The Backlash From Excesses During The Boom
The Pioneer Press reports from Minnesota. “The hilltop trophy house in Stillwater, built in 2003, was once valued at $1.4 million. But $729,000 will start the bidding on it at a mass foreclosure auction this month. The house is among 325 bank-repossessed homes from across the Twin Cities headed to the auction block in one of the largest foreclosure auctions in many years, observers say.”
“‘Lenders aren’t in the business of holding property,’ said Michael Schack, senior VP of the company running the Minneapolis auction.”
“Of course, it’s not the first time banks have bid for buyers en masse in slow markets. Schack’s company has been around since the 1990s, when it auctioned off houses after the savings-and-loan crisis in the late 1980s, Schack said.”
“It ‘went dormant,’ he said, after 1997, until last January when lenders sought it out again. He expects swift business for at least the next two years.”
“The 325 homes it’s auctioning in Minneapolis are just a fraction of the record 34,800 homes for sale in the Twin Cities, where foreclosures have been rising steadily for years. This year, more than 8,000 homes in the seven-county metro area have gone into foreclosure and been sold in sheriff’s sales.”
The Journal Sentinel from Wisconsin. “This year’s building permit volume is running about 22% behind last year, MTD Marketing Services of Wisconsin Inc. reported Monday. ‘Builders are busy, but not as busy as they could be,’ said Bruce A. Johnson, president of the Metropolitan Builders Association of Greater Milwaukee.”
“Average prices are rising, to $326,755 in September, not counting the building lot, because today’s buyers, though fewer, are commissioning bigger, more expensive homes, said Matt Moroney, executive director of the builders association.”
“‘My educated guess is that prices are at last year’s levels or a little below - maybe five percent,’ Moroney said of overall prices.”
“Three builders, whom Moroney would not name, have gone out of business this year, he said.”
“MTD’s report shows that much of Wisconsin shares the nation’s housing sales and price slump, the backlash from speculative and lending excesses during the 2001-’05 boom. All markets it tracks - metro Milwaukee, metro Madison, Racine-Kenosha, Jefferson and Walworth counties, the Fox Valley and Green Bay - have shrunk this year by varying volumes.”
“Many would-be deals have been delayed or dashed by contract contingencies from buyers who want to get their old place sold first and see what price it fetches, said builder-developer Scott Simon in Brookfield. ‘They’re hesitant,’ he said.”
The Flint Journal from Michigan. “Kevin and Kassie Gast listed their four-bedroom home in Grand Blanc’s tony Kirkridge Hills subdivision last July for $267,000.”
“When it didn’t sell in three months, they repainted and recarpeted, and lowered the price to $230,000, then to $220,000 and again to $203,000. Finally, in July they slashed it to $199,000.”
“No luck yet. ‘I haven’t received a single offer,’ said Kevin Gast, who moved from the area with his family to work.”
“Gast might have to lower his asking price even more to compete in today’s local housing market. During the past year, the average sale price of homes has dropped in every school district in Genesee County, according to a new survey by the Flint Area Association of Realtors.”
“There are more than 8,000 homes for sale across the county, a number that’s been climbing by about 1,000 each year for the past three years. Real estate agents say a whopping 45 percent of area homes for sale are foreclosures, the bulk of them in Flint. Agents said banks are accepting offers so low they are driving down the price of other homes.”
“Gast said he’s willing to take a hit in the pocketbook just to unload his 2,800-square-foot home, which he bought seven years ago for $215,000.”
“‘This was going to be the one house I’d make money on. I knew it for a fact,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t predict the economy was going to hell. Now I know I will take a loss. I’m just trying to mitigate how much of a loss.’”
“In the meantime, he’s paying two mortgages and double taxes, with no end in sight.”
The Chicago Tribune from Illinois.”Deb O’Dell has been renting since her divorce several years ago. ‘I initially did feel that I had missed the housing boom,’ she says admits of her first years in the two-bedroom 1,200-square foot Oswego home.”
“But now, with home sales slowing and foreclosures swelling, O’Dell says, ‘I’m kind of relieved I didn’t buy because I would be tied to a mortgage I couldn’t afford.’”
The Journal World from Kansas. “Fewer homes are being sold and at lower prices than last year in Lawrence, leaders of the Lawrence Board of Realtors said Monday.”
“‘Buyers are a lot more careful here, but it’s nowhere near the stories I’m hearing when I talk to my cohorts in other parts of the country,’ said August Dettbarn, the county’s appraisal manager. ‘I have a friend in California, and some of the horror stories he tells are really, really scary.’”
“Through the first nine months of this year, Dettbarn shows that 1,271 single-family homes have been sold in Lawrence and North Lawrence. That’s down 296 — or nearly 19 percent — from the 1,567 sold through September 2006.”
“The median price in Lawrence is down less than 1 percent so far this year; in North Lawrence, which is tracked as a separate market by the appraiser’s office, the median is $122,500, down 3.5 percent. Some high-end homes in certain pockets of Lawrence are pushing two years on the market, Dettbarn said.”
The Business Journal from Missouri. “The number of loft apartments in downtown Springfield is expected to nearly double by 2012 – and there likely will be people to fill them, according to an urban housing study.”
“About 11 percent, or 28,848, of the Greene County population resides downtown, according to the study. That’s down from about 15 percent in 1990.”
“More attention from older buyers, namely ‘empty nesters,’ is the reason why local lenders aren’t too worried that increasing foreclosure rates both locally and across the country will hurt downtown loft-buying activity, Great Southern Bank VP Brian Fogle said.”
