Buyers Don’t Feel They Should Be Paying The Sellers Price
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports from Pennsylvania. “If one word could describe the new-home market in the Philadelphia metropolitan region today, it probably would be sluggish. ‘It’s an enigma,’ said said Diane Williams, in Montgomery County, who has been selling new and existing homes in the eastern part of the county for 24 years. ‘It’s bad even though interest rates are great. Some builders are even going as far as saying that it’s dead.’”
“Granor Price Homes lowered prices at its townhouse development in Royersford, ‘A few earlier buyers called us about it. We asked if they would rather live in a community with 30 homes sold and 300 unsold,’ said principal Marshal Granor.”
“The Center City condo market is suffering from decisions, made three to five years ago, to focus on newly built units more expensive than this market can sustain. ‘How many million-dollar condos can you build?’ asked Joel F. Naroff, chief economist at Commerce Bank. ‘This is not New York. They’re supplying to the wrong level.’”
The Times News from Pennsylvania. “In northwestern Pennsylvania…the number of foreclosed properties listed for sheriff’s sale (is) changing the way people buy homes.”
“That number has been rising steadily since 1999 when 218 properties were listed for sheriff’s sale. After putting a record 636 properties up for sale in 2006, the Erie County Sheriff’s Office saw that total grow by more than 12 percent in 2007, with 716 properties listed for sale before the end of this year.”
“Among the Erie County real estate sales figures for October, Dennis Weed, a Realtor for Century 21 Stover Real Estate, finds another troubling statistic. Weed said nearly 20 percent of the month’s 437 sales involved lenders foreclosing on properties or selling their foreclosures.”
“‘It used to be anybody could get a loan,’ he said. ‘All you had to do was call around.’ Now, Weed said, he’s had clients who have decided to put off buying for a year until they can improve their credit scores.”
From WJZ.com in Maryland. “Last month, the housing market took a big hit in the Baltimore area as home sales saw the largest drop in eight years. There are too many houses and not enough buyers. Experts say that’s just one reason home sales have plummeted. The last time sales dropped this low was back in 1999.”
“‘There were too many people who were able to access credit earlier in this decade. [There were] people who really couldn’t afford the homes that they purchased and as a result, many homes were built,’ said local economist Anirban Basu.”
“That leads to too much supply. Basu says the only way to clear the inventory is for prices to fall.”
“‘Sellers–if they’re looking to move their homes very quickly–then they have to price to this market. They have to be aggressive in prices and they have to be realistic about pricing. Many are not, which is one of the reasons home sales aren’t being made,’ said Basu.”
The Baltimore Sun from Maryland. “The number of homes sold in Baltimore and the five surrounding counties in October totaled 1,918, down 31.74 percent from a year earlier, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc. It was the biggest year-to-year drop recorded since MRIS began tracking homes sold through the MLS in 1999.”
“‘Buyers are hesitating to make any kind of decision,’ said Sonya Francis, an agent in Catonsville. ‘Buyers don’t feel they should be paying the price the seller has listed. They’re looking at a $400,000 house and saying it’s only worth $350,000.’”
“‘Sellers are beginning to realize it’s not 2005 anymore,’ said Melvina Brown, an agent in Ellicott City. ‘I tell people they’re not going to make the money you made in 2005, that’s long gone.’”
“John and Amy Cooney, architects who gutted and redesigned their Fells Point rowhouse with a custom oak staircase, a heated kitchen floor, glass block walls and a sky bridge to a carriage house, put the home on the market for $889,000 and got a contract last month, after just 13 days. But a month later, the buyers backed out of the contract.”
“‘It’s frustrating,’ said John Cooney, who will be relocating to Portland, Ore. ‘In a hot market three years ago, you’d have three or four offers lined up. Luckily, we don’t have a time frame and are not in a position that I have to sell it.’”
“Metrostudy said this week that the region, which it defines as Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland minus the Eastern Shore and far western edge, is in better shape than most of the markets it follows. But the continually increasing stock of unsold existing homes is a problem for builders, who aren’t immune to that competition. And on top of that, local builders are feeling the mortgage crunch.”
