Post Local Market Observations Here!
What do you see in your housing market this weekend? Lower prices? “With so many houses on the market right now and prices falling, buyers have more houses to choose from and more bargaining power than in recent years, agents say. ‘Buyers know they are more in the driver’s seat,’ agent Yolanda Muckle said.”
“Last month, houses took an average of 90 days to sell in the 20716 ZIP code, three times longer than a year ago. Prices were also down by nearly 4 percent since May 2006.”
“Agents remain optimistic, but they cautioned that many buyers will expect to get the prices they may have seen during the real estate boom a few years ago. Agent Homer Henry said he is often unwilling to work with owners who insist on overpricing their houses. ‘I won’t waste my time,’ he said.”
New legislation? “The Florida Legislature pushed Adam Lubkin off the fence Thursday. Legislators hope a proposed constitutional amendment is just the stick needed to jump-start a slow real estate market by giving the most benefit to new middle-class homeowners.”
“Lubkin rents an apartment, but he wants to live in Boca Raton. He’s been pre-approved for a loan and plans to look for a house in the $600,000 range. ‘You might say that’s a lot of money,’ Lubkin said, ‘but in the areas I’m looking, you couldn’t get a townhouse for that a couple years ago.’”
“Not so fast, says a local housing analyst. ‘There isn’t likely to be much immediate impact,’ said Mike Larson of Weiss Research in Jupiter. ‘That’s because the tax cut for the 2007-08 tax year is only averaging 7 percent, or about $170,’ he said.”
News from Wall Street? “Concerned that an internal hedge fund at Bear Stearns Cos. wouldn’t be able to meet a margin call, Merrill Lynch & Co., one of the fund’s biggest lenders, seized $400 million of its assets and is preparing to auction them off.”
“The auction, in the coming week, could trigger the fund’s dissolution, the second blowup in recent months of a hedge fund that made dicey bets on the market for risky home loans, known as subprime mortgages.”
“Everquest Financial, a company that filed plans for an initial public offering last month, has ties with a troubled hedge fund run by investment bank Bear Stearns Cos.”
“‘If the stories are correct about the problems at the fund, it sounds like they off-loaded the riskiest positions to Everquest,’ said Josh Rosner, a managing director at research firm Graham Fisher & Co. ‘It is not clear if this was before or after they were aware that those positions were hurting the hedge fund, but the decision seems to have happened before news leaked of the funds’ supposed problems,’ he added.”
Decreasing affordability? “The affordability of most types of housing deteriorated in the Greater Vancouver area in the first three months this year as prices continued to climb, the Royal Bank said Friday.”
“RBC says it takes 70 per cent of pre-tax income to service basic ownership costs (including mortgage payments, utilities and property taxes) for a two-storey home in the region. ‘If you have a job and rates are going up, then you simply cut three days from your vacation,’ said CIBC economist Benjamin Tal. ‘You start to make some tradeoffs.’”
News from Wall Street? “Concerned that an internal hedge fund at Bear Stearns Cos. wouldn’t be able to meet a margin call, Merrill Lynch & Co., one of the fund’s biggest lenders, seized $400 million of its assets and is preparing to auction them off.”
“The auction, in the coming week, could trigger the fund’s dissolution, the second blowup in recent months of a hedge fund that made dicey bets on the market for risky home loans, known as subprime mortgages.”
UhOh–The sharks are now eating each other–Very bad news for the credit markets.
So the rich white men made subprime loans to the poor minorities, who then didn’t make their payments which caused the rich white men to lose their investment. It doesn’t make much sense, other than noting that the rich white men are just as dumb as the poor minority subprime borrowers.
There seems to be no shortage of stupidity in the subprime saga.
But rich white men tend to squeeze much larger checks out of the federal government than do poor minorities.
Neither party deserves sympathy for their being irresponsible. But I would bet anybody $1,000 that the rich white men that walk around my neighborhood come out of this in much better shape than the poor minorities that walk around my neighborhood. Any takers?
But I would bet anybody $1,000 that the rich white men that walk around my neighborhood come out of this in much better shape than the poor minorities that walk around my neighborhood. Any takers?
