer advocacy organizations, lenders, and other interested parties to participate in panel discussions. In addition to the panel discussions, the Board intends to reserve about one hour in the afternoon to permit interested parties other than those on the panels to make brief statements. To allow as many as possible to offer their views during this period, oral statements will be limited to three minutes; written statements of any length may be submitted for the record. The Board anticipates that the hearing will begin at 8:30 a.m. EDT and conclude at 4:00 p.m., however, this schedule is tentative and further information about the hearing, including the final schedule and the procedure for registering for security purposes to attend the hearing, will be published in the Federal Register and on the Board’s web site at http://www.federalreserve.gov.
see the full release at http://tinyurl.com/26glmp
Sent an email to a realtor about a 2-family (3 and 5 bedrooms) next to a university selling for $309,000. Realtor took a day to get back to me and told me that it was already under contract to close at the end of this month. Building looked in good shape and clearly is something that is purchased for renting to college students.
You gotta be kidding me. TITHES? To Whose False God?
From the CBS cry-babies…
>>
My husband and I have partnered in real estate for almost ten years. We were sick to see CBS paint such a dismal and unfair picture of real estate brokers in your recent 60 Minutes program. We work very hard at a business that can be extremely stressful and exhausting. Typically our commission is a four way split…..first between the principal brokers (office owners), and then between the principal brokers and the agents according to their contract agreement. The first 10% of our commission goes to tithes, 30% to savings for taxes, and 20% for expenses such as marketing listings, gas, E&O insurance, required education, and MLS and association fees. There are actually very few careers that I can think of where people are expected to be “on call” from early to late, seven days a week. However, we love what we do, and place great value on the lifelong friendships we have gathered along the way. It is truly relationship marketing…..and there is no substitute for that in this electronic world. We find that’s the way most people prefer to do business and are more than willing to pay for the service we provide. Because of your sloppy and biased reporting, you have just lost credibility with a lot of real estate professionals and a lot of satisfied clients who have used our services for years.
Posted by rhoden6 at 05:31 PM : May 16, 2007
BWHAHAHAHA! You throw a rock at a pack of dogs, and the one that yelps is the one you hit.
The first 10% of our commission goes to tithes, 30% to savings for taxes, and 20% for expenses such as marketing listings, gas, E&O insurance, required education, and MLS and association fees.
God hates realtors, so you can keep the 10% since you’re going to hell anyway. If you want to lower your marketing and carrying costs, you can PRICE PROPERTIES TO SELL and refuse to accept overpriced properties from greedheads who want to party like it’s 2005.
Because of your sloppy and biased reporting, you have just lost credibility with a lot of real estate professionals and a lot of satisfied clients who have used our services for years.
Lady, you’re a dues-paying member of an organization that had David Lereah as its chief economist and spokesman. You are in no position to judge anyone else’s credibility.
http://cosprings.craigslist.org/wan/330784965.html
Expect to see more Internet panhandling like this. In the coming depression, families, not total strangers in cyberspace, will be the ultimate and perhaps only safety net.
What Could Save the Housing Market
By Rich Toscano
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The speculative housing bubble that launched San Diego home prices so high is now in the process of deflating. Prices have been on the decline for over a year, but they remain well above the levels that would be justified by the economic fundamentals now that the bubble-era forces of rampant buyer optimism and unsustainably lax lending are disappearing before our eyes.
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2007/05/16/opinion/01toscano051607.txt