“‘When we were looking at the housing market five years ago, we had a lot of anecdotal demand for housing,’ Fogle said.”
The Daily News from Missouri. “Despite reports of a national housing crisis, several local lenders and Realtors didn’t feel there was such a crisis in Neosho. To them, the local housing market is business as usual, although at a somewhat slower pace.”
“‘What we’ve learned is that the homes that are priced within the market value are seeing good activity,’ said Steve Kenny with Red Carpet Realty. ‘Homeowners who insist on pricing properties at three years ago market conditions are not seeing this type of activity. The market is much more sensitive to accurate pricing and good marketing.’”
“‘In an inflationary market for housing, as long as it’s going good, things are jim dandy,’ said Pat Youngblood, owner of At Home Mortgage ‘As long as it works, they’re as happy as a clam at high tide. We hit this cap, and prices started falling off. When that happens, you’ve got people making the choice of buying gas to get back and forth to work, buying food to feed their families, or making an extra $300 or $500 a month house payment. It’s easy to see what the choice is.’”
“‘What caused this thing? It all boils down to one word: Greed. Wall Street decided they had all of this flood of money they wanted to put out, and what better than real estate?’ Youngblood said.”
“Youngblood has been in the lending business since 1967 and said the bursting of the housing market bubble is something he has seen many times before.”
“‘I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone from the top of the hill to the bottom of the valley,’ he said. ‘It seems like every few years, somebody says it’s time to shake up the industry, there’s too much greed, someone is making too much money and it’s time to slap them down a little bit.’”
“Steve Kenny tended to echo these sentiments. ‘The national lenders got exactly what they asked for,’ Kenny said. ‘In the overall scheme of things, this is a necessary correction. It’ll mean less foreclosures, better pride of ownership, and a more stable housing market in the long run.’”
“Richard Clemons, owner of Spiva Realty, sales of homes priced above $200,000 are sluggish. This can be seen in areas such as Northwest Arkansas, where homes priced at $500,000 to $750,000 sit vacant.”
“‘The builders went wild on that end,’ Clemons said. ‘I don’t care how much money you make, there’s only a finite number of people who can afford three-quarter of a million dollar houses.’”
The Democrat Gazette from Arkansas. “Home sales in Arkansas for August continued a 20-month decline, dropping 14 percent from a year earlier, the Arkansas Realtors Association said Tuesday.”
“Northwest Arkansas’ market continued to deflate as Benton County sales of previously owned and new homes were off more than 26 percent. Sales dropped more than 17 percent in Washington County.”
“‘On the new-home side, there has been more [downward ] movement in price. With existing homes, people are less willing to give up their perceived gains,’ said Jeff Collins, a partner with Streetsmart Data Services of Northwest Arkansas.”
“Developers are being forced to lower prices to get some sales, Collins said. ‘If you have an inventory of a half-dozen [speculative ] houses, you’re saying, ‘Well, I’ve got to at least move one,’ Collins said. ‘So they’ve been more willing to move prices. You almost can’t get a spec house loan in Northwest Arkansas now. It is very unlikely you can find a lender to finance a spec house.’”
“The average home price increased in August for the 24 th time in the past 25 months, but that’s misleading, Collins said. The reason, he said, is that very high-priced homes, in ritzy areas like Chenal Valley in west Little Rock or Pinnacle Hills in Rogers, continue to sell well.”
“‘That [high-priced ] market hasn’t gone away,’ said Collins. ‘There are not that many homes that are sold at those price points, but there are enough of them — and others at very high price points — that it skews the average price.’”
“The median price of homes has declined in recent months, Collins said. The Arkansas Realtors Association doesn’t release median prices. Multiple-listing services in the state also compile median prices but likewise do not make them public.”
“Pat Harris, president of Harris-McHaney Realtors in Rogers, (believes) the housing market in Arkansas will begin to turn around next year. ‘It’s not going to jump back to 2005 levels,’ when home sales set records in Arkansas and the country, Harris said.”
“‘It may be at 2003 levels and back to where we have been before,’ Harris said.”
“‘Lenders aren’t in the business of holding property,’ said Michael Schack, senior VP of the company running the Minneapolis auction.”
Strange, then, how much property lenders appear to be holding on to these days. Haven’t they heard that prices are predicted to fall between now and 2008? Dump REO now, or sell at lower prices next year.
But they are so leveraged that, just like the FBs, if they sell for a loss they will be wiped out. Their only option is to hold on and hope the frenzy will come back. It’s unbelievable how much historicly tried and true methods and common sense were thrown out the window in just the last 4 years.
“Their only option is to hold on and hope the frenzy will come back.”
That’s what I believe they are doing, or perhaps they are waiting for a govt bailout to lessen the pain.
I think they simply got caught with their pants down and no manpower to deal with the problem. Easiest route is to try and auction off houses 100 at a time since setting up a loss mitigation division to deal with individual listings and offers is time consuming and expensive. It’ll happen though as inventory keeps building. they’ll have no choice.
Why can’t they just sell at ARMs length on the MLS along side the rest of the poor home owners? It seems as though selling by auction runs the risk of attracting only fire sale prices. Perhaps the auction commission is substantially lower than 6 percent?
I think they’re paralyzed.
The irony is their own new lending standards probably won’t allow them to sell at current prices but they can’t cut prices much lest they go under. Catch-22 if there ever was one. Paralyzed is a good word for it.
