A Feeling This Is Not A Boom In Texas
The Houston Chronicle reports from Texas. “Looking for cheap land? Good luck. ‘Land values have doubled in about a 2 1/2 -year period in better areas in Houston,’ said Jim Hurd of Houston Income Properties. While the low end of the housing market slumps, Houston’s ultrarich are shelling out more for homes than they did last year. So what’s keeping the Inner Loop so strong? ‘To people from New York and California, we look like a bargain,’ agent Cathy Blum said.”
The Facts from Texas. “A steady stream of homebuyers is coming to Brazoria County, defying the tumbling market of new and existing home sales nationwide.”
“‘About 10 percent of the market in Texas accounted for those investors, but that chunk of the market is gone now,’ said said Jim Gaines, research economist at Texas A&M University. ‘The difference is Texas never had the big price boom, so after those investors have gone, we have just returned to the long-term norm, which is a fairly decent climb.’”
“Investors see cheap land in many growing areas, but prices have started to increase.”
“‘Those small beach lots at Surfside Beach, four years ago you could buy a lot for $3,000 to $4,000, that’s real cheap,’ said Harold Cox, manager of Coldwell Banker in Lake Jackson. ‘Now they’ve started selling by the square foot, at around $2 per square foot. I don’t know if what’s going on is good for everyone, but it sure is good for the real estate business.’”
The Express News. “Last year’s fickle real estate investors continue to leave a sour aftertaste in San Antonio’s new-home market.”
“Builders started 27 percent fewer homes in the second quarter compared to the same period in 2006. And more than 3,100 vacant new homes were on the market at the end of June. That’s 1,132 more homes than last summer.”
“Some of those investors had been trying to replicate a speculative scheme that had worked so well in cities on the East and West coasts before those markets turned south. But San Antonio home prices appreciated only moderately. So when it came time to close, and the prices hadn’t soared, many investors walked. All this happened at the tail end of 2006, and San Antonio still is feeling the effects.”
“‘You had this momentum building with local buyers, and it was artificially stimulated by speculative investors,’ said Jack Inselmann, VP of Metrostudy’s U.S. Central Division. ‘It’s still some good numbers. But a decline is not as fun and easy as a market that is growing.’”
From KXAN.com. “For the last two years, Austin has had one of the hottest housing markets in the country, but analysts say that is changing. One of the hottest parts about the Austin housing market has been the rise in condominiums, and there are 100 additional construction projects slated to take place.”
“Right now, 1,200 units are under construction, but analysts from Residential Strategies report that the Austin market can only absorb about 550 units per year. Pricing for these condos are matching those found in places like Miami and Chicago.”
“‘Am I concerned? Let me just say, that we’ll keep an eye on it. There’s no doubt in my mind, there’s just so much that could come on the market. If they all came on the market, there could be 7,500 units,’ said Mark Sprague with Residential Strategies.”
“Sprague said that it is ‘plateauing.’ ‘If we hadn’t had that surge this time last year, we wouldn’t be going ‘Oh the market, what’s happening to the market?,’ said Sprague.”
“Some call it the trickle-down effect from California. That’s where homeowners were selling and getting record profits, and in turn are buying in Texas. ‘Those buyers are not as aggressively purchasing anymore,’ said Sprague.”
“‘Is it now the time to sell your house?’ said Sprague, ‘If you can hold your house, I would sit on your house for a couple of years…Now is always time to buy, because as you know, values never get any cheaper.’”
The Dallas Morning News. “While the overall home sales market has seen a dip this year, sales at the top end are booming. The more than 500 buyers of million-dollar homes in North Texas during the first half of 2007 weren’t concerned about the current shakeout in the subprime mortgage market.”
“‘I think we are seeing a significant impact in the Dallas area from the boom in the energy business,’ said agent Dave Perry-Miller.”