“Sales in the region dropped about 50 percent last month, compared with September, Metrostudy said. The cancellation rate was 60 percent. ‘The banks are going into a bunker mentality,’ said Kenneth Wenhold, Metrostudy’s director for Maryland and Virginia. ‘It’s a major problem.’”
The Daily Press from Virginia. “When Pennsylvania-based Fulton Financial announced in 2004 that it would buy Virginia Beach-based Resource Bank, it looked like a simple, logical combination of small community banks.”
“But the deal has become a gigantic headache for Fulton. It soon became apparent that Resource, which was one of the leading mortgage lenders in Hampton Roads, had embraced some of the industry’s lax lending practices and run up huge liabilities.”
“‘The management of Resource Mortgage has been replaced,’ said Fulton CEO R. Scott Smith on a recent conference call. ‘and the offices giving rise to virtually all of these potential losses have been either closed or are in the process of being shutdown.’”
“The large Wall Street banks have spent recent weeks reporting big losses on packages of high-risk, high-return mortgages they bought. But many of those mortgages started at Main Street operations like Resource, which dropped lending standards because Wall Street was willing to buy the risky loans.”
“‘This real estate market got out of control for everybody, and we’re all guilty,’ said Smith in an interview.”
“Most of Resource’s problems are not even tied to mortgages it sold to its own banking customers. The mortgage wholesale division of Resource that lent the bank’s money to borrowers nationwide is the source of most of the defaults. These independent brokers — mostly in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina — embraced weak lending standards to sell mortgages that used Resource’s money.”
“Fulton revealed in a securities filing that…investors asked the bank to buy back loans that financed the entire cost of a home with no documentation of the borrower’s income. The investors were able to force the bank’s hand because so many borrowers had failed to make one of their first three payments.”
“As a result, Fulton took a $6.4 million loss when it bought back a package in July of $34.7 million in mortgage and home equity loans with high default rates. These loans were made in late 2006.”
“Fulton said that of the $34.7 million loan package it bought back, $21 million was placed in non-accrual status. That means the borrowers are at least 90 days behind in their payments, but haven’t been foreclosed on yet, and the bank doesn’t expect the loan to ever be fully repaid.”
“Another $9 million went onto its books as real estate it owns.”
“Fulton appraised the properties on the loans it has bought back, which were mostly in Maryland and Virginia, at the end of September. They were worth 14 percent less than the original appraisals.”
The News Leader from Virginia. “Here are some quick tips from GAAR President Pat Rexrode, who also serves as an associate broker in Waynesboro. For Buyers: Don’t get in a hurry, or ‘It’s better to be safe than sorry.’”
“‘When we were in a really hot market and we had bidding wars going, people were putting in contracts on homes and waiving inspections just to beat the competition and have their offer accepted,’ she said. Rexrode explained that as some of those properties are starting to come back on the market, their current owners are faced with making — and paying for — repairs that should have been caught when they purchased the residence.”
“‘In some cases, we’ve got people who didn’t make anything on the house over the last couple of years because the appreciation didn’t cover the cost of the repairs that were needed to sell the house this time around,’ said Rexrode.”
The Charlotte Observer fronm North Carolina. “At the end of a Plaza-Midwood street, real estate broker Ryan Dawson blew up balloons and brewed coffee as he prepared to sell a property in a home auction.”
“His company needed to unload the four-bedroom house that recent Sunday afternoon for any reasonable price. It had languished under a traditional real estate listing for months. The company was planning to take a hit on the price, he said. ‘This was our first one. I hope I won’t have to do it again.’”
“In this sluggish real estate market, a growing number of sellers are turning to the auction block to get out from under properties that aren’t moving the traditional way. Long the purview of high-end art dealers and foreclosures, the auction option is entering the real estate mainstream.”
“The required opening bid at the auction for the Heritage home was under $300,000, and there were only three bids. Less than a year ago, the 2,400-square-foot house, with heated bathroom floor in the master bedroom, granite countertops, soft wood and wide plentiful windows, might have fetched $500,000 or more, when compared to the recent selling prices of other nearby homes.”
