The Housing Bubble

The Sun Journal reports from Maine. “When New Hampshire developer Jerry Bowes came up with the idea for an 11-acre, 14-unit condo development for people 55 years old and older, the market was hot and real estate agents and townspeople told him the project would sell out fast. That was in the summer of 2006. Today, the model home for Poland Place is finished and two others are under construction. Everything’s ready for the onslaught of buyers predicted last year.”

“The problem? ‘Nobody’s bought anything yet,’ Bowes said.”

“So he’s cut his prices more than $20,000, passing on savings he got when lumber prices dropped. He’s offered to waive buyers’ condo fees for a year. He’s including the appliances in any unit sold during the next six months, and he’s giving away $5,000 to $7,000 worth of upgrades to anyone who buys the model.”

“Such incentives were unheard of last year when houses were snapped up in bidding wars. Now, with Maine and the nation in a housing slowdown, some developers say they need to get creative just to get people in the door.”

“‘We’re thinking outside the box,’ Bowes said.”

“Lewiston and Auburn have approved hundreds of new homes in recent years. At least 10 condo developments and subdivisions are now under construction in Lewiston and Auburn, representing more than 270 new homes in the Twin Cities. ‘We’ve probably had more subdivisions in the last three years than we’ve had in 10 years previous,’ said David Galbraith, director of planning and permitting for Auburn.”

“Kelly Wentworth, a real estate agent in Yarmouth, represents Whispering Pines, a $300,000- to $500,000-a-home subdivision in Durham. Whispering Pines provides new home allowances, but it isn’t offering any free extras.”

“‘I don’t think anybody can give a good enough incentive to bring the buyers out,’ Wentworth said. ‘It all comes down to location and price.’”

“Wentworth is relying on promotion. A lot of promotion. But there’s a lot of competition to overcome. Not only does Whispering Pines have to contend with other new developments, but it also has to compete with older homes for sale in well-established neighborhoods.”

“Only three of the subdivision’s 13 to 15 homes have been sold so far. And only four serious buyers have shown interest in the project since August. ‘There aren’t people out there. They’re not looking, Wentworth said. ‘They may do a drive-by. They’re not calling the office.’”

The Boston Globe from Massachusetts. “The selling points are still there for the 140-year-old Colonial in Southborough that Rachid Mansour bought seven years ago. Yet a year after the house went on the market, Mansour hasn’t closed a deal. That’s because one thing has changed: The once-hot Worcester County housing market has cooled.”

“‘Most buyers are waiting for prices to drop, and sellers are waiting for prices to come up,’ said Mansour, who is asking $410,000 for the three-bedroom house - about $30,000 less than his initial price.”

“‘If I didn’t have an immediate reason to leave, I might not want to sell,’ he said.”

“Few Massachusetts towns illustrate the housing bubble’s bursting as vividly as Southborough and its neighbors in Worcester County. It was long the western frontier of Boston’s expanding metropolitan area, where inexpensive houses, plentiful undeveloped land, and good road and rail links made it one of the fastest-growing parts of the state in the past decade.”

“But the real estate market in the exurbs between Framingham and Worcester is now in the doldrums. ‘We were overinflated,’ said Randy DeVries, VP of Prudential Prime Properties in Westborough. ‘The market just went wild, and now we’ve got a correction.’”

“Realtors and others say sky-high prices in the suburbs closer to Boston during the mid-1990s and early 2000s sparked a building frenzy in Worcester County as first-time home buyers looked for cheaper options, especially in towns straddling Route 9, including Shrewsbury, Northborough, Southborough, and Westborough.”

“Now, conditions have changed. With prices closer to Boston also down, Worcester County is less attractive to buyers who want to live closer to the big city.”

“‘A lot of buyers who might have gone to Westborough will now go to Natick,’ said Leif Rosseland, sales manager at Coldwell Banker in Shrewsbury. ‘It’s just like a wave at the ocean. It’s starting to pull back out to the Boston market.’”

“As those would-be buyers head east, they leave behind a glutted housing market. The eastern end of Worcester County is close to being built out, with homes that are now worth less just a few years after they were first purchased.”

“‘When people hear that prices are going down or there is a tendency to go down, people wait,’ DeVries said.”

“Mickey Skarr recently sold her Shrewsbury house for $515,000, after four months on the market. She originally asked for $600,000 but felt comfortable dropping the price because she and her husband are moving to Florida, where houses are significantly cheaper than in the Northeast.”

“‘It seemed like forever, primarily because of all the bad news about the housing market every day,’ she said. ‘Five years ago people would have been standing on the doorstep fighting each other over it.’”

