The Housing Bubble

The Albuquerque Tribune reports from New Mexico. “With the housing market slowing in Albuquerque, sellers are trying some unusual approaches to bring buyers to their doors. Longford Homes had its first-ever auction. The company put up 30 homes on the Duke City’s northwest side that have sat empty an average of six months. Colorado resident Emmet Main walked away from the auction paying $230,000 for a house previously priced at roughly $300,000 by Longford Homes.”

“Main and his wife had considered moving to Albuquerque for a year. The main problem was the cost of homes. ‘Prices have been out of sight,’ he said. ‘Up, up, up for the past few years. It has gone out of reach for a lot of people.’”

“While the auctioneer poured numbers from his mouth in a rhythmic, guttural monotone, his tuxedo-wearing assistants rushed between aisles waving their arms, clenching their fists, clapping their hands and shouting out the bids they took from audience members who lifted numbered white cards.”

“In the corner, a line of young women steadily applauded and smiled. The auctioneer interspersed his pitch with jokes — ‘I’m going to ask you 10 more times, ma’am; I don’t have time to beg you,’ he said as he playfully requested bids from a woman in the audience.”

“One Albuquerque seller who didn’t want to be named is giving away an antique dinner table, a hutch and china with his house. Some builders are offering kitchens full of appliances, while others, including KB Home, have sweepstakes for buyers that will offer a chance at a room full of Disney furniture.”

“In the current market, Pulte Homes of New Mexico sales manager Joe Maez has this advice: Take advantage of the dropping market and buy homes while you can. ‘It’s a huge opportunity, because there’s a perception of a buyer’s market,’ he said. ‘2008 is going to be a seller’s market again.’”

“Over the past four years Travis Thom has bought and then sold about 20 houses for a speedy profit. That strategy worked when the Albuquerque real estate market was hot, but it’s on hold for the time being, says Thom, a real estate broker in Albuquerque and a so-called home flipper.”

“‘I am kind of waiting on the sidelines with a few other people,’ Thom said.”

“Realtor Chris Pino said about half of his job involves tracking down homes that investors can fix up and quickly sell. In the past, such sales would take three months, but Pino now estimates 12 months. ‘I’ve never seen it this slow,’ he said. ‘There’s just not very many buyers right now. People are not making decisions.’”

The Arizona Daily Star. “Some agents say representing buyers in a buyer’s market makes sense, particularly for buyers relocating to Tucson, and it helps the agents land business in the midst of a slowdown. ‘Buyers are in greater demand than in recent years,’ said Jim Hogan, director of the Hogan School of Real Estate.”

“One caveat to representing relocation clients is that some might have trouble selling their homes in order to move, said Bonnie Smith, a Long Realty agent. Lately, some clients have had to ask Above & Beyond Relocation Services for help finding a rental property because of problems selling other homes, said Laurie Becker, a partner in the service.”

“‘Being a buyer’s agent before wasn’t nearly as much fun,’ said Jon Quist, a longtime exclusive buyer’s agent, referring to the high-pressure environment of the boom years. ‘Now you can go out, and you can be calm and look at houses.’”

The Arizona Republic. “Phoenix will likely have to slash programs and services in the coming year as the result of a budget shortfall caused by the slowing housing market and plunging sales-tax revenue. The current forecast shows Phoenix will take in $53 million less than expected over the next 18 months, virtually guaranteeing steep cuts to nearly every department in the city.”

“‘It’s clear that we’re going to be cutting programs,’ Phoenix City Manager Frank Fairbanks said Tuesday. ‘There really is no other recourse.’”

“Valley cities are the latest entities to be rocked by the slowdown in consumer spending that has accompanied the bursting of the housing bubble nationwide. The state is facing an $800 million budget shortfall this year that could balloon to $1.5 billion next year.”

“The situation is similarly bleak in Mesa, which is more dependent on sales-tax revenue than other cities because it does not levy a property tax. ‘Pretty dismal, pretty disappointing,’ is how Deputy City Manager Bryan Raines described Mesa’s latest sales-tax report.”