“The company finalized a deal with one of the bidders the next morning, but it won’t reveal the selling price until the sale closes next month.”
“N.C. auctioneers, such as Mark Rogers, say they’ve seen an increase in the Carolinas. Rogers said that home auctions are only likely to keep increasing. ‘Sellers bought in this run-up of crazy appreciation, and the reality has now set in. Some of that was unrealistic,’ he said. ‘I see those people as having to take deep discounts.’”
“Be prepared to take a lower price than your neighbor who sold through an agent only a few months ago, says Rogers. ‘There’s the perception of market value and then there’s the seller’s perception,’ he said. ‘Even sometimes in a slow market, comparable sales (of other homes in the neighborhood) may still be too high. You have to be realistic.’”
‘Monroe County (PA) has shattered its previous high for home foreclosures in a one-year period. This year, there have been 1,040 foreclosure filings with the county Prothonotary’s Office as of Nov. 5. This marks the first year that county foreclosures numbered more than a thousand, and eclipses the previous high of 941 cases in 2003.’
‘Allegations include inflating price appraisals to value and to sell homes for more than they are worth on the local market, falsification of sales documents, undisclosed second mortgages hidden from buyers and the primary lenders, and onerous loan terms such as balloon payments and prepayment penalties if buyers try to refinance to a lower interest rate.’
‘The report said Monroe County foreclosures also grew at an even faster rate than that for new home construction — despite thousands of new homes built here in an area with the fastest population growth of any region in the state.’
This is great. All of the idiots that bought out in Pennsylvania and commute into New York City deserve a huge slap. They try to convince themselves they are doing it for “the children” and then they spend their entire day away from the home. A four hour round-trip commute is plain stupid, regardless of the salary.
“they are doing it for “the children””
They learned it from politicians. Also, manipulators are using children more and more in all kinds of ads. I find most of these ads disgusting. Please leave the children alone and let them be kids.
Jas
These MORONS don’t realize living in Manhattan or heavens forbid renting in Queens is far better for the kids then a horrible commute from the Poconos everyday.
You are so right. I grew up in queens and my brother bought an 1800 sq.ft house built in 1920’s in Great Neck for $469,000 in 1999. Still his commute to Wall Street is about an hour and a half. Back then Realtors were telling him to move to orange county (middle town) area and buy a Mc Mansion for the same price. He is glad he did not. The commute from lake Ariel area of the Pocono’s is more like 2.5 to 3.5 hrs now
“The commute from lake Ariel area of the Pocono’s is more like 2.5 to 3.5 hrs now”
Are you serious? People actually commute from Lake Ariel to NY? Sheesh. My father’s side of the family was from the Scranton/Wilkes Barre area and some relatives had summer cottages in Lake Ariel. We would go there from suburbs of NY for summers visits, it was about a 3 hour drive, as I recall. We considered that a long drive and something that was done only a couple of times a year and a major undertaking with a family of kids back in the day. And now people do it every day as a “commute”? Give me a break.
‘It’s bad even though interest rates are great. Some builders are even going as far as saying that it’s dead.’”
Wait ’till this cycle really hits bottom and we’ll talk about death. The finality of death takes a while to sink in.
It’s an enigma? I don’t think so; if interest rates don’t explain the problem, maybe you should consider the PRICE.
‘It’s bad even though interest rates are great.’
- The interest rates are only great if you can service a fully amortized loan with a real downpayment.
Since Americans are zero rate ’savers’, Juan and Jane Sixpack have NO savings for a downpayment or cash reserves.
Monroe County, NY area seems to be holding up so far, but this area is usually the last to see the gain and the last to see the pain, too. For those interested in the hinterlands:
Home prices are holding steady so far in area, state
http://tinyurl.com/2p22dd
“There’s no bubble bursting, the sky isn’t falling,” said Sal Prividera Jr., spokesman for the New York State Association of Realtors. “We are really in a soft landing compared to other parts of the country.”
