It Was Like A Light Switch Went Off
The Post & Courier reports from South Carolina. “Prospective home buyers awaiting a sign that prices are on the way down in Charleston could be in luck. Local home prices took their biggest monthly slide in recent memory in November, suggesting that more sellers are willing to offer discounts to close deals amid a sluggish market.”
“Sales volume also fell last month, dropping nearly 19 percent compared to November 2006, according to figures from the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors. The decline extended a downturn that started in Charleston nearly two years ago.”
“‘Reality is setting in that prices were somewhat inflated in some areas,’ said Bruce Mullen, an agent with Prudential Carolina Real Estate.”
“He said in many cases sellers have been basing their asking prices on values established while the market was still climbing. ‘People were riding on the wave of the boom from a few years ago,’ Mullen said.”
“In Mount Pleasant, the median price for November fell by 35 percent. And in other areas, like the outskirts of West Ashley and Summerville, nearby new construction has pushed resale values down.”
“In North Charleston, Jamie Herman and her husband have decided to reduce the asking price of their three-bedroom home in Wescott Plantation by more than $20,000 to $224,500.”
“‘It’s frustrating because there are so many new houses going up, and they’re practically being given away,’ said Herman, whose husband is being transferred.”
“‘Timing the market is difficult,’ said David Kent, president of the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors. ‘No one knows when the top is. No one knows when the bottom is. So now’s as good a time as any.’”
The News & Observer from North Carolina. “With the once-booming Triangle housing market cooling off, home owners and builders are resorting to new tricks to survive the slump. They’re offering extras from cars to video games. They’re swapping homes with frustrated sellers in other markets. They’re doing more lease-to-own deals.”
“‘These things really went away for the whole five years of the housing boom,’ said National Association of Realtors spokesman Walter Molony. ‘But people have always used creative approaches to draw attention to their houses in softer markets.’”
“Last month, builder David Dail said whoever bought a $395,000 home in The Preserve at Longbranch Farms in East Raleigh by Monday could choose a new Ford Fusion or a $19,000 discount. As of Monday afternoon, there were no takers.”
“Jetta and John Mohan tried unsuccessfully for five months to sell their house outside Fuquay-Varina. Soon after they changed to a lease-purchase option, they found a buyer. They required a $10,000 deposit and $200 of the rent goes toward the purchase of the $195,000 house a year from now.”
“‘We’d rather have sold it but…we couldn’t afford to have it sit empty,’ said Jetta Mohan, who moved with her husband to Wilmington last year. ‘With the slowdown, there are houses for sale everywhere.’”
“After six months, Eric Rothman hadn’t had any luck selling his North Raleigh home despite cutting the price and offering to throw in a new privacy fence. Two weeks ago, the Raleigh personal trainer upped the ante: He promised a Nintendo Wii to any broker who finds a buyer.”
“‘In this market you’ve got to try and make your house stand out from everybody else,’ said Rothman, who had bought the hard-to-find videogame to play with his 6-year-old son.”
“According to the Triangle MLS, the October inventory of 13,534 unsold homes was 23.4 percent higher than a year ago. That helps explain why Rothman offered a videogame to help sell his house.”
“Two weeks after offering the Nintendo Wii, Rothman still hasn’t found a buyer for his house. Not so the Wii. An acquaintance offered double the $249 retail price, and Rothman sold the game over the weekend.”
“‘I got an offer I couldn’t turn down,’ Rothman said.”
The Charlotte Observer from North Carolina. “Starter homes went up at a dizzying pace in the last decade, particularly across northern Charlotte. Land was available and demand was high, as newcomers poured into the city and investors bought homes to rent. Relaxed lending standards also created a new pool of buyers with moderate incomes and shaky credit histories.”
“Planners approved subdivision after subdivision of starter homes, from Catawba River Plantation in the west to Stewarts Crossing in the east. The houses are close together and look similar, with vinyl siding in neutral colors.”
“The best of them show subtle signs: Vacant houses. Overgrown weeds. Trash piled at the curb.”
“The worst of them already resemble decaying urban neighborhoods that keep police and housing inspectors busy — and cost Charlotte millions to repair.”