No takers, boy, the odds are stacked against the poor.
Some of the poor will always be poor because they make bad choices. Just look at Mike Tyson or the guy who won the $300 million lotto. They are both broke after having hundreds of millions of $
Many of the rich white connected people will end up rich despite their bad choices, because of their connections.
Some of the poor will always be poor because they make bad choices.
Occasionally everyone no matter if they are rich, poor or middle class makes bad choices (look at Ms. Hilton). The difference between the poor and everyone else is that if you don’t have money a bad choice is a bigger problem for you. Stupidity is equal opportunity.
That lottery winner is broke? Link?
I have a question about these hedge funds. Did anyone actually make money in the past two years on these subprime loans? From an investor’s prospective, high fee loans that are to collect huge interests in two years, which also include get out penalties, would seem lucrative. But logically, they were doomed for failure from the start due to the high risk. I believe information on hedge funds is private, but is there any information available on the past two or three year history of these particular Bear Stearns funds that bombed? Just curious.
I can’t believe it, there are REOs in Venice and SM. Priced high, mind you, but under 1M. That’s news.
Your patience rewarded there, LAIG!
One thing to note regarding high end areas: many people stretched to get into these “desirable” communities. They never had any business being there in the first place, and will find that out the hard way.
Good news! Now maybe we’ll start to see some action. Are these mostly condos? I am expecting the condos to get whacked first, as they were the only things
inexpensiveunder a million that an FB could finance with a dumbo loan. I have no idea how the FBs who bought the $2.5 - $3 million flips managed to finance them. Is there such a thing as a mega-super-jumbo loan?You said it LAIG. Here in the Westside I am beginning to some signs of the “abandoned house syndrome”. In fact, there is a house that was for sale last year just around the corner from where I live in the 90024 zip. It was all redone and I believe I remember they were asking close to 1.5 (an “average” asking price in my neck of the woods). I don’t know if it sold or not, but it is certainly empty, with fliers piling up by the front door and a yellow lawn that sticks out like a sore thumb.
I saw a bank repo’d Westwood condo on ziprealty last week. Still priced high as you said but it’s a step in the right direction.
“Everquest Financial, a company that filed plans for an initial public offering last month, has ties with a troubled hedge fund run by investment bank Bear Stearns Cos.”
“‘If the stories are correct about the problems at the fund, it sounds like they off-loaded the riskiest positions to Everquest,’ said Josh Rosner, a managing director at research firm Graham Fisher & Co. ‘It is not clear if this was before or after they were aware that those positions were hurting the hedge fund, but the decision seems to have happened before news leaked of the funds’ supposed problems,’ he added.”
Everquest is the company that bought all the Fremont loans and gave the Fremont stock a pop. Something awfully fishy is going on in the markets. Did people go long on Fremont? If Everquest sold stock, did the same investors go short?
It was Fortress Investment Group (FIG) that is buying up all the subprime loans. They bought the subprime group from Centex then they bought most of the subprime loans from Fremont for a ridiculously high price of 97/100.
Fortress only spun off about 10% of itself in the IPO. It’s very likely that it spun off the bad loans as the assets backing the IPO. Basically, Bear Stearns is following in FIG’s footsteps and the other Wall Street fraudsters will be doing the same.
Given the crony capitalistic world we live in, it will not surprise me one iota if it eventually comes to light that much of the recent bottom fishing in the subprime and auto manufacturing sectors was orchestrated through hedge funds and private equity by the Working Group. The nice thing about hedge funds and private equity is that they are unregulated, and hence under the radar screen of the MSM (not meaning to suggest the MSM is very observant, though).
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/category/revolving-door/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Group_on_Financial_Markets
I’ve long suspected there was major hanky panky going on with these hedge fund deals. Kinda like buying stock in “Indian-owned” casinos or “for-profit” hospitals. I could go on. But instead …I continue to ponder the things that make me go ….hmmmmmm.