It ain’t over till it’s over, Sal.
–
“‘There were too many people who were able to access credit earlier in this decade. [There were] people who really couldn’t afford the homes that they purchased and as a result, many homes were built,’ said local economist Anirban Basu.”
All bubbles are Credit Bubbles. Poor Doug Noland has been writing Credit Bubble Bulletin for so long that people termed him a bore. Truth is boring. It is the deception, or lies, that create excitement and bubbles are one outcome of that excitement.
Now, the Credit Bubble is bursting because home mortgages were the biggest source of expanding credit.
Inflation is an expanding credit phenomenon and when the credit ceases to expand deflation would result automatically. Inflationists can take heart.
Jas
“Charlotte is still one of the best markets in the country,” he said.”
That’s really saying something. That’s like saying, “she’s still hotter than Rosanne Barr or Kathy Bates.” The downturn is just catching up to Charlotte and it will be a MF’er. There are so many McMansions in Charlotte that it is just crazy. They were definitely relying on the Yankees to buy up everything. They are still building like mad. Let’s review the Charlotte situation.
- Rampant high-end overbuilding
- Foreclosures skyrocketing
- Traffic becoming an absolute nightmare
- The city is owned and operated by Bank of America (and Wachovia to some extent). Oops!
- Very expensive upkeep on homes as that 100 degree heat bakes down on the house
- Endless numbers of wannabe yuppies prowling the streets in their BMWs and Lexus SUVs
I’m sure I missed something but you get the point. Anybody buying in Charlotte needs to understand that a banking meltdown will hit Charlotte far harder than almost any other city. The future will not be kind to sweet Charlotte.
–
“They were definitely relying on the Yankees to buy up everything.”
And on Californicators too. But now they are stuck with their current homes. Things will get back to “normal.”
Jas
You are right. I think Charlotte’s economy depends a lot on banks, insurance companies and construction.
This slowdown could affect all three areas, which could hurt a city that is very dependent on building.
Plus there is a large population of “undocumented workers” that might get a little bit restless whenever they aren’t making an honest buck anymore in the construction business.
Can you say Property Crimes thru the roof?
–
“Plus there is a large population of “undocumented workers”…”
Is it NC or VA that has the fastest growing Hispanic population in the country? I am sure that they go wherever the jobs are growing fast (or were before the housing bust).
Jas
Its going to get interesting.
So when do the big bank layoffs start? I’m not thinking they can hold out too much longer. Six months tops. Anyone have a more informed opinion?
Got popcorn?
Neil
Hey NYCboy why not tell Ben we had a HBB get together Friday night in the Big apple…you guys are pretty damn smart and funny…..check out the GF website on my handle…
NYCityBoy, Dude sounds like you live here. You have described Charlotte with 100% accuracy. I have been here all of my 41 years and my wife and I are sick of here. It is a “want to be city”, sad. I don`t think people here can have fun because they are so worried someone will see them gut laugh and we know that is not Proper. I hope the RE market does die maybe the traffic will not get worse than it is now.
Regards,
Lane
Washington is a very want to be place too. It has a lot going for it. But as someone else posted here another day it is not London or NY. But can’t tell that from the local MSM. RE ads are alway touting just like Paris. As neat and charming as lot of the places in Dupont and Adams Morgan and other neighborhoods are, they seem nothing like Paris. Different is not necessary bad.
I think I know where that house is. The website is http://www.1500mimosa.com and they nailed *big* *ugly* yellow signs to telephone poles all over south and central Charlotte.
948 hits when i looked at the site…i am guessing 947 of them came from this blog…
How’s the market for houses on Lake Norman?
“It soon became apparent that Resource, which was one of the leading mortgage lenders in Hampton Roads, had embraced some of the industry’s lax lending practices and run up huge liabilities.”
…and let that be a lesson to any would-be vultures who think that financials are priced low. Spend a little time on the fundamentals (i.e., balance sheets, earnings, management structure, etc.), but then look REALLY, REALLY, HARD at the loans they made (i.e., EACH ONE - even call up some of FBs, I mean property owners) - that is where you can get killed. And no, the models that these genius bean-counters use don’t account for that…as long as the loans are AAA, they WILL get paid back…sure.