“Tempe has also experienced slumping sales taxes. Scottsdale’s finance officials have watched the city’s sales-tax revenue drop steadily since September, as well. ‘I expect things to get worse before they get better,’ Finance Director Craig Clifford said. ‘I expect it’s going to be a tough economy for us in the next 12 months or so.’”

The Nevada Appeal. “A self-described ’small’ developer said a slow housing market is not the time for Lyon County to raise water and sewage connection fees. Randy Butler…said he is staying afloat right now, but contractors are facing little or no profit and he is concerned about the county wanting to raise fees.”

“‘The cost of building homes exceeds the market value,’ he said.”

“Butler said many development projects were doomed when banks lost hundreds of millions of dollars encouraging people to build too many homes, and those homes are now being foreclosed on.”

“‘Whatever problems you have, I don’t think you can pay that through developers,’ he said, noting that prices for some homes have dropped more than $100,000. ‘We are not out of the woods, not by a long shot.’”

The Reno Gazette Journal from Nevada. “Nervous Washoe County homeowners are calling the assessor’s office by the hundreds to make sure the large increases in land values shown on recent county mailings won’t be reflected in their property taxes next year.”

“Thomas Gregory, a retiree who lives in the Galena Country Estates on the Mount Rose Highway, said he was ‘floored’ when he saw the land value for his home on less than a half-acre is rising from $66,256 to $159,600.”

“‘I have a pile of rocks worth $100,000 more, and there ain’t a bit of gold in it,’ Gregory joked.”

“The south county had not been reappraised for five years, and home sales studied in a required three-year period included the peak of the housing boom. Even though home prices now are dropping, that lag time is why property assessments went up so much in the south.”

“After reappraising the south end of Truckee Meadows, Washoe Valley and Incline Village, Assessor Josh Wilson said the average land value is up 80 percent for the tax year starting July 1 over the current tax year.”

“Wilson said the median county housing price for 2007 is $326,165. That’s down from a peak of $365,581 in 2006 and from $343,403 for 2005, the years covered in the study.”

“Wilson said the Legislature will talk about changing the state’s tax structure in 2009, especially since the governor has called for sweeping budget cuts due to declining sales and gaming tax revenue.”

The Review Journal from Nevada. “Prudential Americana Group, one of the largest residential real estate firms in the Las Vegas Valley, is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy so it can reorganize its debts while continuing operations.”

“The company, which had not filed the paperwork by press time Tuesday, has 1,200 sales executives operating under its auspices and has positive operating cash flow.”

“Owner Mark Stark, however, said Prudential Americana Group, the seventh-largest real estate firm nationally in the Prudential network, needs bankruptcy court protection so it can restructure its debt.”

“The bankruptcy filing will not affect the 3,000 exclusive listings that Prudential Americana has in Southern Nevada, he said. Stark estimated that the company is probably the biggest residential real estate company in the area, with a 15 percent share of all local home resales.”

“Prudential Americana is the second big Las Vegas realty firm to seek bankruptcy protection in recent months.”

“When he bought the company, Stark said he expected a slump in the local real estate loan market would follow the boom that sent home prices soaring, but he was stunned by the magnitude of the drop.”

“‘I did not see a 67 percent downturn coming to the Las Vegas market,’ he said, referring to the drop in existing home sales over the past two years.”

“Nevada leads the nation in the actual number of preforeclosure filings through October with 40.5 preforeclosure filings per 1,000 households. Nevada had 30,276 preforeclosure filings through October, an increase of 106 percent from last year.”

“Realtor Robin Camacho said banks are not protecting the properties they take back. Some have sustained thousands of dollars in damage from being vandalized while in the foreclosure process, which can take anywhere from six months to a year.”

“She said she has one client who recently lost a home to foreclosure and drives by about once a week to throw out squatters, fix the gate and keep the place locked up.”