“Windy Ridge is 5 years old, but already 81 of its 132 homes have lapsed into foreclosure. Dozens stand boarded up or vacant, with windows smashed and doors kicked in. Vandals have ripped copper wire from walls. Vagrants and drug users frequent the empty houses, next door to families who thought they’d invested wisely in their northwest Charlotte suburb.”
“In east Charlotte, Laurie Talbot was recently awakened by gunfire in her 7-year-old subdivision. ‘I thought I’d bought a home in Pleasantville,’ says Talbot, who moved from New York last year. ‘I never imagined in my wildest dreams that stuff like this would happen.’”
“She can’t get out, she says. ‘With all the foreclosures…there’s no way I could sell my house for what I have in it.’”
“Overall, the Observer found more than 50 neighborhoods with elevated foreclosure rates of 15 percent to 61 percent. Virtually all of them are new starter-home subdivisions.”
“In Sinclair Place, Thomas Bautista says he’s repeatedly called for code enforcement in his northern Charlotte subdivision. The house next door is dark and vacant, in foreclosure and scheduled for sale Tuesday.”
“Still, thieves broke in twice next door. Over the summer, Bautista finally paid a yard man $110 to cut the four-foot-tall grass because he kept seeing snakes, near where his children play.”
“He tried to sell in 2005 but learned from Realtors that his $112,000 home would command only $97,000. ‘This house has been a real pain,’ says Bautista, a Huntersville police officer who parks his patrol car on the street when he’s off duty.”
The Roanoke Times from Virginia. “At Old Virginia Brick’s plants in Salem and Madison Heights and at the General Shale Brick plant near Coyner Springs, managers and employees have been gut kicked by the effects of the nationwide slump in the construction of new single-family homes.”
“After the real estate bubble burst, the trickle-down began affecting local folks with calloused hands and the regional employers who sign their paychecks. Production lines have shut down, work hours have been cut and layoffs announced.”
“Gary Saunders is president of Timber Truss, a homegrown company that won a small business award this year from the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce. In late November, Saunders said his company’s sales started falling about a year ago, following years of exceptionally good market conditions.”
“‘It was like a light switch went off,’ he said. ‘It just never came back.’”
“Corky Clifton is sales manager for General Shale’s brick plant in Botetourt County. Clifton said the plant’s sales have been off ‘in the neighborhood of 25 [percent] to 30 percent.’”
“As a result, General Shale, headquartered in Tennessee, has closed one of two production lines at its plant on Webster Road and laid off about 30 to 35 workers. ‘We ship all over the Southeast and East Coast. We are feeling it in all of our markets,’ Clifton said.”
“Product demand in Northern Virginia has been especially slack, he said. ‘That market has probably hurt us more than any.’”
“Saunders said he is afraid relentlessly negative and ‘over-reported’ coverage about the subprime debacle and other housing-related crises is scaring people. The fear blinds them, he said, to the opportunities created by the crisis.”
“‘Right now is probably the best time to build a house,’ Saunders said. Sought-after contractors who were once hard to hire are more readily available, he said. In the absence of demand, Saunders added, the costs of many building materials have dropped, as have rates for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages.”
The Baltimore Sun from Maryland. “Home sales in metropolitan Baltimore tumbled again in November, the third consecutive month that sales have dropped about 30 percent. Prices also fell slightly.”
“The string of declines - volume fell 31.74 percent in October and 29.72 percent in September - is the most severe recorded by Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, which began tracking sales through the multiple-listing service in 1999. The region’s biggest decline was in Anne Arundel County, where sales skidded nearly 42 percent.”
“Home prices were down in four of the six jurisdictions, the most in Carroll - nearly 7 percent - and Howard, down 6.3 percent. Average home prices rose 3.6 percent in Anne Arundel and 6.47 percent in Baltimore County.”
“‘By and large, we remain very much in the midst of our local housing downturn,’ said Anirban Basu,CEO of Sage Policy Group, of Baltimore.”
“‘Right now, many buyers remain disengaged from the market, with some simply nervous about the value of their existing property and not looking to acquire more. Buyers have felt asking prices are too high…and have felt prices are set to fall. And sellers have not recognized much of that in their asking prices until recently,’ Basu said.”