This is big news to me…. That is one of our local banks. I wonder if some of the other banks, such as Towne Bank or Bank of the Commonwealth will hit issues. My credit union (for years) has signs up about pulling out money from homes for vacations and what not. I asked my credit union what their ARM / IO exposure is but they never replied. They have been running promotions to drive investments… 7.77% CDs for 7 months on new accounts (max $10K or something).
Meanwhile, the Hampton Roads market has tons of inventory now, condo buildings in the pipeline, and the huge condo tower planned for downtown Norfolk (Granby Tower) lost it’s financing and the builder is working to secure new financing (which seems to be an issue).
Meanwhile, the cities are spending like mad. Light rail.. $250mil. New performing arts theater for 1300 people… $50 mil. And it goes on.
“‘Buyers are hesitating to make any kind of decision,’ said Sonya Francis, an agent in Catonsville. ‘Buyers don’t feel they should be paying the price the seller has listed. They’re looking at a $400,000 house and saying it’s only worth $350,000.’”
This is not quite accurate. I looked at a house in Halethorpe (same general area) about a month or so ago. The asking price is $239K. After the walk-through I told the realtor that it wasn’t worth even $100K. It had not been updated in a generation, smelled like death, and had no heating or cooling on the second floor. Of course, it’s still for sale.
The Virginia, Fulton Financial/Resource Mortgage and TowneBank article is a great story. A microcosm of the mortgage broker/loan repackaging excess crisis.
One local bank that became a bag holder when it bought another small bank with a mortgage department that specialized in toxic loans. Contrasted with another bank that stayed above the mess and grew normally.
http://www.dailypress.com/features/dp-biz_subprime_1108nov11,0,6680366,full.story
Up until the second to last paragraph when they keep the CEO of the acquired bank who sold off so many bad mortgages (liar loans) to the secondary market, and the acquiring bank had to buy them back because of non-payments within the first THREE payments.
In keeping the CEO, they said the bank was great, just the mortgage business was out of control, from buying and reselling (temporarily) brokers fantasy loans. It was so bad (21M of a 35M package they had to buy back is in 90 days late status), that they could just look at the operation as the buyback bombs started to blow and sack the acquired banks management and close two entire offices out of nine. 27M in 63 toxic liar loans from just these two offices. They did September appraisals and found their properties were 14% below original appraisals.
Also utterly hilarious is the 16 (managers?) then 70 more employees who left the bad bank for yet another bank this year. The bad bank actually sued the recruiting bank for “effectively trying to steal its mortgage business”. Little did they know who they were stealing.
The Smith character CEO at the bag holding bank seemed reasonable, but you have to wonder if he would be gone too if they had put any blame on the acquired CEO for his mortgage department. After all, this is presumably the guy who sold them his mess at just about the last possible moment the sale could be made before the explosions. I guess they got a “good” deal.
The “good bank story” has a hilarious paragraph about why you shouldn’t trust borrowers willing to pay 6.5% instead of 6%, if you don’t mind them exaggerating their incomes.
“But many of those mortgages started at Main Street operations like Resource, which dropped lending standards because Wall Street was willing to buy the risky loans.”
Let’s set the Way-Back machine to January 10, 2005, shall we?
Realty Times, January 10, 2005
Agency Sounds Warning On Stated-Income And Interest-Only Mortgages
“…In an advisory issued last week, Wall Street’s Dominion Bond Rating Service, which assigns risk ratings to mortgage-backed securities pools, expressed “concern” about lenders’ potential “easing of credit standards” to boost origination volumes in the post-refi boom climate of 2005.
The rating agency cited interest-only and “stated documentation” loans in new subprime mortgage pools as especially worrisome. “Stated” doc mortgages generally do not require homebuyers to provide hard evidence of income and assets to support their applications. Interest-only loans allow home buyers reduced monthly payments — there is no principal reduction for an agreed-upon initial period — but then convert to full amortization for the balance of the term.