From Newsday in New York. “Through a friend, they met Aaron Wider, a Garden City mortgage banker who also owned several homes in the Massapequa area. They settled on a two-family high ranch in North Massapequa at a sales price of $805,000.”

“Because Wider also was a mortgage banker, he said he could approve a loan that other banks wouldn’t, the Fitzgeralds recalled. ‘It was like he was giving us an opportunity for us to fulfill our dream,’ Robin Fitzgerald said.”

“From then on, the Fitzgeralds were willing to overlook almost anything in the pursuit of that dream, a common scenario seen across the country, experts say. The couple didn’t say anything when they noticed their credit scores were too high on documents they said Wider had filled out. They didn’t look at what other homes in the area were selling for.”

“After a year of struggling with mortgage payments that — minus rent from tenants — were $3,400 a month, the Fitzgeralds fell behind. Last March, Pennsylvania-based GMAC Bank, which had bought their loans from Wider’s bank, began foreclosure proceedings.”

“Only then, after hiring their own appraiser, did the Fitzgeralds learn that their home was valued at $545,000 when they bought it.”

“The Fitzgeralds are not the only Wider customers facing foreclosure. Banks have begun legal proceedings against at least 11 other Long Island homes connected to Wider, Nassau and Suffolk county property records show.”

“George Cornielle was living in Elmhurst with his wife and grown daughter in 2005, when a friend who did construction work for Wider asked Cornielle if he was interested in buying a home.”

“‘I wasn’t even thinking about a house,’ Cornielle said. ‘I said ‘I don’t think I qualify.’”

“But the friend assured Cornielle that Wider could arrange a loan and soon Cornielle was in contract to buy a high ranch in East Massapequa for $812,500. Cornielle said he paid a down payment of $17,000 and didn’t ask questions when lawyers placed dozens of documents before him to sign. Cornielle said he used a lawyer Wider provided him.”

“Cornielle said he did not notice that personal information in his loan application was incorrect. The papers say…that he earns $14,500 a month — more than triple what he said he actually makes.”

“Inside Wider’s conference room, the mood was chaotic and Cornielle said he felt rushed. ‘It was a lot of people, making deals on the cell phone,’ he said. ‘There were so many papers.’”

“Although Cornielle is not in foreclosure, he said he is one month behind on his mortgage payments and has borrowed up to $60,000 from family and friends in order to avoid defaulting.”

“Cornielle eventually obtained copies of the appraisals, which showed the house was worth $830,000 and $825,000 in 2005. Cornielle paid for a new appraisal in July, which showed the house was valued last summer at $484,000.”

“The Fitzgeralds have staved off foreclosure, for now. After they hired a lawyer to challenge the action, a judge canceled an auction of their house scheduled for Oct. 23.”

“Wider said he considers the Fitzgeralds personal friends. Robin Fitzgerald tells a different story.”

“‘I said Aaron, ‘You’re like a walking angel.’ That’s how I felt about him,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘We felt like he was the answer to our prayers.’ Now, she said, she often cries herself to sleep.”

The Centre Daily Times from Pennsylvania. “End-of-year clearance efforts — markdowns of more than $50,000, offers of no closing costs or no payments until 2009 — by some local builders are translating into big potential savings for home buyers.”

“The number of homes sold in Centre County actually increased slightly in October and is up substantially in some parts of the county when compared with 2006. But an abundance of spec homes, a desire to move that inventory off the books in what is typically a slower time of the year, and a soft market for higher-priced homes is driving some builders to offer discounts.”

“Barry Begoumian, CEO of Sunrise Homes, has taken an aggressive approach to move properties. Sunrise has launched a ’super sale’ through November, cutting prices between $14,000 and $55,000 on about a dozen homes.”

“The sale is an opportunity to start 2008 with a clean slate, he said. It’s also a onetime offer. ‘It’s our first time doing this,’ he said. ‘We’re basically moving it at our cost. We’re basically moving it below cost in some cases.’”

“In a good year, he said, Sunrise will build and sell 40 to 45 luxury homes and town houses. This year, he said, he’ll be happy selling 22. ‘We’re off by 50 to 60 percent,’ he said, adding that this is seen mainly among prospective buyers of homes in the $250,000 to $450,000 range. ‘It’s been slow for the last two years.’”

“Begoumian said too much speculation has resulted in a flood of available spec homes. ‘That sort of cluttered the market,’ Begoumian said.”

“Throw in the negative publicity about the downturn in the real estate in markets such as Florida and California, and the situation is magnified, Begoumian said. ‘We never really did have that bubble burst that they did,’ he said.”