The house next door has been foreclosed and emtpy for about a year now with no for sale signs or listing. I think the lenders aren’t selling this stuff because it makes the balance sheet look much better than the dollars that it would actually fetch.
In Ohio a foreclosed house will sit empty 12 -18 mos. before it’s put on the market. There’s a lot of procedures to go thru before they put one on the market. I’m not sure the banks are all holding on to them because they want to; I think the procedure is long an complicated.
Exactly a-a-l!
Effectively marking the REO to market by selling it for whatever it will bring would blow the risk profiles of all their RE loan book sky high and would futher hamper their ability to liquify those loans, even if the MBS market returns to stability as the collateral would be deemed impaired and their loan portfolio discounted accordingly.
so a bank losses a billion or 10 or a trillion, so what? banks ‘produce’ nothing… no food, no clothes, they don’t extract resources as metals, oil, etc… they are nothing but enablers, transaction and leverage reserve tools, that work with the magic of printed money. Don’t get me wrong.. I’m not here to sell you a lets ‘make them disappear argument, and you will see how good things are’ but I dont understand… why wont they let the reo’s go to buyers like me that will hold the property for a long time if I get the price I offer. I mean they control the money printing so Its not like they are gonna run out of it.. so why not shrink the supply of money now, by burning this reo’s, but make this new supply a sure-fire one with good returns…
all im saying is yes, many institutions are dead.. some of them are based on paper traded by other paper, by some paper that is sold somewhere, and this converted to that and blah blah blah but at the end are ‘buyers’ which are 90% flippers, that will flop, they know it, we know it…. I want an affordable house now, I have made my offer, will make another one soon.. I fear everything will get rejected each time.. wouldn’t it be better if I just get what I want, and start paying returns NOW … by affortable I mean 2000 prices minus condition problems …it will probably go below that I know.
do foreclosures and short sales show up in regular comps ?
I see most straight sales are “subsidized” these days
I saw 13 short sales in Celebration FL in the last few weeks and they were all listed with a realtor, so they should show up in the comps, when sold.
I would think the deciding factor is whether it’s recorded with the county. If so, it should be included with comps, no?
I always thought comps came from the MLS… I really hope I am wrong.
”Deb O’Dell has been renting since her divorce several years ago. ‘I initially did feel that I had missed the housing boom,’ she says admits of her first years in the two-bedroom 1,200-square foot Oswego home.”
“But now, with home sales slowing and foreclosures swelling, O’Dell says, ‘I’m kind of relieved I didn’t buy because I would be tied to a mortgage I couldn’t afford.’”
She must of read this blog.
.”Deb O’Dell has been renting since her divorce several years ago. ‘I initially did feel that I had missed the housing boom,’ she says admits of her first years in the two-bedroom 1,200-square foot Oswego home.”
“But now, with home sales slowing and foreclosures swelling, O’Dell says, ‘I’m kind of relieved I didn’t buy because I would be tied to a mortgage I couldn’t afford.’”
Way to go Deb, relax and enjoy your rental
“But now, with home sales slowing and foreclosures swelling, O’Dell says, ‘I’m kind of relieved I didn’t buy because I would be tied to a mortgage I couldn’t afford.’”
Buy pay close attention to her comment.
She is aware that if she had “bought”, she would be holding a mortgage she could NOT AFFORD!!!!
I believe that 40% of buyers since 2002 have purchased houses that they cannot afford. They need to unload them. Those who could “afford” them, are being eaten up with exhorbitant payments, beyond reasonable housing costs.
But how will she live with the “stigma” of (gasp!) renting? She must hide her face from view when she goes out.
sarcasm off
“‘When we were looking at the housing market five years ago, we had a lot of anecdotal demand for housing,’ Fogle said.”
you would think these people would have realized that the demand was from investors. everytime i see statements like this one, it boggles my mind. they should have seen it comming.
Right, total numbers DT are dropping and they are set to double the number of units.
i think this is terrible, its one thing when they over build on the outskirts of towns. but when they do it in the middle of town it makes you wonder what effect it will have.
What about when they grab all the usable agriculture land and slap up crap boxes. I wonder what affect it will have when people are living in houses they can afford and starving because they can’t afford skyrocketing food prices? And it’ll be funny, because most of they will fail to see how irrevocably connected the two are….
houses they can afford = houses they CAN’T afford.
Sheesh…
most of they = most of them
I need an editor…
i see that happening in my neck of the woods, and it makes me sick. i watch the county planning commission meeting and there are alot of people against what they are doing to the farmland around here. but just as you could guess they dont care, its all about the money they will make off the houses being built. if i remember right, the county last year started charging $5000.00 per house built(it used to be $1500.00). and it makes me wonder if they all got raises after they passed it. sickening!
Urban infill is the one place I don’t mind putting condos. Whether it turns into a tony area or trashed Section 8, at least it’s a dwelling which saves farmland and shortens commutes.
grab all the usable agriculture land …people are starving because they can’t afford skyrocketing food prices.. most of they will fail to see how irrevocably connected the two are….
If the Globalization nuts have their way, the two won’t be connected at all. Americans will live on paved over prime farmland, and eat veggies which were grown on polluted soil in China, or in clear-cut former Amazon rain forest.
We’ve already lost California orchards because Brazilian orange juice is cheaper. We’re eating food from China too, and not just contaminated wheat gluten. I saw a “product of China” stamp on the back of a bag of hoity-toity $$Cascadian Farm$$ organic frozen broccoli, and almost blew a very big gasket right there in Whole Paycheck.