“‘There are some buyers - not as many as there were two years ago. But for the most part, people have just stepped back and are waiting - it’s unclear what they’re waiting for,’ said Jane Rowley, a real estate agent in Federal Hill. ‘There’s that expectation that [prices] are going to go down, or have gone down, and that sellers will accept very low bids. That’s not actually what’s happening.’”
“There were 19,502 active listings last month…nearly double that of two years ago. The MRIS statistics pointed to signs that sellers are softening their prices. The average listing price of homes that sold in Carroll, Harford and Howard counties was lower than a year earlier.”
“And sellers overall accepted 91.75 percent of their asking price on average, down from not quite 94 percent the year before.”
“Moin Hussaini, who recently got married and moved to Los Angeles, has had no offers on his three-bedroom townhouse in Baltimore Butcher’s Hill, which was put up for sale in August. He’s hoping a $10,000 price reduction, to $345,000, will prod an offer.”
“‘I actually think it’s a fairly decent time to buy,’ he said. But ‘people are just not looking at it, which is frustrating. But I’m fully prepared to rent it out if I need to.’”
‘In east Charlotte, Laurie Talbot was recently awakened by gunfire in her 7-year-old subdivision. ‘I thought I’d bought a home in Pleasantville,’ says Talbot, who moved from New York last year. ‘I never imagined in my wildest dreams that stuff like this would happen.’ She can’t get out, she says. ‘With all the foreclosures…there’s no way I could sell my house for what I have in it.’
This helps to explain why the change is so slow. Even with bullets coming through her walls, this FB is hanging on to break even.
LOL!!!! I had that same thought. And the police officer - take the $15K hit already. It won’t kill you but the neighbors might!
Maybe the snakes in the grass will deter the vagrants and vandals.
Maybe we can find a FB to taser today. I’m still laughing about that one.
You don’t know how funny this stupid comment is unless you’ve been to East Charlotte. I would have been surprised if she didn’t hear gunfire during the night. Bwahahaha. “I thought I’d moved to Pleasantville.” Stop it, you’re killing me. My belly hurts from laughing.
This garbage is why no one should be in a hurry to buy. Even if you can get a steal right now, there is a good chance that in a few years your neighborhood will have transformed into a free fire zone. Wait until the bottom and a slight rebound to ensure you don’t wind up stuck in crack row.
You don’t know how funny this stupid comment is unless you’ve been to East Charlotte.
In my experience, the east part of town typically means that one is heading into a rather crappy area. The only place I’ve ever been to where the eastern part of town was really nice, was in a different country altogether - Australia. Specifically, the eastern areas of Sydney, like Double Bay, Vaucluse, etc.
Bad Location, Bad Location, Bad Location
In Minnesota we had “The East Side” of St. Paul. In Charlotte they have East Charlotte. In New York City we have New Jersey.
Your theory is holding up well so far.
My sense of direction was off. It should have read Queens. Jersey is out west but the eastern part of Jersey is so dumpy that I got confused.
The east side of Chicago has been underwater for years
Seriously, this works for LA and DC too
and don’t forget East St. Louis. That’s got to be the roughest place in the U.S.
Hey NYC boy, it’s East New York Brooklyn that is the murder capital here.
Actually, I heard than in a majority of cities the North side is ritzier than the South Side. Not St. Louis or Tulsa, but otherwise.
East of Houston are the best neighborhoods and schools.
The reason the east side is usually worse than the west side in the U.S. is that the country was generally founded from east to west and tended to be founded on rivers. It was common to cross a river or travel upriver to a bluff before founding a town. Ports and rails tended to congregate on east side of rivers, residential expansion on west. Richmond, Charlottesville, Roanoke, Lynchburg are all good examples in my home state.
East of Daytona we have the Atlantic. I don’t know if thats good or bad.
East Detroit is highly superior to the West.
Maybe the gun shots come from the neighbors shooting the snakes!
tasering snakes might be fun. Maybe they could develop a quick draw contest as a yearly event.