“‘The grounds are trashed,’ Camacho said. ‘He takes photos, hoping that when the bank comes after him for the deficiency he can show them the photos. I don’t think they will care.’”

From Las Vegas Now in Nevada. “Home prices have been falling for several months in Southern Nevada. Several major builders in Las Vegas are slashing prices in an effort to sell homes in the struggling housing market.”

“Prices have dropped by $55,000 in some cases and as high as $200,000 in one case. But the savings don’t stop there.”

“Geoff Gorman, with Astoria Homes, said, ‘If you add in the fact, builders are paying your loan costs, which is pretty expensive, it gets less and less expensive. Not only do you have a lower price, but you are not paying for the loan.’”

“‘Builders are dropping prices because people weren’t buying homes at the higher prices anymore. The market peaked and people stopped buying homes. Investors left the market, builders have to sell homes, so just about everybody has dropped prices and that has caused homes to sell,’ he said.”

From KSL TV 5 in Utah. “The allegations are sweeping through the south end of the Salt Lake Valley. They involve dozens of investors, millions of dollars, and a deal that sounded so good even law enforcement signed up.”

“Neighbor after neighbor tell Eyewitness News they lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Investors say it hit Riverton hard; Herriman and Bluffdale, too. People say they were promised big returns, so sweet that not even trained investigators sniffed this one out until it was too late.”

“Jerry Gomez says he has nothing to lose by speaking out about the $150,000 he put in. For a while he was getting a return, then late this summer, nothing.”

“‘All of the strength in my body was just gone. I wanted to fall down. I thought, ‘Oh no, it’s gone, lost. What am I going to do now?’ he said.”

“Gomez and other investors filed a lawsuit that claims they were promised an 18 percent return. They thought their money would be used to purchase residential lots in booming communities in Salt Lake and Utah counties, and company notes indicate their money was secured by deeds of trust.”

“We asked Gomez if he has his name on a lot. ‘No,’ he answered. ‘It was never secured.’ He doesn’t know where the money went.”

The Deseret News News from Utah. “The summary of a 2008 nationwide real estate forecast is sprinkled with fearsome words: ‘greater downside risk,’ ‘repricing environment,’ ‘vulture-oriented investing,’ ‘retrench,’ ‘ebbing tenant demand,’ ‘tapped-out consumers.’”

“But speakers at a meeting Tuesday about the ‘Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2008′ report said Utah has a hard-charging economy and demographics that will insulate it from a lot of the troubles besetting the real estate industry nationwide.”

“‘Our fundamentals are absolutely outstanding,’ commercial real estate broker Michael Richmond said at the meeting of the Salt Lake District Council of the Urban Land Institute.”

“Michael Hansen, director of state and local planning in the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, said Utah’s ‘white-hot economy’ is driven by a booming population and continued job growth, and buoyed by exports and manufacturing, defense spending, quality-of-life amenities and a highly educated work force, in addition to ’skyrocketing’ home values.”

“In many respects, Utah is ‘almost an untapped market’ because of the strong economic factors, he said.”

“Richmond said any white-hot real estate markets in Utah could not be sustained. ‘If you see headlines about the economy slowing in Utah, yes, but it’s not panic,’ he said. ‘I think it’s being back to more sustainable, more healthy levels.’”

“‘With respect on the housing side, we have seen some defaults occur through the financial services and the real estate-related companies. The Union Park area…has a high concentration of mortgage, title and real estate-related companies — there’s going to be a little bit of risk there with companies downsizing and shutting down those offices…’ he said.”

“Turmoil actually could be good for the industry because it could lessen the chances of overbuilding, said Dean Schwanke, a senior VP at the institute and editor, principal researcher and adviser of the report.”

“‘The theme for this year is ‘A Dose of Fear,’ Schwanke said. ‘And I think that’s a good thing, because we were a little fat and happy, I think, for the last five years, and it just couldn’t last forever.’”