But how can you make someone farm land they own? What if it’s just growing hay crops, and the owner wants to develop it? I’m not trying to be a beotch but that’s the kind of questions I’m asking in my town. You can’t make these people grow tomatoes if they don’t want to.
I read recently that the central valley CA farmers are leasing land and growing in Mexico so they don’t have to hassle with getting illegals to work the crops. Instead of paying $9/hr, they’re paying $3/day and loving it. There are also other farmers that now grow in Central America. Maybe the CA farms can pick up the slack in our #1 crop that is kept on the down low because of stupid laws.
You can’t make enough money from farmland if the price of the land is too steep; the return on invested capital is just not there. That’s why farmland is so cheap.
But you can make a good return if you subdivide the farm acreage into residential lots and sell them off that way.
That’s what seems to have happened during the RE boom, when the mantra “If you build them they will come” prevailed.
A new ghetto in the making. Gangs will fill the empty buildings, and drug-dealers will replace house-flippers/builders as the local economy’s main engine. Naturally, then you get the auxillary prostitution, gambling, booze-hall and protection businesses as an off-shoot. This will keep GDP up.
I’m glad they’re basing their business strategy on something as bulletproof as “anecdotal evidence” rather than, say, knock knock jokes. LOL
I have a friend who is the poster boy for FB’s. He has 5 investment houses, all over the state and cannot rent or sell any of them.
He has since given them to a broker who specializes in “short sales”. What exactly is that? A broker who calls the bank and says I have a buyer at 150K for this house you have 225K in? Do you have to specialize in that? I would think all Residential Brokers are doing that..or should be because if not, they will be.
“Gast said he’s willing to take a hit in the pocketbook just to unload his 2,800-square-foot home, which he bought seven years ago for $215,000.”
Is the rest of the country going to follow Michigan’s path? The home was originally listed at 267K.
“When it didn’t sell in three months, they repainted and recarpeted, and lowered the price to $230,000, then to $220,000 and again to $203,000. Finally, in July they slashed it to $199,000.”
Given that this is a 25% drop it isn’t out of line with what is going on elsewhere around the country. Also, given how lousy things are around Flint, this property should IMHO take a bigger percentage hit than most parts of the country. This house could end up at 150K before they throw in the towel.
150K for a 2,800-square-foot home — WOW!
I had the same “What else would expect from Flint?” reaction. Unlike parts of Michigan like Grand Rapids and metro Detroit, which at least had some good years in the 1990s, Flint’s been on a downward spiral since pretty much the 1960s.
Michael Moore’s movie Roger & Me will forever etch Flint, Michigan in my memory.
On the other hand I’m tempted to buy a property somewhere, anywhere in Michigan to escape these brutal California summer heat waves. Here in Sacramento is just seems to get hotter & last longer each year.
Been seriously paying attn to Oregon & Wash real estate info too, as the global climate change kicks my arse in summer. Oregon is so beautiful & unspoiled, kinda CA in the 60’s / 70’s .
But my fellow Californians have pretty much ruined any chance of heading north to a warm reception, no matter honw any times I try to proclaim ” all Californians are NOT greedy nutcases ” !
Kinda like trying to tell the world all Texans dont own ranches, ride n rope steers, wear cowboys boots, etc.
Well, ok, maybe with the exception of TX Chick. She’s one tough hombre. (hombrette ? )
You might want to move to where TxChick is rather than Michigan, although I’m not sure how positive Texans feel about people from California.
Look at Comerica Bank’s economic briefs for California, Michigan and Texas. Michigan isn’t a third world country yet, but it is moving there fast.
Here’s a link: http://tinyurl.com/2vmgll
If you’re just looking for a vacation property or a summer home I highly recommend looking in northern or western Michigan. Housing there is hurting too not just from the economy in general but from lots of auto industry types trying to sell all their summer places as well.
West Michigan in the summer is awesome…..warm, but usually not too hot, lots of recreation, and being at the beach on Lake Michigan is as good if not better than being at either coast. There isn’t a place I’d rather be, at least when it’s warm. Just not easy to support oneself around there these days.
Agreed, the wilds of Michigan are pretty amazing. I’m looking forward to some serious time on the Upper Peninsula next summer.
After reading your post, I’m scratching my head thinking: Why did the sellers expect to make money on the sale?
That house has probably fallen more than 25% - prices were falling in Flint long before that house went on the market at $267K.
Interesting thing at work today. A cashier rents a house from the owner of the business where I work (he picked it up when it was thrown in with some commercial property he bought a few years ago). She wants to buy it - but she is definitely subprime (single mom, bad credit, makes a little over $22K) - therefore can’t get a loan. Looking at what houses are selling for in her Detroit neighborhood it would probably be worth only around $40K (three bedroom bungalow). Yet owner is charging $600 a month rent. That’s only a 66-70 multiple. I’m not a R/E investor so this got me wondering if rents are out of whack or the house prices?
But this seller bought his house 7 years ago for 215k…now he’s trying to unload it at 199k and falling.
I doubt he has a mortgage problem…he has a location problem.
This house is probably down more than the $269 to $215. Many areas in Michigan have had falling prices since 2004. Michigan is in a one state recession and Flint is ground zero.
“‘It may be at 2003 levels and back to where we have been before,’ Harris said.”
You’ve just had the largest speculative housing bubble in the last 100+ years, and this idiot things that a year of slowed sales will bring things back to “normal”? And since when was 2003 normal… the bubble was going exponential in 2003, launching from a normal bubble into the record books.