Dominion said “mortgages underwritten (with) minimal documentation sometimes account for as much as 50 percent of mortgage pools” in the subprime arena. Yet the no-doc/stated-income concept was originally designed to assist self-employed, business-owning homebuyers with solid credit histories who preferred not to divulge their full financial details. The idea was not designed for buyers with marginal incomes and credit.
No-doc “has since been expanded to include salaried borrowers who cannot or will not show proof of income,” said Dominion in its advisory. Some analysts have called such mortgages “liar loans” because the income or assets claimed by the applicant may be illusory or fraudulent. That potential, in turn, raises the chance of future delinquencies and foreclosures…”
http://realtytimes.com/rtcpages/20050110_mtgwarning.htm
“… finds another troubling statistic. Weed said nearly 20 percent of the month’s 437 sales involved lenders foreclosing on properties or selling their foreclosures.”
I had assumed that foreclosures were not counted in the home sales statistics. But maybe, as is implied by the article, they are included. When the bank forecloses, the home is put up for action and is “sold” to the highest bidder, which is usually the bank itself at a price equal to what is owed to the bank. But are these foreclosure “sales” really included with the total home sales stats?
A very good question.
“Some builders are even going as far as saying that it’s dead.”
Dead’s pretty final.
Ironic considerng MORTGAGE. From answers.com:
“The great jurist Sir Edward Coke, who lived from 1552 to 1634, has explained why the term mortgage comes from the Old French words mort, “dead,” and gage, “pledge.” It seemed to him that it had to do with the doubtfulness of whether or not the mortgagor will pay the debt. If the mortgagor does not, then the land pledged to the mortgagee as security for the debt “is taken from him for ever, and so dead to him upon condition, &c. And if he doth pay the money, then the pledge is dead as to the [mortgagee].” This etymology, as understood by 17th-century attorneys, of the Old French term morgage, which we adopted, may well be correct. The term has been in English much longer than the 17th century, being first recorded in Middle English with the form morgage and the figurative sense “pledge” in a work written before 1393.”
‘How many million-dollar condos can you build?’
Not sure. But there is tons of demand for $200K condos in Brooklyn. But all they build is “luxury condos” selling for more. And you know what a “luxury condo” is in Brooklyn? A housing unit with its own toilet.
Fund Drive Today for Ben Jones Housing Bubble Blog
Sunday around 1 or 2 in the parking lot
San Diego
Encinitas exit off the 5
Moonlight parking lot
Look for Hwy50’s red kite flying
Topic: Impending Doom
DONATION= whatever we can slap together to send to Ben.
Ben do you take cash?
Try to send Euros to Ben, who knows what the value of Dollar will be when Ben receives it.
Today on Yahoo
Foreign Cash Could Provide Much Needed Relief for U.S. Housing Market Thanks to Weak Dollar
NEW YORK (AP) — The weakening dollar has caused many problems for consumers, but it may also be providing the fuel for one unintended — and very welcome — benefit: a rally in the struggling housing market driven by foreign investors.
- Of course these investors are only going to want to invest in California, all of the movies stars do it.
I thought Warren Buffett was going to provided the “Needed Relief”
Realtors are lying …the housing market is stalled .. it’s flat!
To make things worst, it hasn’t hit bottom yet.
The boom is coming back to haunt us and the market is going to continue dropping to the surprise of sellers and the joy of future builders. You can’t even think of buying in California, no one can afford the seller prices — no one ….CA market must go way way down and hints are that it’s going to take two more years thru 2009 to start up again. Affordability it just unattainable by buyers…they don’t make enough money to pay thousands of dollars on a mortgage period.
These stories make me so mad I could spit!
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071110/wall_main.html?.v=2
“The theory goes that foreign investors step in and replace first-time home buyers who have been squeezed out of the housing market during the recent downturn. These new investors in turn allow current homeowners to sell and trade up to larger homes.”
No, let’s not worry about getting people who acutally live in this country a place to live, let’s just worry about keeping the marketing profitable!