“While the number of million-dollar plus home sales in the Dallas-Fort Worth area has tripled in the last five years, the inventory of these houses on the market is also higher. At the end of June, 1,332 million-dollar houses were up for sale, about 35 percent more than a year earlier, according to the North Texas Real Estate Information System. Even so, that’s only about a 16-month supply.”
From KVUE.com. “Imagine a huge neighborhood with 1,600 houses. Now imagine every one of those houses empty. That’s how many homes are posted for foreclosure in Dallas County.”
“Edward Hoffman of DeSoto knows of seven foreclosures on his block alone. There are 125 posted in DeSoto for August. ‘If you have a bunch of foreclosures… If you have a house that’s worth $400,000, and then you have a bunch of foreclosures, it can drop about 50 percent easy,’ he said.”
“Just three years ago were the good old days in Dallas County.”
“Cedar Hill, DeSoto, Duncanville, Garland, Irving, Lancaster and Mesquite had more than 560 foreclosures among them for August of 2004. While that was bad, the Foreclosure Listing Service now says the numbers are much worse. This August, there were 862 foreclosure postings in the same cities. That’s an increase of 65 percent.”
From WFAA.com. “The slump in the housing market has been evident for a while now. Just look at Collin County, where there are too many homes and not enough buyers.”
“Many sellers say they long for the good old days, which weren’t really that long ago. It’s been just two years since buyers got their asking price and the market was red hot.”
“The Bensen family’s nicely-decorated home on Allen’s Twin Creek Drive has been on the market for 11 months. ‘This is the fourth home we have owned, and this is the third home we have owned in the last 13-14 years, so this is quite a shock to us,’ Angela Bensen said.”
“The family has reduced their asking price by $25,000 and followed all their Realtor’s suggestions to increase curb appeal.” “In July 2005, in four of Collin County’s biggest cities, 1,304 homes were sold. The total dropped to 1,130 in July of last year. Last month, the figure dropped to 858 homes sold.”
“Compounding the problem, the inventory of available homes is increasing. Last July, there were four months’ worth of homes on the market. That figure has more than doubled to 8.2 months.”
“‘I think it’s a correction,’ said Marvin Jolly, a Frisco Realtor. ‘2005 was the biggest year on record, so this is just a matter of correcting. And its not a panic at all.’”
“Sellers say Collin County’s rush to build thousands of new homes has hurt them trying to sell their established homes. ‘There’s just too much, too much inventory,’ Bensen said.”
“And now there’s another issue complicating things for sellers. There are hundreds of homes in Collin County that are either up for lease or in foreclosure. In one Collin County neighborhood, we found 16 homes for sale and 14 were empty.”
“Almost five years into a still-reverberating energy boom, the mood of the well-heeled dinner set at the Midland Petroleum Club last week was as buoyant as the price of crude.”
“The oil and gas play in the region, stretching from Big Spring in the east, west to Hobbs, N.M., and south past Fort Stockton, has been hopping in recent years after almost two decades of relative calm.”
“‘When I first came six years ago, you could have shot a cannon in here and not hit anyone,’ said club manager Brad Miller as he surveyed the packed dining room. ‘Now, on a Friday or Saturday night you can’t get in.’”
“The consensus here among the bust-scarred oil patch survivors is quietly bullish for the long term.”
“‘It’s definitely a boom again, and I think in five years the price will be about the same. We’ll see prices of $60 to $70 a barrel, but I think it will also go well above $80,’ said Will Green, the recently elected president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.”
“‘The last boom was reckless abandon. There was no end to where the price of oil would go. Now people are a little more cautious,’ he said.”
“‘We currently have 34 new residential subdivisions being built. If it all comes to fruition, that will be 2,000 homes,’ said Odessa Mayor Larry Melton.”
“Like many others out here, Henry thinks the current strong energy market is here to stay, in part because of fundamental changes in the world economy.”
“‘The boom in the ’80s was caused by the Saudi Arabians and other countries cutting back production, whereas this one is caused by supply and demand finally reaching each other,’ he said.”