Interesting Missouri news. I grew up in Missouri, and to most people their current prices probably don’t seem high. But only several years ago you could buy unimproved land for $350/acre and $100k for a home was unheard of. The last few years the price run up was unbelievable when taking incomes into account. I plan on buying a Missouri farm within the next few years - cash. But I don’t have a big wad, I just expect prices to fall 60% (for residences) to 90% (farm land, which is unsellable at current prices which have only been supported by rampant out-of-control development).
Ethanol boom makes your plans unlikely.
Could you please elaborate a little. Is there some kind of farm migration to grow corn? And, how does that affect milk prices? I caught a little bit of the story on PBS last night.
Corn prices have doubled in the last year. Most commercial dairy farms feed their cows corn in their grain (which is unhealthy and causes lots of problems, but that’s for a different thread) thus causing milk prices to increase (not to mention higher fuel prices to drive that tanker truck to the bottling plant).
While it is likely that prices might not fall as much as I’d like, I just spent a week touring the area where I’m interested in buying. Small (20 acres) farms with moderate rolling hills make large ag operations untenable. Almost no one was growing corn as they had to have a full time day job to try to get by on how inflated prices had become. I certainly don’t plan on paying more than $1k per acre.
I’m sure you probably know more about this than I do. But in my opinion the same way prices in Hawaii and Florida doubled because of a non-existent (reality) wave of retiring boomers (perception), is the same reason unusable farmland (reality) will increase significantly because of the ethanol boom (perception).
You are trying to apply logic and reason. I’m just saying it seems to me in everything I observe today in the American economy logic and reason do not prevail. Why would this be different.
initially, yes, farmland of all types will be dragged upwards in price due to corn’s expansion. Much of that land will be used for crops displaced from the top corn-growing soils. Some of that land, though, still won’t be viable for even soybeans, much less corn, and that’s when the prices will come down — but maybe only on those hard-scrabble plots.
Missouri has some really awful land in places (awful for being a commercial farmer, anyway, though often scenic), and if those areas have been overpriced, they’ll shake out, and prices will come down in just a couple of years.
I think it’s happening now, as a friend of a friend who moved to middle-of-nowhere Missouri a year ago has now found. He decided he can’t take the isolation. He also found that nobody wants to lease his land on the farm he bought — funny that, since nobody wanted to lease it before he bought! And in fact nobody wants to buy his land, either. Another one stuck in place, unable to move.
Nope. The ethanol bubble, like the housing bubble, is shrinking:
“The ethanol party is over, at least for now.
An onslaught of new plants created so much ethanol that it may take years for things to shake out, and some plants may suffer losses or delays waiting for demand to catch up.
“Everyone knows a hard time’s coming,” said Steve Core, a project developer for Fagen Inc., a Granite Falls, Minn., ethanol plant builder. “They just don’t know when.”
Some of the larger companies, many of which went public with a bang last summer, are now scaling back as their stock prices have taken a steady beating.
The squeeze comes from basic economics. Ethanol futures prices have fallen from about $2.50 at the beginning of the year to $1.55 Tuesday. The price of corn, meanwhile, has soared this year, with futures trading above $4 a bushel earlier this year before falling back to below $3.50.”
http://www.startribune.com/535/story/1474846.html
you have the cojones to tell me theres too much ethanol!!! (sarcasm/jokingly) I thought there will never be enough ethanol to even switch 10% of gasoline!!! how dare you!!! you see thats why its always a lie.. in this country when motive its there the switch is massive… just like this housing disaster… ethanol, why is demand down? no more mandate to mix that 10%?
$500K-$750K….in Ark?
Those must be castles!
Not judging by the photos I’ve seen. And they are close together, too.
Probably not castles. Rogers, Arkansas was booming and bubbling 4 years ago. The prices didn’t seem that cheap to me.
Haven’t you heard…everyone wants to live in Arkansas.
It’s different there!!
“‘It may be at 2003 levels and back to where we have been before,’ Harris said.”
i belive he had better think about that a little more in depth. with the glut of homes out there, he may be looking at 90’s pricing in the future.
Stillwater, MN is a great place but $1.4 million for a home is ridiculous almost anywhere. The commute into downtown St. Paul or Minneapolis has got to be awful. That is where those high-paying corporate jobs are located.
The Twin Cities is in for a huge shock. They forget that other areas of the country aren’t looking to move there en masse, unless it’s for the better welfare benefits. There has always been a large influx from Chicago and Milwaukee to suck from the government’s teat. But that little thing we used to call “winter” will always keep Minnesota from being a destination for Yankees.
Minnesota is further proof that the bubble was not isolated to the coasts. It’s sad how bad it will get there and the locals just have no clue.
If that’s the one I’m thinking about, they paid a very large fine for cutting 10 trees too - it’s on the bluffs over a national scenic waterway.
The median U.S. existing home price edged up slightly in August to $224,500, an increase of 0.2 percent from August 2006. It marked the first year-over-year price increase after a record 12 straight months of declining prices.
I bet the RE industry couldn’t wait to post this comment. They do not realize the their lower priced homes are not selling but fail to include this comment in their stats.
That just goes to show that you can fail to sell your home for more money every quarter!
We never did locate Housing Inspector Clouseau. An update on the Minnesota Lakes area would be nice. Where are you, Inspector?