The next person who talks to me about homes being investments rather than a place to shelter you from the elements is gonna get cracked with a baseball bat!
Yes, once in a lifetime opportunity, not only are the housing prices in decline, the dollar is also dropping like a rock. Double depriciation…..yum…
Of course, for this to work it has to be assumed that rich foreigners are just as stupid as it was assumed that rich boomers are!
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071110/wall_main.html?.v=2
“‘It’s frustrating,’ said John Cooney, who will be relocating to Portland, Ore. ‘In a hot market three years ago, you’d have three or four offers lined up. Luckily, we don’t have a time frame and are not in a position that I have to sell it.’”
Liar, liar, pants about to be on fire. If it’s “frustrating”, why are you feeling so “luckily”?
There are still houses in my area so retardly over-priced, and “we’re not giving it away, because we spent, like, $254.00 on improvements!”….There’s a whole bunch of people that feel kinda “lucky” right now, and they won’t start freaking out for a few more months…they’ve got peeps telling them, “just wait until the buying season!”…..
we get a little immune here, but there are still TONS of underaware people just sure this is a blip.
The “buying season” is going to wake alot of people up, doncha think! There are so many signs up now in the Coachella Valley that it is a wonder if anything sells. If I was serious right now to buy, I would be overwhelmed with houses on one street or another. An agent should drive their clients around in an RV, so mid way through houses..the buyer could nap.
How about all those geniuses that bought in DHS and now have to commute nearly an hour to get to their jobs in Indio. If I wanted to live in a wind tunnel, I’d move to Anza.
‘The banks are going into a bunker mentality,’
—————————————-
and the FBs are lobbing bunker buster foreclosure bombs…
If the banks really do go into a ‘bunker mentality’, we’ll see a fast correction. Right now, by historical standards, lending is still pretty loose. Ok, not compared to circa 2005 through mid-2007. But by say 1970’s through 1990’s standards, its very loose lending.
Got popcorn?
Neil
‘It’s an enigma,’ said said Diane Williams, in Montgomery County, who has been selling new and existing homes in the eastern part of the county for 24 years. ‘It’s bad even though interest rates are great. Some builders are even going as far as saying that it’s dead.’”
Yes it is an eniga when people can’t spend money they don’t have. Very puzzling.
“John and Amy Cooney, architects who gutted and redesigned their Fells Point rowhouse with a custom oak staircase, a heated kitchen floor, glass block walls and a sky bridge to a carriage house, put the home on the market for $889,000 and got a contract last month, after just 13 days. But a month later, the buyers backed out of the contract.”
Fell’s Point is nice, charming, convient location, any number of positive adjectives. Fell’s Point is not a 900K rowhouse.
As someone who lives in the Philly metro area, I am definitely interested in hearing more about our market…I know there were some articles in local papers a few months ago about our market being “immune” which means they were in just as much denial as other markets. The entire country is going through this, and if they’re not yet they will be soon. I know the same entitled, deluded sellers here in the Philly/South Jersey area…who refuse to budge for months and even years on price; who then make the eventual price drops….People just refuse to understand that their home is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it, instead thinking they can set a price and someone will magically materialize willing to pay it. I’m glad they’re finding out the hard truth now. I am also very curious to hear more reports on the Jersey shore, a huge bubble market…as far as I know people are finding it almost impossible to sell, and for sale signs are everywhere….prices are tanking.
Selene, the following quote pretty much summarizes the CC condo situation:
“The Center City condo market is suffering from decisions, made three to five years ago, to focus on newly built units more expensive than this market can sustain. ‘How many million-dollar condos can you build?’ asked Joel F. Naroff, chief economist at Commerce Bank. ‘This is not New York.
OK so the dust has cleared and someone finally admits that Philadelphia is not the sixth borough. Some of that condo stock is going to make mighty fine Section 8 housing once this all shakes out.
As far as the Jersey shore goes, sales in Ocean City NJ started stalling last summer. If you’re looking for a shore home there will be some deals to be made in a couple years.