Given the stated conditions, it may be more than a 15k loss. Those numbers are based on some Realtwhore’s assessment of what it should sell for.
Would you buy in that neighborhood, at any price??
This is what happens when an Imbecile becomes the “ownership” president and doesn’t understand that homeowners are more stable, not because they own homes, they own homes because they are more stable.
The lawlessness of the administration is filtering into neighborhoods near you. Enforcement? What enforcement?
Hope you have a gun.
Crime is an issue; watching the local news last night as the news crew filmed cops talking to witnesses about a double stabbing a man walks in front of the camera, gets in a car and drives off with the cop banging on the hood. Stolen car, live on TV; this is in the Triangle.
problem is, no-ones got any money. i was in a similar situation, not as dramatic, in sturbridge, mass. seems quaint but the ubnderbelly is scary. took a 22k hit in 6 months and moved back to cny where people go to dentists
Sturbridge, MA? That’s the town that this song made famous!
We should expect that there will be many more “wildest dreams” becoming reality here soon. As in, the New Depression. Banks and other major financial institutions failing. Mass layoffs. 500 per cent increases in delinquency, default, and foreclosure rate statistics, followed by 500 per cent increases in crime and violence statistics. Don’t rule out surprisingly large segments of previously docile and meek sheep becoming restless, insistant, and militant. This isn’t a nation of family and country oriented patriots like 1930. This is the secular “entitled” and “me first” instant gratification oriented population that has learned to distrust and cheat the government in 2007. Yes, it is different here alright. No one alive has seen the magnitude and ferocity of the financial and economic destruction that still awaits. As Lenin once said, “A man with something to lose makes a poor revolutionary”. Can you imagine,”in your wildest dreams” what millions of debt slaves who have just lost their jobs, homes, cars, meager savings, and hope, might support?
“Can you imagine,”in your wildest dreams” what millions of debt slaves who have just lost their jobs, homes, cars, meager savings, and hope, might support?”
Like hanging Wall St/Penn Ave pigmen and their apologists (Kudlow, Laffer)from light poles?
I’m ready when you are.
can we hang mini me robbie riech and krugman too ?
BTW krugman has declared france’s healthcare totally wonderfull
“A man with something to lose makes a poor revolutionary”
FYI - George Washington was one of the richest men in all of the Colonies, was a former officer in the British military, owned thousands of acres of land…shall I go on?
2banana
George Washington and many in his class were men of principle, and willing to lay their lives and honor on the line for what they believed in. Today’s rich tend to be totally ammoral, grasping, and driven only by greed, self-interest, and rampant materialism. I wouldn’t expect a revolutionary leader from that quarter.
You are rocking today.
Boy, that describes Warren Buffet to a “T.”
People like Buffet, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Pat Tillman are the exceptions rather than the rule - just as the people here on the Housing Bubble Blog are exceptions to the rule.
When the average, nearly comatose, drooling dimwit “American consumer” wakes up and realizes that he’s been totally screwed, courage will not be one of his reactions. Random acts of violence, theft, murder, and so on will all be the results of the coming economic collapse. Consider how stupid the average person is and how driven they are by greed and instant gratification of their most primal wants - and then consider that half the population is even worse than the average!
Not a pretty picture of the future, IMHO.
And my late cousin Tommy Jefferson was so bad with money that he couldn’t have handled a 50 cent allowance. Did write well though when his backside was in the crack for committing treason and he had to get a lot of people to go along with him in to create a rebellion or get arrested and hanged for treason.
Seem to run to rebels and traitors among my family line. TJ made out okay but cousin Jeb Stuart was a failed traitor and a screw-up militarily. (Think Gettysburg.)
I should have added that MONEY was a large part of the American rebllion.
The New Englanders were really upset over the drop in their profit level. Not broke -just not making as much as their greedy little Puritan hearts wanted.
The Southern plantation owners were laregly in serious financial straits. They would ship their goods (raw materials such as lumber, grain and tobacco) to England and the then turn around and buy finished goods from the mother country (furniture, fabric, books, etc.) They were running their very own trade deficit. They were land-rich and cash poor.