I agree, he is missed!- I somewhat can comment on the Southwest Metro (Chaska, Chan, EP) I sometimes drive through a partially built Chanhassen McBubble neighborhood called Stonefield- it sits in a valley surrounded by homes built in the early 90’s. (Think Dien Bien Phu) The folks in those early 90’s homes can look down on you from their back doors. All homes in Stonefield appear to be asking mid 800’s, and some have actually sold. Still, I can’t help but notice of the homes that have sold, how many have really old cars in their driveways or sheets/towels for window coverings. As an additional antidotal- I noticed that very few Parade of Homes free magazines were picked up at the local Holiday Stores. Every Holiday I’ve been in (as of earlier this week) still had 3/4 of their stockpile remaining.
Highland Park & Mac-Groveland in St. Paul are still going strong, but it feels like the less desirable neighborhoods are going down. I saw a couple signs for an open house weekend in south minneapolis that was going to be followed by an auction sunday night, starting bid $129999. I didn’t have time to go and look, but that neighborhood averages $210000+. where there used to be “we buy houses” signs (those little ones people stick in the ground on exit ramps and at intersections) there are now signs advertising property management companies that help people rent out their houses.
I live in the East metro (St. Paul suburbs, not far from where Crapburner lives). Housing prices in my immediate neighborhood have been dropping steadily over the past year. Values had peaked around the mid-to-high $200Ks, and are now in the low $200Ks to (mainly) $170-$190K. We still have quite a ways to get back to reality, considering we’re talking 1940s-early 1960s-era housing stock here. I think home values in the $110K-$130K range would be much more realistic for the most part.
Oh, and I’ve now got three foreclosed homes within a mile of my house. One is just down the street. And a whole bunch of ‘for rent’ signs on houses within a couple-mile radius. I think my city better enact a new landlord/rental ordinance to deal with all these newbie landlords. There’s been lots of stories recently from other suburbs about desperate flippers or specuvestors renting to low-life scum who then terrorize and trash their neighborhood.
“I didn’t have time to go and look, but that neighborhood averages $210000+. where there used to be “we buy houses” signs ”
Those just now started popping up in Missoula, MT. Where does that put us in the bubble?
I am in the NW Twin Cities metro (Champlin). There are a ton (literally hundreds) of foreclosures on East of Hwy. 169 in Champlin and ten times that in Brooklyn Park! We have a few on the West side of 169 as well. Also, quite a few in Maple Grove (Boundry Creek neighborhood, Osseo, West out near Weaver Lake). It is disquieting to drive by these places- seeing the unmowed lawns, phone books on the porch, garbage in the backyard, weeds growing through cracks in the driveway, etc. Just wait until December when these unheated POS’s freeze up and have water pipes burst (for those of which the city hasn’t turned off the water supply that is).
There are a number of these foreclosures that are brand new homes in new developments (Brooklyn Park and Western Maple Grove).
Oh, yeh I guess real estate is different here… I tried to warn two realtwhores on my street over a year ago that the Twin Cities would not be immune to a bursting housing bubble… one is unemployed (after trying to sell kitchen cabinets on straight commission after not making any money scamming oh, I mean selling houses); the other one is a substitute teacher now.
It is going to be an ugly winter and spring won’t be any better!!
Protect our house!
http://tinyurl.com/2dth5v
Chuckles.
“Hey, I just read in the New York Times that our company doesn’t want to work with borrowers because we make more fees if the loan goes all the way to foreclosure, and also if a loan goes to foreclosure, the investors in the mortgage securities will take the loss instead of us. That’s genius isn’t it? Signed, Bill.”
Well, you certainly understand the situation, Bill. And while it may be “genius,” we prefer to call it, “Protecting the House!”
or the road to the Big House?
‘For home buyers shopping for housing in the Englewood neighborhood, it’s a buyer’s market, neighborhood Realtor Paula Adams said. ‘What’s happening in Englewood is the same thing happening throughout the city,’ said Adams, who works at the Chatham office of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate.’
‘Adams, who is known in the community as the ‘Queen of Real Estate,’ said Englewood’s housing market “has changed from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market. So, now is the time for buyers to buy. They have a bigger and better selection for less pricing.
“There are a lot of foreclosures here, so there is a lot of inventory for buyers to choose from,’ Adams said. Those who want to sell their Englewood home, Adams said, must have their homes in good condition and priced right.’
So, if I’m understanding correctly. According to a Realtor®, now is a good time to buy.
According to realtors, it is ALWAYS the ideal time to buy!
That is, if you can get ahold of one.
Sorry if this is a bit OT, but today’s Bits Bucket has gotten a bit full. An update on my friend, who’s 86 and just paid $2k for a lifetime membership in an MLM called Team Nation. She’s in need of a new roof for her house, and, reading between the lines of what she’s been telling me, I think she’s trying to get a refund from the couple who recruited her.
Backgrounder: The female half of this couple is a real estate agent with Realty Executives. The guy is a specu-vestor who appears to be in a bit of a cash crunch. Ms. Realtor is the listing agent on his flip-attempt house, which was just for sale before this past weekend. There was an open house on Sunday, which must have been a real flop. Why? Because the “For Sale” sign has been joined by a “For Rent” sign.
This morning, I was visiting my 86-year-old friend, and she asked me to check on the house of the Realtor and flipper. Seems that they’ve gone off somewhere, and they’re not returning my friend’s calls. I checked the house, which is two doors west of my friend’s and guess what, no cars there.
I might add that I’ve gotten nowhere with the Better Business Bureau and the AZ Attorney General’s Office. The response has been along the lines of “tough luck for your friend.”
Slim,
this story is just so ugly. Is it possible to notify the cops on this?
Or is it scummy, but basically legal?
Man, you’ve got to be lower than whale sh@t to do this to the elderly.