There are 270 used SFRs listed on the MLS for our zipcode (92127) — up by 35% since early February. The median list price is still stuck at $1,350,000 (yawn…). According to Sandicor, the median May sold price in 92127 was $1,195,000, though I suspect a data error, as the median sold price they show for April was $725,000.
http://sandicor.com/statistics/stats2007/04-2007/sfd-407-stats.pdf
Overall, ziprealty.com’s used condo & SFR inventory for San Diego County continues its slow but inexorable march towards 20,000, which should be reached some time in the late summer. It is currently at 19,165 homes.
“20,000″
ok now im almost cheered up. that is a big ole number. will it double by next summer?
I personally look at the ziprealty.com inventory figure as an indication but not a complete description of SD inventory, because it excludes FSBO listings and new construction. There are 130 “new home communities” with SFRs starting out in the $500Ks (with the sky as the limit). If there are 100 homes per “new home community” that will hit the market in the next year, each valued (conservatively!) at $500K, then that would add 100 X 130 X $500,000 = $6,500,000,000 ($6.5b) of new home inventory in the short run. This is a rough figure, but I believe the order of magnitude is on the right range. And it may prove to be a low-end estimate; new homes in one large tract home development in 92127 (Avaron — Del Sur) are selling “from $1.5m;” I am guessing there are four hundred homes in just this one development, which would bring the aggregate offered value to $1.5m X 400 = $600,000,000 ($600m). It would take a cruise ship full of millionaires just to absorb this one high-end development.
These are rough estimates, but they give some idea of what I mean by “the elephant under the rug,” as these homes generally do not appear on ziprealty.com listings (SD MLS). In fact, if you go to the redfin.com site, all you will find in the areas of these “new home communities” is blank space.
http://www.delsurliving.com/neighborhood/index.php
http://sdhomessearch.signonsandiego.com/NewHomes/searchindex.asp
Here in Arizona our Governor has signed into law a that restricts HOA’s from preventing homeowners from placing For Sale signs outside their properties.
How’s that for lookingo out for the folks.
desertfox
Here in Arizona our Governor has signed into law a that restricts HOA’s from preventing homeowners from placing For Sale signs outside their properties.
How’s that for looking out for the folks.
desertfox
I bet in some of these BUBBLE neighborhoods it would be easier to put signs in the yard that read, “Not for Sale”. You would have fewer signs cluttering the neighborhood.
Actually some neighborhoods were that way and that was back in 2006. frommy amateur observations it appears that the HB’s have completed or nearly so any subdivions that will be completed. Otherwise, locally they appear to be pounding just enough nails or moving just enough dirt to keep the cash flow from their lenders. Going forward I would think the HB strategy will be to price new homes low enough below the prices that existing homeowners paid that they cannot compete. They certainly have enough margin to knock the socks off any speculators,oops “investors” for years to come. I believe i read somewhere that 4 out of 10 homes sold in Arizona in the 2005-2006 era where second homes or ‘investors”.
An equal number of new jobs were related or partially to real estate,post 2002 Ouch.
desertfox
LOL!
Have been seeking rental space Chester County PA. Ran into one where I would have 3 1/2 rooms for $650 a month (have to share kitchen, though). All utilities included. Less than 30 miles from Phila. This is so cheap I thought there might be many takers. Nope, I am the only applicant after some number of days. Signs of ex-urban overbuild.
I grew up in Chester Co, PA. There can be a big difference in prices among the different cities b/c of the school districts. Coatesville is one of the worst in the state and Downingtown & West Chester are some of the best.
Oops, sorry for the double post
desertfox
Lehigh Valley area of PA has more houses for sale than ever before. Nothing is selling for anything close to asking. Homes are sitting for 6 months to 1 year but the local realtors print in the Morning Call (local rag) that the average is 52 days. PLEASE! Our prices are about to revert to 2001 prices, soon!
I love to hear about all of the people living in Pennsylvania that either drive into New Jersey for work or take the bus into New York for work. Something tells me that rising gas prices might really harm the phony Pennsylvania market. It amazes me how many people value some crappy granite counter-top 10 times more than time relaxing at home or playing with their kids. Nice priorities, you dumba$$es.
High gas prices have to be putting a hurting on many commuters. When one is paying $500, sometimes close to $1000 per month, on gasoline, it begins to make a lot of sense to live closer to work and spend that money on housing instead. The time saved, and the lower stress lifestyle is much more rewarding.