Pat Tillman - gave up a pro football career worth $millions, enlisted in the army, worked hard became Ranger, went into battle, killed by friendly fire.
Unfortunate demise, but great example of the true american spirit.
“It is only after you lose everything, that you’re free to do anything.” — Tyler Durden, FIGHT CLUB
Unfortunately, given the moral vacuum in this country, lack of firm parenting, and glorification of taking whatever you want anyway you can, we are going to see an ugliness and lack of restraint that was never present during the darkest days of the Great Depression.
So true Sammy - firm parenting! But that takes time and attention and why should these parents have to change their lifestyles to raise their kids? Why shouldn’t the be able to take them anywhere they want anytime they want? Why shouldn’t small children be allowed to misbehave in public - they’re just being children. They can’t do well in school because it’s all the teacher’s fault. The girls need to worry about body image at 6 and the boys need to play hours upon hours of violent video games because it’s natural for them to be aggressive. They all need their own bedrooms in the mcmansion with full entertainment because parents don’t have time to monitor their kids 24/7. They have to eat junk because parents don’t have time to cook. They have to have everything everyone else has because their self images will be wounded if they are different. OK rant off.
americans think of themselves as so highly evolved and sophiticated that they couldn’t imagine your scenario. anyone remember the flu shot shortage 2 years ago? old ladies lined up for blocks knocking down linejumpers. the great depression happened in a time of law and order in america. think of the gang bangers etc roaming the countryside now. road warrior all of a sudden doesnt look that far fetched
All you have to do is imagine aftermath Katrina on a nationwide scale. Quite a scene, man.
I second that motion Ben.
Did I miss something? Am I being called out for lack of original thought?…… Tough crowd this morning………I like it!
No ex-….. not you. The racist contingent decided to post epithets under his alternate username.
I have lots of ammo - in the smarter countries they have to take it(paris riots)
in VA we shoot back
Waterworld.
Me too. I was anti-gun until Katrina, then the epiphany. What happens if the police are overwhelmed or don’t show up because they’re too busy protecting their own? OK, now I see the benefit to having a .45 auto in the house.
After serving in Viet-nam in the 60’s I came home and gave up all my guns. War put a sense of reality to the real power of the gun. Now. Now I am thinking of buying one in 2008 and giving my wife and daughter shooting lessions.
I didn’t think owning a firearm was necessary either. Until the LA riots knocked on my door. Take it from someone that knows: all social order can disintegrate in just a few hours and it can happen any place at any time.
My life fades.
The vision dims. All that remains are memories….
I remember a time of chaos. Ruined dreams. This wasted land.
But most of all, I remember The Road Warrior. The man we called “Max”. To understand who he was, you have to go back to another time. When the world was powered by the black fuel. And the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel.
Gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel, they were nothing. They built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked.
But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men.
On the roads it was a white line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice.
And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed. Men like Max. The warrior Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything. And became a shell of a man, a burnt out, desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland.
And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again…
___________________________________________________
“This isn’t a nation of family and country oriented patriots like 1930. ”
It is more like After the American Revolution where EVERYONE wanted to be in charge, where there were over 400 people at the state house wanting to be and have their say, have the laws written up the way they wanted. It wasn’t organized at all because we were a country of farmers etc. Independents.
I can see us returning to those days. Mayhem.
Find yourself a little Pleasantville, to hide away from the Crowd.
Germany in the 1930`s ???
That brings up a good point: what are we going to call this coming Depression? The Great Depression, aside from not being so “great” may not be the one to top once this is all done. We’ll need a good name for it…
I also wonder if we’ll hyper-inflate and die or do a long, slow, deflationary crumble that burns away decades until our nation is some backwater about which few people in the larger world care? Either way, millions of angry people with no houses and no jobs (thank you, globalization!) will be rather pissed…
This is yet another reason why I choose to rent — in my opinion, we are entering a period of great instability and change in this country, where our various “Pleasantvilles” could become Detroit. People should be extremely hesitant before committing their current and future wealth to any particular area, because in the future mobility may be more important than equity.
I have said before that Florida, at least in its post-WWII incarnation, is over; no one should buy unless he or she is comfortable with all of the alternative versions of what this state could become.