“The bust that followed wrecked the Texas economy, contributed to the nation’s savings and loan collapse and drove most major oil players out of the Permian Basin.”
“This time, things feel different, Henry said.”
“‘There is a sense of permanency, a feeling this is not a boom, but that it will be a sustained thing. We don’t fear prices will drop like they did in the past,’ he said. ‘The only thing that could change this is a world recession or some kind of worldwide catastrophe.’”
I’ve heard it said that booms happen just as the last bust falls from the memory of most participants.
‘My neighbors across the way were loading a U-Haul late at night a few months ago. As they drove down the alley in a light rain, I came out of my garage to ask about their moving plans and to say that our family had enjoyed living near them for the last six years. To my surprise, they did not even slow as I waved, and with a flickering turn signal, they disappeared into the night, never to be seen again.’
‘A few days later, workers arrived at their empty house and stacked 20 or 30 boxes of suburban detritus on the front curb. Later that night, several neighborhood teens vandalized the stack, throwing it all over the abandoned house’s yard, smashing glass items and electronics, and putting toilet paper in the trees.’
‘I dialed “311,” and made a non-emergency report. A Plano police officer quickly arrived and informed me that the Texas Property Code requires all personal property left behind after a foreclosure be put out to the street.’
‘Foreclosure? My neighbor drove a late-model Mercedes. His wife drove a BMW. They had a maid. I considered them to be the epitome of a Plano success story. I do not know what they did for a living, but I would not have considered ‘foreclosure’ to be a word in their vocabulary.’
Foreclosure is so much more of a shame than going b/k on credit cards, as it is oh so very visual and says, “we’ve failed, oh how we failed”
Looks will more than likely be deceiving, as we play the game of who’s who, financially.
The author of that piece may have sympathy for those folks, but I don’t. Even if they had been driving used Camrys and Ford Tauri instead of Mercedes and Bimmers.
Wow. The impact of this lending/housing crisis can’t get much closer or more illustrative than that–right smack dab in front of Ben Jones’ house. Did you take pictures of the mess, Ben? I’m only joking a little bit.
That’s too bad about the mess and the waste of their abandoned stuff. I disapprove strongly of waste. Some shelter or students or somebody could have benefitted from it, I bet.
OG - Just to be clear, that article (see link) is out of Dallas and I’m in Arizona.
Oh, thanks. I guess I better read closer, or else put down the breakfast beer.
My sources tell me that Ben was actually the guy driving the U-Haul.
I don’t know if I trust your sources since most of them work for hedge funds : )
jk
Not much longer.
HA!
Yes, I heard Jim Cramer say, “These people are losing their jobs!”
” I would not have considered ‘foreclosure’ to be a word in their vocabulary.’ ”
It wasn’t — and that was the problem.
“Foreclosure” comes between “fool” and “f-cked” in the dictionary.
also between forearmed and forewarned
Just think of how bad it would be without $70+ oil. We just got offered an oil and gas lease on our property in Arlington (closer to Ft Worth than Dallas) at $3,000/acre and 25% gross royalty. Well, the initial offer was lower but that’s where the negotiations ended up. That’s not a ton of money but when you look at the geologic maps, I’d say there are a lot of folks locally getting similar offers.
Just for grins, Arlington is 99 sq miles or about 63,000 acres. If that deal was done across the city, the initial mineral rights would be worth $190 million. I doubt it all happened at once but there will likely be something like that total paid over the next few years. We’re talking many hundreds of millions to a few billion injected into the Dallas-Ft Worth metro economy.
That may be enough to prevent an outright collapse a la South Florida but certainly won’t buy immunity from the downturn.
They’re drilling all over Texas. Lots of folks are getting an extra income from their RE.
Yep. I inherited some property that I had forgotten about until the royalty checks started coming about a year ago.
“‘You had this momentum building with local buyers, and it was artificially stimulated by speculative investors,’ said Jack Inselmann.
- Gee, Jack just described the entire United States.