The consensus (from the realtors in Naperville Il we have been talking to) is that prices will recover in 2008. One actually told me that she was expecting a 5% appreciation in West suburbs for 2007.
They are hurting…
A coworker of DH just bought a house in Naperville, IL. The funny thing was their agent told them they were offering TOO MUCH on the place. They lowered their offer, and it was accepted (clearly before I could steer them in the direction of this blog). But I’ve never heard that from an agent’s mouth before.
I saw that article last week and nearly threw up. Englewood renaissance? Dear Lord it’s one of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago–in America for that matter. Completely gang and drug infested. And it ain’t renaissancing anything.
“There are a lot of foreclosures here, so there is a lot of inventory for buyers to choose from,’ Adams said.
i have often wondered if anyone is tracking homes that are being forclosed upon more than once? lol its bound to be happening now, because of all those people who jumped in when the prices first started going down.
has anyone seen this article? it looks like mr. paulson is trying to get investors back in the mortgage game. i hope it dosent delay the correction thats happening.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/10/10/ap4205545.html
Everyone wants people to believe that they have/will fix the problem. Everyone wants to look like they are doing something.
Truth is simple. The MBSs are now worth $.70 of their face value.
The processors would LOVE to buy the loans back from the MBS holders at $.70, do a work out, then resell the loan… but no way are the MBS holders going to actually sell the loan back to the processors at $.70 on the $1. They simply do not want to book their loss.
The MBS holders would LOVE the porcessors to buy the loans back at close to face value to do a workout. But, of course, the processors can’t/won’t do that.
Everyone wants there to be a work out of these loans, but the two sides simply can’t come close to meeting each other’s price.
It is just another aspect of the housing market. There are lots of people wanting to buy houses, but not at current market. Buyers want 30%+ off current market, but sellers aren’t willing to come down more than 5-10%.
Buyers and sellers, in both the houseing market and the MBS market are simply WAY too far apart for there to be any workouts.
thank you, that gives me hope. the standoff between the two will keep prices heading toward to reality. everytime i see something being proposed to keep those outragous prices in place it really scares me that they will make this situation worse than it will be if left alone.
And every day this standoff goes on, more and more ARM’s reset, more houses foreclose, and that $0.70 falls even further, making the disparity even greater, and the chances of a deal (and bailout) even less.
They’d be better off closing that gap. Accepting a 30% write down would still leave the borrowers on the hook for 20% more than they should have paid. Foreclose and you get the whole 50% hit, plus fees and accelerated deterioration.
The good thing is no tax funds are being but up. If they take the hit to save themselves a bigger one, I’m all for it.
Hi Ride,
Thanks for the link. Here’s one that is similar, with a bit more information…check out the “read more about the group” link inside the article. What a joke, they seriously need a webdesigner!
http://tinyurl.com/228dqu
Best,
Leigh
Some 2 million mortgages are due to reset to higher rates in the months ahead, and the White House and Congress have scrambled to find ways to help borrowers.
i like this part, they pinpointed the problem, the boys are scrambling to figure this out. LOL! as long as they dont do too much damage along the way!
OK…are you ready to get screaming, red faced, hair-flaming mad! Good!
Paulson’s HOPE NOW team includes:
-Citigroup–yeah, the one fined for shorting it’s stock and the very same one that just took a $12B writedown.
-First Horizon National Corp–the one that agreed to sell ALL of it’s 34 branchs by 08.
-H&R Block, Option One Mortgage Subsidiary (You can google this duesy.)
And that’s the short list, along with unnamed counseling organizations.
Sigh,
Leigh
–
“In the meantime, he’s paying two mortgages and double taxes, with no end in sight.”
This is what is going to bleed people dry, financially. There are at least 2M homes, including flippers’, in this situation. The number would keep going up until it hits 5M and then 10M as the demand for housing units would collapse during recession/depression.
Ugly doesn’t describe the plight of homeowners with empty units.
Jas
Well, they can rent the unit out at half their carrying cost, to cut the rate of bleeding in half. Of course, the total blood loss from renting below carrying costs will actually make total blood loss much worse in the long run.
Right, losing $100 or $200 a month is one thing. Losing $1000 or $2000 is a whole new alligator paradigm.
I have a friend in the UK.
We were discusing the housing bubble and I said it is annoying the way the MSM here spins the facts.
She chuckled and said, “In the UK the MSM is “just entertainment”. It is fun to watch how they twist everything. And some good comedy lines too.
They are certainly no one we believe !”
Maybe we need to view the MSM and RE spokespersons this way.
They are just entertainment. LOL
I think it is time to lump the “news” in with the commercials and the “paid programming” shows. They are saying whatever their advertisers paid them to say.
And the point really is: Do NOT buy now. Wait and watch this train wreck unfold…
”Deb O’Dell has been renting since her divorce several years ago. ‘I initially did feel that I had missed the housing boom,’ she says admits of her first years in the two-bedroom 1,200-square foot Oswego home.”
“But now, with home sales slowing and foreclosures swelling, O’Dell says, ‘I’m kind of relieved I didn’t buy because I would be tied to a mortgage I couldn’t afford.’”
While I applaud her choice, I must ask what difference would the housing boom make if she knows she couldn’t have afforded the property anyway?
If the boom continued she could magically afford the house?
She’s sighing and pretending that *she* would have been smart enough to get out and sell in time.
“Three builders, whom Moroney would not name, have gone out of business this year, he said.”