This is why We moved to Manhattan from Stamford CT in 1995, rent was $800 plus we had to have 2 cars plus the Metro North ticket to Manhattan and parking at the train station.
we sold one car park the other at my parents and saved far more per month paying $1200 rent. and being 20 min to work (lots of OT not being stuck to a train schedule)…instead of 1hr 20 minutes, each way, and paying $800 per month…plus we were in Manhattan!
Hubby and I rent a 1 bedroom (with an office) for $875. I grew up in Fitchburg, about 30 miles north of Worcester, at the far western end of the commuter rail. We could get a far nicer place in Fitchburg for about $600, but since we both work in Boston, that would mean either buying a car or riding the commuter rail 90 minutes each way. When you add $500 for 2 zone 8 monthly passes (or even $250 for 1), it’s much cheaper to live in the city.
I worked a temp job in Boston while living in Fitchburg, and I hated the commute. I could sleep on the way there, but I had no time for anything else during the work week. My commute was basically a part-time job. When you factored in travel time, I was making just above minimum wage.
I heard that. What kind of life could some have. The average person who’s commuting works 8-11 hours a day at their job. They travel 3-5 hours too and from to work those hours. That’s 11-16 hours a day minimum. Sorry family but I won’t see you until I retire. Actually the morning call(bias as hell) ran a report a few months ago saying how the “commuters” barely moved here in 2006, they still are trying to make the real estate community believe it’s great for commuting. My response is simple when it comes to this theory. I could work in the Lehigh Valley and buy a home in North Central PA. You can buy a complete brick (not just the front like the McMansions) house 3-4 bedrooms on 2-4 acres for way under $100k. They drive would actually be better because there’s no traffic in the middle of bum-f*ck Egypt. Now if prices around here rose because of commuters (the Lehigh Valley has been in the same location we didn’t move it closer since 2001) why wouldn’t people have been doing this for the last 100 years. WHY? BECAUSE IT’S NOT NORMAL AND THESE PEOPLE ARE WATCHING THEIR PRIZED HOMES EQUITITY DROP. Our prices are going to crash back to 2001 levels or worse. These idiots payed 100% or more than they homes are actually worth. Then after 6 months of driving in hellish conditions they find out, IT SUCKS TO COMMUTE! Watch as the McMansions sit empty and start selling for 175k instead of 300k, it’s coming to a local theatre or cul-de-sac soon!
Shoot. In 2002 I lived off of exit 35 on route 80 for ten months and commuted by vanpool into New York metro. The amazing thing was to watch these big commuter buses on the freeway at 5:30 in the morning. The people in my van - long time NJ residents - told me the buses are coming in from Pennsylvania and headed to NY. What a life commuting through three states. I lived where I lived because it had a very rural look. The consulting gig had no overtime anyway.
The market is okay here in Nashua NH. A fair price gets sold quickly. I’ve been waiting for this downturn but prices have hardly budged. It is a bit slower and you can negotiate. But 10 less after a 90 increase is hardly a major downturn.
That’s because the best prices in Nashua, New Hampshire are coming in 2014.
Wow, that must be a special place to hold out that long. But I’m betting it won’t be nearly that long and 2010 brings some pretty good deals.
Oh, it will be at least that long to reach bottom.
I suppose that by 2010 there will be some deals. By then one might see much of the fall in prices, but you can be sure that it will at be best be flat nominally for many years afterward.
It’s nice to see confirmation in the news that Everquest was a toxic-waste-dump site created for Bear Stearn’s hedge fund–just as we speculated a few weeks back…
Still following the same townhome development in Potomac, Maryland, a fancy suburb of Washington DC.
Earlier in April, there were 8 identa-properties for sale. Now the number has dropped down to 4.
Still for sale:
1. $749K (39 DOM)
2. $750K (94 DOM)
3. $750K (138 DOM)
4. $769K (86 DOM)
The others:
5. One property of the original 8 dropped down to $699K. I suspect it sold. Price will become public in a few more months.