“Some call it the trickle-down effect from California. That’s where homeowners were selling and getting record profits, and in turn are buying in Texas. ‘Those buyers are not as aggressively purchasing anymore,’ said Sprague.”
“‘Is it now the time to sell your house?’ said Sprague, ‘If you can hold your house, I would sit on your house for a couple of years…Now is always time to buy, because as you know, values never get any cheaper.’”
This people should be regulated like stockbrokers. If a stockbroker said the value of a stock doesn’t get any cheaper, he would be breaking the law. I’m sick of this RE mantra that prices never go down. It’s a myth. Prices have been falling for the past 18 months.
Meant “these people”, sorry.
It’s also very telling that our “news” media hardly ever calls them on this bullshit. Propaganda works that way.
Why do people seem to forget about inflation?? If prices remain stagnant and inflation is 5%, the prices went down 5%!
‘The difference is Texas never had the big price boom, so after those investors have gone, we have just returned to the long-term norm, which is a fairly decent climb.’”
Factor in inflation and yes, long-term appreciation in Texas is zero!
One out of every 92 homes is a foreclosure. . .
“Now is always time to buy, because as you know, values never get any cheaper,” said Sprague.
I do not want to be too technical in my analysis, but Mark Sprague, you are the biggest liar in Austin, Texas. Actually, I guess that you are more of a caricature.
“values never get any cheaper,”
Notice he said values, not houses. You can still buy a value at Walmart for fairly cheap.
“‘Is it now the time to sell your house?’ said Sprague, ‘If you can hold your house, I would sit on your house for a couple of years…Now is always time to buy, because as you know, values never get any cheaper.’”
Really?!? Where were you when $80K (1985) houses were going for $40K in Brushy Creek Round Rock in 1990, 3 miles from where Dell’s huge HQ would eventually be?
Today? Maybe $110K and probably heading back down…
Speaking of Dell, what’s up with the layoffs that were announced a couple of months back? The last I heard the cuts were around 6,000 jobs, but I never heard if that was just in Round Rock or for their total operations. I expect that would have a huge impact on prices in Round Rock, Cedar Park, etc.
Don’t know…I left Austin in 1995.
Austin Biz Journal noted that was about 1400 jobs at Dell HQ and the rest spread around the country.
Ahhhh… of course it’s “different” in Austin, and Houston, and everywhere else a realtwhore works at.
Why the sheeple still trust the words of ex-hookers, ex-maids, ex-car salesmen, ex-highschool dropouts, ex-cons is just AMAZING to me.
Pass the popcorn!
I’m wondering when I an get a lot in Long Canyon or Jester Estates in the closein Hill Country for $26K again :-)… 2011?
The Hill Country is such a bizarre market. But there is too much development for my taste, now. IMO, $26k is too high anyway.
$26K…closein too high, Long Canyon or Jester?!? That’s 1990 pricing!!
Way out 30 miles out on a far arm of Travis, sure.
This thing has been running for longer than most suspect, IMO. When I bought land in central Texas in the mid 90’s, it was less than $6k/acre. One hour from Austin or San Antonio. Oak trees, and an Edwards Aquifer well.
OK, 1 hour away…yes…make that 4K per acre…
I was talking about 15-20 mins from downtown or IBM. 10 mins to the Arboretum.
I understand that property taxes are insanely high in Texas. Not exactly an area boomers want to head as they go on fixed income.
There’s some kind of hardship cap for senior citizens. It’s not a place for amateur flippers though.
In addition to the rate cap, there’s no income tax, so retirees with a lot if investment income could do very well.
Regarding the downtown Austin condo scene. If someone has a chance to pick up the latest “AustinFit” magazine (it’s a free paper just like the Chronicle) they’ll see a wonderful artist rendering of the future Town Lake Skyline. It’s going to look a lot different in about 18 months. It really gives a nice perspective of what is to come.
Condos will be to this real estate bust what strip malls were to the last one.