A lot of those tossed-up Pleasantvilles of identical, featureless McCrapboxes crammed together tighter than soccer moms lining up for Hannah Montana tickets already are Detroit. Actually, I think the houses in Detroit that haven’t burned down yet will last longer.
“comfortable with all of the alternative versions”
Amen to that. As a matter of fact that’s what I think many of us spend our free time thinking about? “Gee, uh… what’s this place likely to be like when ____ finally becomes the norm after the facades are dropped?”
I’ve looked into OR’s future (and it scares me). Since most of us are fairly mobile you begin to visualize what roaming bands of thieves will look like in Las Vegas? Phoenix? Oh that’s right, they already have that!
On 60 minutes last Sunday, one of the episodes showed what committed meth users can do to a house, when they enter the “salvage” business.
A rickety-tickety shell of what was once a home, remained after they had their way with it…
Great post.
Capital is on the move and where it lands no one knows. The smug think their own neighborhoods and towns are rock solid - but the next 50 years will not resemble the last 60.
This uncertainty may make renting a long term smart play. (not to mention being held hostage by exploding property taxes) In this age houses that can be paid off quickly might make sense, but 30, 40, 50 year mortgages for McMansions and luxury condoze- NO WAY!
For many years I have asked people “what is so great about owning an aging house?”
I have never owned RE, and at this time I do not have any plans to own. I prefer being able to pick myself up and move with 30 days notice for whatever reason. Barking dogs or flying bullets, it does not matter. I sign one year contracts and after one year I am month by month and can move at any time, FOR ANY DAMN REASON!
If the big dog next door never gets walked or played with and is serving a life sentence incarcerated in his little holding pen area then maybe the RENTAL HOUSE OWNER can shoot this dog and end it’s misery before it goes completely barking-senile 24/7.
“In east Charlotte, Laurie Talbot was recently awakened by gunfire in her 7-year-old subdivision. ‘I thought I’d bought a home in Pleasantville,’ says Talbot, who moved from New York last year. ‘I never imagined in my wildest dreams that stuff like this would happen.’”
“She can’t get out, she says. ‘With all the foreclosures…there’s no way I could sell my house for what I have in it.’”
Where does one start with this??? Wide mouthed New Yorker living where she shouldn’t be living and gun fire? You can run from it but you create the very problems you’re running from. And now you can’t “get out what you got in”?
This ought to be a warning to equity bandits everywhere. The paradise you think is on the other side of the fence is actually right in your own backyard. There is no need to move and create the very problems you’re running from.
(This ought to be a warning to equity bandits everywhere. The paradise you think is on the other side of the fence is actually right in your own backyard. There is no need to move and create the very problems you’re running from.)
Right. Since when did a community become a consumer good? If you can’t get out, how about getting together to try to make the place you are a good place, which you failed to do in the place you left?
The justification for subsidizing homeownership is that it anchored people to their communities, and made them active and concerned citizens. Hypermobility and bubblenomics has done the reverse.
WT….
In a broader sense, it is what we’ve become. It’s where we’ve been led since all that we hear from our leaders is a constant barrage of WallStreet-ese such as “market driven economy”, “tax cuts” and “competitiveness”. On the other side of the same tarnished coin the moralizing minority gives lip service to the only divisive issues they got left like gay marriage, abortion blah blah blah. Rallying the citizenry with noble efforts such as community, a 2 year US Defence Force stint for all high school graduates, trade schools, etc might actually do something to build leadership and strong communities.
It’s fricken sad what we’ve become in the last 25 years.
Let’s not forget Greed is Good and that we are not humans or citizens, we are consumers. We glorify the rich and infamous. Doing the right thing is for chumps - clawing up the ladder of monetary success are the go-getters. As long as you praise religion you are the righteous and your deeds are forgiven.
When it comes to creating community, I’m fond of saying the following:
1. Want a better neighborhood? Be a better neighbor. (I love tossing this one at people who whine about “the neighborhood,” but do nothing to make things better. Doing something as simple as pulling one’s yard weeds can help.)
2. Neighbors should be seen and not heard. (As in, keep your noise to yourself. There’s no need to broadcast your party music to the entire block.)