6. One property was priced at $845K. I suspect this was taken off the market.
7. Another property was at $749K and marked as “super motivated seller”. Perhaps this one sold too?
8. I’m not sure what happened to the last property.
Some history of the neighborhood:
Homes originally sold in the late 90s for about $300K. Sold in 2002 for about $400K. Peaked at $820K in spring of 2006.
I am now *guessing* that the most recent sale went through at $699K.
So from the peak of 820K down to 699K would be a loss of about 15%.
Here in Seattle, our local bubble blog linked to a WSJ scoop that one of our town’s fourth-generation downtown landholders was putting 12 ‘underutilized’ acres near downtown up for sale all at once, hoping to get an offer in the hundreds of millions but willing to take it all off the market if nobody bites. WSJ did a good job of contextualizing the dimmer prospects for this sale given the effect on REIT risk appetite of last week’s very sticky bond-yield-upheaval. They speculated the seller might have waited too long to float this. The belly laughs hit when you read the local MSM coverage, which took the seller’s press release and added hyperbole from every oft-quoted local RE shill. “This will put Seattle on the map with a world class project! Like…Rockefeller Center! Canary Wharf!” (Canary Wharf?!?) Classic: “could be the catalyst that vaults Seattle to a prominent position as a worldwide city.” Oh, brother.
“World Class” and “Canary Wharf” are two phrases that just don’t go together.
Having lived in Canary Wharf’s shadow for 15 years, the best epithet I ever heard for it was “Margaret Thatcher’s Peni$”…
..nuff said.
Let me predict that that space will become birthing grounds for thousands and thousands of new condos, all coming online 2010-2013. That’ll be a real dagger for the housing market, since the location is prime.
The success of that development will be at the expense of the rest of Seattle. There are few places in the sprawl that have a local economy not based entirely on restaurants, coffee shops and Fred Meyers– considering the nightmare scramble of Seattle’s roads and bridges and the looming closure of the viaduct.
Exactly the people who would’ve been buying up $700k 2/2s in Fremont will be opting for those condos instead.
Was out with the wife today going to garage sales. Dominion Homes was running advertisements on a lite rock station all morning long. This is in Columbus, Ohio btw.
New condo apartments and townhouses in blue collar Vancouver suburbs are not selling like they used to.
Phase 2 of Eagle Crest Estates has not sold one of the 25 townhouses since they came on the market in December. One unit is V624501 on the Canadian MLS mls.ca This unit was originally $419,900 but is now $399,900.
ECE is in Queensborough in the middle of the Fraser River. Until about five years ago it was a lovely mixture of industry and dilapidated dirt farms. You can still see the old Queensborough between the townhouse complexes. Many of the old farm houses are now used to grow BC’s most profitable crop.
I consider ECE a canary in the coalmine and its choking on the poisoned gases of speculation.
As late as the 1980’s Queensborough looked essentially unchanged from the 1920’s, to the extent that they used to do period movie shots there, as a stand-in for New Jersey or whatever.
As a parting laugh the home of Eagle “Crest” Estates is as flat as a pancake. You do see the odd eagle looking for fish in the river though.
Seventy per cent of your income on housing here in Vancouver. Yes, that’s sustainable. In fact, that’s almost a complete reversal of the old bankers adage to spent no more than 30 per cent of your income on housing. Of course first time home buyers can easily conform to this budget. No worries here for your move-up market sale of yet another leaky shoddy townhome. I mean, is California’s COL for housing even 70 per cent? It’s just insane. Yet people here are PROUD of that fact. I am begining to really despise this city and the debt-slaved status-obessed airheads who live here. Grr. Rant off.
“I am begining to really despise this city and the debt-slaved status-obessed airheads who live here”
thats a good rant, may i join in? i am so exasperated (my favorite word) instead of buying a place, i have a lifetime of renting. its not supposed to be like this.
It isn’t just the price anymore. Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton have all become social sh*tholes loaded with traffic, anti social community legislation, and a lot of crime that goes unenforced and unpunished. I bought a single family home on the upper Sunshine Coast two blocks from the ocean with a full view in a quiet community for peanuts as compared to what is going on in these cities and for the most part have no real interest in even visiting any of these cities or even hearing about them. Perhaps with global overpopulation and with all the Alberta oilsands and other energy and resource development these prices may continue to be maintained but who needs it?? If that is progress then you can keep it.