‘There is a sense of permanency, a feeling this is not a boom, but that it will be a sustained thing. We don’t fear prices will drop like they did in the past,’
Of course oil prices won’t drop like the 80s…because Oceania has always been at war with East Asia.
Speaking of oil and 1984, the Middle East was the gaping hole in Orwell’s geopolitical scheme. The three nations in 1984 obviously need lots of oil to fight their wars. So how do they get it? If one nation manages to control the Mideast, wouldn’t that end the war pretty quickly?
In WWII, Germany has some success with synthetic fuels. They ran upwards of 50% on synth fuels before the Allied bombers removed the plants from production(coal liquefaction?).
By 1984, surely we would have made it to 100% and no longer be held hostage by whoever rules the Middle East.
In 1948, Britain and the US “ruled” the Middle East. There was no reason to think that would change at the time.
An interesting book that has a good chapter on WWII and petroleum is ‘The Prize’, by David Yergin (it is on the history of the oil industry). Pointed out how critical the non-Middle Eastern oil sources were to Germany and Japan (or, how critical it was that the allies kept them from being used)- Romania, Russian (Baku) and Indonesian. So not all the action was in the Middle East.
I’m just reading that book myself at the moment…really enjoying it!
In 1948, Orwell would have believed that there was “infinite” oil in the USA, in Indonesia, and in the Middle East each supplying one of the antagonists.
Fair enough… I guess Oceania could have used coal to an extent, and it also has lots of places with oil such as South America, Alaska, the Canadian tar sands, etc.
Still, whoever controlled the Mideast would have a big leg up. And considering how much he got right relating to technology (he nailed the importance of teevee, which was still a nascent technology in 1948), it stands out that control of the Mideast in 1984 was glossed over at best.
Whoever controls the ME still does, more than ever, have a leg up! I believe when we withdraw from Iraq and remove other bases from over there (or are driven out), we’ll see a tipping point of some kind (revolution in Saudi Arabia?) follow and then the US energy policy will have to be based on US coal and a feverish attempt at other local alternatives.
Got a bike?
Orwell was right in his thinking…
We were the worldwide leaders in oil production, til the 1970’s~
In case anyone wants to (re)read 1984 - it can be found online @
http://www.msxnet.org/orwell/
Wow, 1984 is in the public domain now? Is it 50 years, so that its copyright expired in 1998?
Just cause ts online dosent mean its legal. Now shhhhhhh.
‘To people from New York and California, we look like a bargain,’ agent Cathy Blum said.”
Im from Cali, and have to say some didnt do their homework regarding the med income in Texas. They purchased homes
in Texas like they it was dot.com stock. Purely on “irrational
exhubarence”! Had they even bothered to search on the internet
they whould have figured about the local economy and read about the RE bust back in the 80’s.
T: Im from Cali, and have to say some didnt do their homework regarding the med income in Texas.
In 2005, California median household income was $11,000 higher than Texas. That’s enough to support median housing values about $40,000 higher than Texas. Not hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s why Californians are buying in Texas.
There is nothing new in this….the Cali’s came to Austin in the 1980s….then they found they did not like it so much and stopped coming as real estate collapsed in value.
I would agree with the long term “bull” market in energy, especially upward price pressure in the USA based on dollars. However, this does not bode well for house prices 25 miles out of Houston unless the property is an ethanol farm.
Or a meth lab.
They’ll be a bubble in those and the price will crash!
…
I drove to Galveston with the family yesterday for a day at the beach. It is a tale of two cities. West Galveston appears to be boming with all the beach McMansions. This seems to be where all the shops are located. As you go through town to the East, it is a pretty scary place to drive through. Lots of shanty huts off the broadway.
When you finally come to the East beaches, you see two condo towers which look so out of place. I believe these are high $ want prices as well.
“Dowtown” is a tourist trap with a few streets of tricket shops, restuarants and bars yet only a few blocks aways from industrial clutter and slums. We ate as some fish restuarant on the wharf which was a dissapointment.