Only 3 builders Moroney ? Oh Yeah Right
The mortgage banks ARE trembling, reassesments WILL be demanded, resets are JUST beginning, foreclosures ARE rampant, RE Agents and title companies are STARVING and joe6pack is is just beginning to realize he is MAXED OUT. It’s football season with deer season and Christmas coming. The State is OVERTAXED and everyone IS Broke….Message ENDS earth to Moroney !
‘Builders are busy, but not as busy as they could be,’ said Bruce A. Johnson…
-Cute…It’s like my savings - I have some, but it’s not as much as it could be.
I would be surprised if the Twin Cities make it through this mess without a massive loss. The job market in MN isn’t very strong and I just can’t see how even places like Burnsville and Edina can hold up $500K houses for long. I go by per capita income, not per capita GSP when I look at housing affordability. The per capita income in MN is likely around $24K as of 2007. How many houses can that buy? Even a couple making 50K isn’t going to be in the market for 200K houses with normal financing. This is assuming that after a national housing price drop of 50% or greater that we still have a consumer economy. I’d think that even a 10% drop nationwide will cause serious problems irregardless of what the media says. Consider too that MN has a much more stable economy than most of the other states; what happens if Arkansas loses 80% of its housing values? That’s not as much as NY or CA would lose but the smaller and more rural and welfare-queen states will take a much harder pounding. Does anyone here really think that Phoenix or Denver can support 200K houses? I’m doubtful they can support 100K or even 50K houses given what makes up their local economies.
“The per capita income in MN is likely around $24K as of 2007.”
Not even close. Per capita income in 2007 is $39,919. The state’s per capita income ranked 10th nationally in 2005.
http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/databook/percapinc.htm
Minyanville’s daily Five Things You Need to Know to stay ahead of the pack on Wall Street:
1. U.S. Announces Major Toll Increase on Road to Serfdom
Hahaha. That headline is a funny joke. Except it is not a joke at all, but true in every sense of unironic tragedy and awfulness. This morning Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson appeared on television and announced the latest coalition of do-gooders, this time a collection of 11 of the largest mortgage service companies in the U.S, representing 60% of all mortgages, coming together to help counsel and repair the properties they now own, like so many looters working together to rebuild a burned out liquor store the morning after; the gesture is appreciated. The hangover well-earned.
The real joke, the irony of it all, is that this charade of free-market capitalism can get paraded in front of a daily audience at all, much less an audience of too-willing serfs, eager to lap up any spillage from this government’s ladle of grim-faced collectivism wrapped in flag-waving triumph.
Steeped further in irony, and near impossible to tell if it was intended as a finger in the eye to the American middle class, or was simply an unintentional fragment of idiocy that slipped through the cracks, is the name this new initiative carries: HOPE NOW. The emphasis on the name is it’s own. The New York Times printed it in all-caps, presumably not a typo.
Believe me when I say that this is not our defining “let them eat cake” moment. That’s like blaming the looters for the power failure. The savage destruction of the dollar, its debasement, the insidious transfer of wealth by hyperinflationary Federal Reserve policies intent on serving a small collective of wealthy decision-makers and rule makers is the circle in the pond created by this tiny pebble. Eh, so what? If not a tiny pebble in the pond, then an aggravating pebble in the shoe of the wealthy few as they ride the backs of the middle class off into the sunset.
The confusion we live in these days is a deep one, traumatic in its intensity and violence. While chasing debt-soaked dollars down a filthy, rusty drainpipe, it’s hard to differentiate between friends and enemies. From gutter height, everyone looks like an enemy. And that’s exactly how it’s meant to be; welcome to the new class war pitching the dissolving middle class against itself in one long reality TV show. Rich versus poor is a fairy tale. Middle class versus itself is the reality. The confusion is real, and it’s intentional.
Meanwhile, the incremental transfer of wealth from the middle class to Asia’s poor perpetuates itself, both as a cause of this new class war, and most bitterly, also as an effect; a horrible cycle of debt addiction spiraling inward and feeding on itself, an autoimmune deficiency attacking itself. The code word for this transfer is globalization. It’s real name is looting.
Fifty years ago the U.S. manufactured things and produced tangible goods that allowed our fathers and grandfathers to save and invest in their families, their homes. God help us for even re-imagining what it was like to own something. Those memories lie flat now in tattered photo albums, a handful of aging black and white snapshots peeling away from the page as the glue holding them in place dissolves.
But you know what? The stock market is now at an all-time high. Man, what a cruel and vicious joke. Didn’t anyone tell you that the S&P 500 stock market index has lost 60% of its value in real terms since 2000? Well, if you sit high enough in the saddle, maybe you won’t notice the stench of the excrement you’re trampling. In this case, that excrement is denominated in dollars.
Thanks for posting that, TX. I read it already (I started reading Minyanville daily because of one of your posts a few months back), but it is important for us to share it with others, step back and take in the big picture view of what is going on.
DP
For us Twin Cities folks tonight at 8 pm on ‘Fresh Air’ on MPR:
“Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist Gretchen Morgenson talks about the subprime mortgage crisis and its effects on the markets and on the economy. Morgenson, an assistant business and financial editor for The New York Times, has covered the financial markets for The Times since 1998.” (10/10/2007)
The median price in Lawrence is down less than 1 percent so far this year; in North Lawrence, which is tracked as a separate market by the appraiser’s office, the median is $122,500, down 3.5 percent.
NORTH LAWRENCE median is $122,500!!! That is crackville!! It is the worst part of town and they sell for that much. WOW!! WOW!!
All I can say is these are scary times indeed.