Miramar/Pembroke Pines, South Florida, most areas still overpriced; the price decreases are slow in coming and some houses are selling even though imho they are overpriced, as in @200-$220 per sq ft with zero lot lines.
Fl folks what gives?
Out walking with the huz last weekend and we went down a different street than usual. Pasadena Lake subdivision in Pembroke Pines (Broward Co, south Florida). Nice, well kept street when all of a sudden we noticed the house on the corner was all overgrown. “What’s with that house?” Three notices taped to the door for city code violations (uncut grass). There was no side gate and I just couldn’t help it, I had to check out the back yard. Lo’ and behold there was a green and nasty pool. The house wasn’t trashed but it did look like they left in a hurry. Lot of trash inside and out and lots of garden stuff left behind, big nice potted plants, a fire pit, a good sized spa, a glider, bird bath etc. Wow, it hits home. This is the first we’ve seen and this is a nice middle/upper middle class ‘hood.
I love the $100 price decreases on this flipper special:
http://www.ziprealty.com/buy_a_home/logged_in/search/home_detail.jsplisting_num=06192324&page=8&property_type=SFR&mls=mls_chicago&cKey=4lm46jnd&source=MLSNI
Let’s try that link again:
http://www.ziprealty.com/buy_a_home/logged_in/search/home_detail.jsp?listing_num=06192324&page=8&property_type=SFR&mls=mls_chicago&cKey=4lm46jnd&source=MLSNI
At $200 a month reduction to get down to the $249,000 it’s probably worth it’ll only take about 125 years.
That is one ugly eyesore. And I had absolutely no idea the bubble was that bad in the midwest. That price just blew my mind.
What blew my mind is the 353 DOM and the seller still doesn’t get it. Go figure.
I was talking with a local realtor recently in STL and she said the reason things haven’t gotten really bad around here is that many people refinanced when rates were at 5% and locked in on a fixed. They are now reluctant to sell because they’ll have to pay 6.6 on the next place so the 5 is keeping a lot of inventory off the market. She may have a point.
It has no effect on the inventory at all, because if they don’t sell the place they’re in, they won’t buying another house that is already for sale.
Are realtors really that clueless?
The real problem is that even more first-time buyers will be shut out at the higher rates.
LA Westsiders. My kids social life took me today from Clover Park to Pacific Palisades and back to Westwood. I have never seen so many open houses on a Saturday. Is that a new trend? There were at least 10 or 15 open house signs off Sunset Blvd, especially around Brentwood. Another interesting thing, the last house I know of that sold in my immediate vicinity was more than a month ago. As far as I can tell, all the others are sitting at exorbitant prices. There is so much inventory it is hard for me to keep track. That is news.
Here’s one for you. 1730 Georgina is for rent. It’s a very nice neighborhood. Might have been remodeled, I’ll have to walk by tomorrow and have a look. Assessed value is $952,037. Zillows at $1,789,472.
Rental price: Only $19,500/month.
Do you see debt people?
Rent for $19,500 a month? Are they insane? Does that come with a butler, cook and maid?
Do you think a lot of these dream price rentals are realtor looking for buyers? The realtor will try and convice anyone who’s interested that if you can afford X to rent you can buy.
19K a month???? WTF!!!! You can rent a lovely, stately old style mansion in Holmby Hills for 15K tops and you can be sure it comes with a tasteful remodel. I really want a little bit of what those people are smoking.
Realtors only hold open houses to attract more listings, not really to sell the house they’re holding open. Anyone really interested in a house to buy is not going to wait for an open house. So the question is…why would realtors need more listings?
Thought they mostly hold open houses to find buyers, if not for the open house than for other houses.
Took the kidlets to the beach (Hollywood, FL) yesterday. From A1A after crossing the drawbridge over the Intercoastal I made a game with my 12 year old. How many for sale sign can we count? There were 22 in just four blocks of Hollywood Blvd.
Did not count, but your # is very accurate from my observations. There are HOA’s in Pembroke/Miramar that prohibit “for sale” signs.