To continue the RE update, I drove through Houston Heights on my way to Memorial park. Still looks of mcMansion townhomes on Washington Drive going up next to run down houses. However, every side road you look on there are plenty of existing town homes with for sale signs on them. Such much for inner loop. It will be same Lazarus pricing effect.
That seafood restaurant on the wharf is bad. In fact, there are no good restuarants in Galveston. The water there is getting really bad too. If you have any open cuts or sores, stay away. I haven’t been there since 2003.
Just wanted to share my story…
After reading this blog for a number of months, we finally decided to quit looking for a home in SF Bay area and move to Dallas, TX. Just did not see the point in putting life on hold until the greedy homeowners lowered the prices in SF. We are now paying the mortgage that is just about the same as the rent we used to pay for our 1 bedroom apt in SF. And we love our new home in Dallas. It is 4 years old , 4000 sq ft and we paid $70/sq ft (compare this with $500/sq ft for a 30+ yeard old home in a decent SF Bya area neighbourhood).
Number of my collegues wanted to take the ‘work from home’ option just like me and move to low cost states. None actually moved though my company was open to ‘working from home’ arrangement.
Can the builders build thousands more just like yours around you for less money? If so…look for downward trends in even low priced areas…
Of course, if you bought the lifestyle, like the area and recongize your house is a consumable…it doesn’t matter as long as you can pay it down enough before you need/want to sell.
Uh-oh…if txchick finds out you moved to Collin County she is going to have a conniption fit!
Welcome to North Texas!
Which county are you in skip?
I live in Tarrant - far north Arlington.
Builders are building like crazy in Frisco, Murphy etc…there is not much new construction in Plano (this is where I am ) though.
Coming to appreciation/depreciation, I think I can take a 10-15% haircut on this house and still survive financially. I cannot say the same thing about a 700k SF home. And ofcourse we are enjoying the neighbourhood, proximity to my family and peace of mind that comes with a $1600 mortgage vs a $3500 mortgage.
Skip, thanks…I am in collin county
Cramer tries to explain his outburst.
http://release.theplatform.com/content.select?pid=TwrQmH3Zmyis4FIIy16EMUQLxbA9DNtK&UserName=cmsguest@cnbc.com&key=CiRLgpl9omZGBA8ZiKyxumLRNGA%3D
Love to see Kramer vs Cramer…
Explain what ?…Cramer and and his Wall Street Gangsters cronies are just having some minor pre-myocarial infarction Panic Attacks.
Given the current situation with the US Housing Market, IT could well become their leading cause of Heart Attacks in the next couple of years.
Old Cramer should be FINE after two double Whooper Meals with cheese, a few Zanax and another cigarette although a FED rate cut would definitely alleviate his left arm and chest PAIN
He does not understand the housing situation at all. If the Fed cuts rates, long term mortgage rates will rise further.
Feds are more worried about inflation. That’s their real concern. They are stuck. They can’t lower interests rates, actually they need to raise it.
Lowering interests rates does not solve the housing problem. Look at japan, They had that housing bubble in the 80’s, Japan lowered rates to nearly zero to ease the bubble. It took more that twenty years to stabilize.
One Fed cut and all problems will be wiped away? Well, why didn’t you say that earlier? Bernanke really needs to cut and all problems will be solved. This guy is the biggest douche bag currently on TV.
“The Fed switches its bias to ease and all this goes away.”
It’s very bizarre. That sounds like something a realtor might say, not a Harvard-educated 25-year veteran of Wall Street who lived through 2000-2001.
Got Armageddon?
Or is what Cramer’s doing just CYA pre-emptive finger pointing?
If everything would be great if the FED just cut interest rates 1% on tuesday then if they don’t isn’t everything that’s coming the FED’s fault?
Dng ding ding. EVERYTHING he has done has been cya.
Why are they obsessed with only Bear Stearns?