The “new construction” small multifamily market seems to be hitting a wall. Noticed quite a few not-completed projects up for sale — and this scammy plea from a developer offering to sell his projects “at my cost”:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/brx/rfs/351102920.html
Sumter, South Carolina Real Estate Market Conditions? Things continue to get worse but the downturn isn’t as bad as in 2006. Prices are coming down also. The May 2007 Average Selling Price is misleading by showing a 12% increase. The data from the Sumter County Gov website is a little tainted with duplicates. I cannot take the duplicates out of my stats because I haven’t done it in the past. Oranges to oranges is my best bet in getting meaningful data/stats. But in short, that 12% increase in sales price is WAY HIGH. Read my blog at:
http://ourcarolina.com/modules/wordpress/?p=60
A realtor in Tuscon called her about her needing a hard money loan. She has 7 single family homes that she is sucking the life out of her. Not one of them had enough equity for me to give her any type of loan. She needed some money to “finish” a few of them. I don’t know if that meant landscaping or what.
She said, rather sheepishly, that for a while the flipping thing worked out pretty good. Now, obviously being in trouble, is seeking hard money because the banks won’t even give her a 10K Heloc. I asked her if she thought about selling because she sure as hell didn’t have the proper LTV to qualify for a hard money loan. She said she wanted to wait it out.
She later emailed me about her properties and i told her that if it was me, I would do whatever I could to the GET THE HELL OUT OF THOSE PROPERTIES. Guess what, she never email back. I assuming she will be one of the band members in their tuxes who continue to play while the Titanic is slowly sinking.
At least it worked out for a while. That’s what the day traders said while they were buying any POS NASDAQ stock in 1999 and doing well and then losing it all.
I told her in an email to do whatever s
Here’s my personal story, and I find it a little baffling. I got some advice here, and tried it to no avail.
Here’s the setup - first part of May, four identical homes up for sale, same floorplan, same square footage, same lot area, three houses right in a row on one street. Asking prices were $340K, $335K, $325K, and for mine I asked $304K. As soon as my price became known, there were drops over the next couple of weeks to $325K, $320K, and $310K. I dropped to $299.9K.
Well, the house next door sold for $310K a few days ago, the house two doors down for $325K. The buyers didn’t even bother to stop, I’m a for sale by owner seller and assume they were discouraged from checking my place out by their agents. By the way, my place looks great from the street and shows well, too. The one selling for $325K looks a mess, dead lawn, weeds everywhere.
So I talk to a couple of agents. Both insist they can get me more than if I sell it myself. I call one out and go through all the maneuvering of numbers. Wants to put it up at $318K. I knew with one selling at $310K, I was doomed. Even with the price increase I was going to be getting $4K less with the agent than doing it myself, and when he pressured to drop prices to meet the comp next door, I’d be about $15K less than selling it myself.
I can’t figure it. Are people so afraid of a for sale by owner house they’d pay $25K more for one listed by an agent and not even give a thought or a look to one costing less? It’s really a fairly easy process, the title/escrow people handle the paperwork, money, and legalities. If anything, the seller has a bit more to do than the buyer. The buyer really need only agree on a price and terms, order an inspection, and go to their lender - not much work for $10K or $25K they don’t have to finance or pay.
The agents and their brokers were inflexible on their terms, wanting 6 or 7% in a slow market with six month contracts. I backed out on mine, didn’t want to be caught for 6 months. You’d think in a slow market they’d be glad to get any income, even if they have to drop a point or two off their costs.
In California, before the big run up in prices, I sold my own. Interviewed an agent, asked for 5%. He refused as he “was the best and he didn’t work for less”. So, put up my own sign and in 4 days was in escrow. For $2K he was wiling to lose $10K (he often ended up being both buyer and seller agent in that area). My costs here with all the extras agencies add on to pad their bill, I’d have been paying just under $25K, almost like being screwed without lube, pardon that expression please.
I’m running out of ideas on my place and how to sell it. I own it outright, but because of my serious health issues, I’d like to get this done while I can. I’m also in a very odd legal thing with two states and a lien they want to place regarding a deceased co-owner. The only way I can avoid the liens is to sell. The liens will not be enforced until I die, but that would put another family member who was supposed to get a share of the property at risk of losing everything. It’s such an odd situation and such strange terms even a lawyer couldn’t figure the sense of the deal.
So, some property here in the Vegas area is selling, but I guess you need the realtor to do it.
SteveR, I would not put past agent to tell the buyers something bad about your house such as there’s been a murder or the basements leaks etc… If you need to sell quick auction or advertise that you’re cutting the price x% every week. Good luck
Have you put your selling price right on the For Sale sign?? That might bring in some viewers??
Yes, Van Gogh, I have the price showing on 3 places visible from the street, and some really nice flyers with color photos. I’ve spent a lot of time and thought on all this. The realtor commented on the flyers. There’s even a banner running diagonally across one corner of the sign with the price in large print.
The sad thing is the buyers of the other two houses are going to see the same house from $10K to $25K cheaper and they’ve just started escrow. That would make me ill. The one house that was originally $340K in May has also dropped to $309K. Prices are dropping quickly here and I know this neighborhood of Henderson (Vegas) is not the only one.
The real estate agent said a for sale by owner doesn’t affect the comps since it doesn’t go through the MLS. I find that hard to believe that those sales prices don’t end up showing somewhere in comps eventually.
I’m going to try through the end of the month, at least, but by that time the heat is going to be a factor in people going out to buy, should be running close to 110 at the end of June, and by mid-July should get to 115, or perhaps the 120s like last year. No one will want to be out looking for for sale signs in that.
From Syracuse ads and classifieds:
on a $425,000 Cazenovia historic home that has sat for quite a while: the headline reads: $0 down, $2649.17 per month.
I said to husband, what idiot with no money to put down thinks $2700/month (before NYstate taxes) sounds easy. Maybe they’re attempting to make it easier to purchase before the buyer’s other home sells!
An ad for Ryan homes asks:
Why Rent When You Can Own? Only $939* per month! for a 1952 sq ‘ 3 br, 2.5 ba, 2 car (supposedly) garage.
the asterisk refers to this: Prices, financing offers subject to change w/o notice (he he he) FHA 2-1 Buydown 1st yr 5.125%, 2nd yr 6.125%, 3-30 yr 7.125%, NVR mortgage is providing 1 point program cost. APR 8.06% based on a loan amount of $153,250.00 includes insurance premium.
Now here’s my favorite: from the RE forum (really all RE shills) link from Syracuse.com:
“615. Buy buy BUY
by Roadblock06, 6/16/07 20:03 ET
Great time to buy a house, the market is saturated with homes just sitting!!!!!!!!!!!”
He! He! He! (CarrieAnn)
Saw a house being built down the street from me. Sign out front says “100% financing Unlimited Mortgage”. Nice name for a mortgage company in this madness. 100% retarded is more like it.
I only had a short hour to drive around open houses today, but boy are things beginning to look different in LA’s Westside. There is a lot of flipper inventory to process. Nothing earth shattering to report pricewise, but there are new houses coming on the market while many old listings still sit. We are not there yet, but we are closer.
I spent the weekend in Cleveland. I was there for a wedding, but I couldn’t resist checking out the housing market. It’s so soft it’s scary. The Plain Dealer’s real estate classifieds had a full page of auctions. My grandmother lives in a nice section of Shaker Heights, and the house next to her has been vacant for 2 years. “For sale” signs were everywhere. My aunt lives in Cleveland Heights, and her street had at least 4 vacant houses. The neighborhood had plenty of homes for sale.
I grabbed a few freebie “real estate guides” at the supermarket, and I was bowled over. In some suburbs, you can get a 4 bed, 1.5 to 2 bath house with a 2 car garage for less than $150,000. Hubby and I could actually put a 20% down payment on a house without emptying our 401(K)s and cashing in everything we own. We coldn’t dream of that in Boston.
Of course, you’d have to live in Cleveland, where the Ford is closing the plants near the airport and the mayor proposed an “adult entertainment district” in The Flats (the section of downtown on the waterfront). I’m going to be a nurse, so i can get a job anywhere, but I can’t help but wonder if Cleveland will turn into Newark By The Lake.