Look at Lehman and Goldman, following Bear right down the toilet:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=BSC&t=3m&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=LEH,GS
So, If I understand Cramer. The thousands upon thousands of poor homeowners who are holding NOD letters, will need only to walk into a friendly Countrywide or IndyMac branch and apply for a simple refi after the 1/4 point rate cut next Tuesday?
HUH?!
That 1/4 point, or even a full point isn’t gonna help un-seize the lending pipeline…especially for those with obvious credit problems. The door has been shut. BB & The Fed can’t bailout this flustercuck even if it wanted to.
Ba-ba-bankruptcy Jim.
Yeah! Refinance! How can a lender accept a refi when these people shouldn’t have been given a loan in the first place. Rates will be higher to accomodate the risk investors take on when purchasing the loan. I watched his show a couple of times. Kind of reminds me of those convicted evangelists. They had a following but eventually went to prison due to fraud.
Mortgage rates are up to 7.5% for jumbo loans in Sillicon Valley. Yeah, that rate cut will sure be handy… Pffft.
I’m in downtown Dallas, and they, the builders can’t stop building. I’ve got two townhouse projects just finishing another two starting and a couple thousand “luxury” condos getting ready to be completed. Boy, timing is sure everything in this part of the country. I was in Tampa and Fort Myers a week ago to see what Dallas will look like in 8 month to a year. We’ll have a boatload of empty buildings downtown and the foreclosures will once again go through the roof in the home of the I-30 condo/Savings and Loan debacle from the 1980’s. This town is toast - oh, and so is SW FLA. Everybody I saw in Fort Myers a week ago had two or three houses they thought they were going to flip, and now they can’t unload them. I was shocked to see the level of fear on all these junior Trumps. Six to eight months ago these idiots would entertain the thought that they needed to dump these POS at any cost. I told all of them about this website, but alas, they were too smart to take my advice.
I found what I wanted. In Cedar Hill. It has a backyard that looks like the Dallas Arbouretum. I’m putting in an offer tomorrow about 15% under the asking price. We’ll see what happens.
Ah txchick, you just aren’t being AGGRESSIVE enough.
I’ve been looking at houses in Michigan (the Birmingham area). So far, I’ve found a couple of places that I like. I’ve been doing a bit of low-ball offers but no dice so far. I’m offering 25% of the asking price (that is, 75% off). The realtors do NOT like me.
They come up with amazing excuses, at first refusing to submit the offers. Telling me the sellers will be insulted. Damage to the town, neighbors will dispise me, etc, etc. My response is so what. If I can’t deal with you, I’ll wait a few months and talk to the bank after foreclosure.
I mean Birmingham is a very, very nice place (lived there many years ago) but who the hell is moving to Michigan these days? And besides, who has a job there? I’m retired, have a good income, savings, etc so it means nothing to me.
They’ll deal next year.
I want this place. Big time. It’s 24 years old and has had only one owner. I’m sure they have it paid off or mostly paid off. I might start at 20% off but I don’t want to piss them off. Check out this yard.
http://www.kwelite.com/perl/mls-1.pl?agent=kwelite&ListingID=10800589
Hmmm, yes it is a nice place. If you do offer $260 on a $299 list price, I don’t think they’d be put off so much. They’d know you are serious. How long has it been on the market?
Two months. They originally listed it at 265K and then RAISED the price to 299. I don’t know why. I’d happily pay the 265, that’s what I’m shooting for.
Go for it - good luck. Smell the flowers. What I miss most about renting is gardening and landscaping.
Nice yard. What happened to Tucson?
Houston renter here. This oil and overall commodity boom is really having a significant impact here. In my particular professional niche, the fact that all of the banks are getting into the commodity trading game AND moving their desks here to Houston doesn’t hurt either.
I think that helps explain the high end price movement. We also have a very tight labor market (again, for my niche), which is really driving up salaries.
That means I’ll be renting for a looong time.
The good news is that several condos are opening up in nicer parts of town. One of these days, I may just make the leap.
Anyone who cares about El Paso’s re. Is it a good time to buy now? Should I wait till no trickle down effects from CA investors?