And there ya have it. I’m tempted to print the above slogans on tee shirts.
1. Want a better neighborhood? Be a better neighbor. (I love tossing this one at people who whine about “the neighborhood,” but do nothing to make things better. Doing something as simple as pulling one’s yard weeds can help.)
I tried this one time for 3 years. My neighborhood had become “integrated”. It became a beacon of crime. The new “neighbors” only cared about their welfare checks, booze and drugs. Parties all the time. Bar-be -ques in the front yard. Cars parked all over the street and in yards. Crack dealers on every corner.
We spent great effort cleaning up their litter. Do you think the pitched in?
You are insane. There is no solution to a neighborhood gone GHETTO, except to leave, let the parasites take it over, then create a government “revitialization program” for the new arrivals.
You loose. They win.
Get out while the getting is good and hope you find a place that is lot more “homogenous” , if you know what i mean.
“Get out while the getting is good and hope you find a place that is lot more “homogenous” , if you know what i mean.”
No–what do you mean?
“Want a better neighborhood? Be a better neighbor.”
LOL. Lived in a great neighborhood which changed some over time as a few neighbors moved on and news ones moved in. Then we started having some housing break-ins. One neighbor (new) decided to start a neighborhood watch and sat up some meetings at different neighborhood homes. Theft continued and when they caught the culprits it was the neighborhood watch starter.
Just watched a great old Frank Capra movie, “Meet John Doe” with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyke, set in the late 30s. Overall theme was that in times of strife and economic chaos the one thing that could hold Americans together was to learn to be good neighbors. The opposing force of evil was a group of politicians & wealthy media owners who sought the iron fist of fascisim.
Well said. I noted mobility above but believe me, it’s not what I would’ve preferred to have seen and I don’t think we bears are responsible for the “Hypermobility”. This is where the “Equity Locusts” came in.
If the generous subsidizing of home ownership has utterly failed, than perhaps we’re finally open to exploring alternatives?
Well, one can TRY to change a neighborhood, but that’s “snitchin’” and will get you fire-bombed to death here in Baltimorgue.
Geez, I could have told her not to live on the eastside of charlotte.
The early 90s housing collapse happened to Charlotte — my family took a $30k loss (>10%) on a house we bought in 1988 (dad moved there for work) and sold five years later. You’d think Charlotte would be immune to this, because it’s the Capital of the New South and Everyone Is Moving There. But in fact it’s a classic example of a place where the builders keep on building and undercutting prices of existing houses when things slow down.
Most of East Charlotte is a $hithole.
West Charlotte is far worse. The only area in Charlotte I would live in is this:
Using the downtown (locals call it “Uptown”) as the center of a clock, the little area between the clock hands at about 4:37 AM/PM. I’m serious.
That’s right about where we (and all my friends) lived. Also, no further outside of downtown than Wendover. Any further out is too much driving.
When I lived there, everyone called it downtown and knew “uptown” as the artificial Chamber of Commerce gobbeldygook it is. From talking to people down there today it seems like they’ve successfully brainwashed people. “Uptown” is *not* a historical term.
About ten years ago, when I was living in my first townhouse back in VA, I had neighbors who were ultraliberal Jewish transplants from NYC. I had gone to a gun show and bought an SKS carbine, which I was unloading from my trunk, when this harpy comes scurrying over from across the street to scold me for “frightening” her children with the open display of a firearm. I looked across and saw her kids happily playing in their postage-stamp sized front yard, paying no mind to me or the terrifying firearm whatsoever. I suppose the appropriate response would have been to politely inform her that I was well within my legal and HOA rights to transfer my legally-acquired weapon from my car to my home, but instead, I merely smiled and gave her the finger. [Bear in mind, her & hubby had pulled a number of stunts by hat point that hadn't endeared them to their neighbors].
About a month later, when she was visiting her sister in Silver Springs, the sister’s home was broken into. Suddenly these rabid anti-gun zealots came oozing over to ask me if I’d help them pick out a good home defense gun and show them how to use it. I did so, gladly and willingly, and we got along reasonably well after that. So, even New Yorkers have some residual survival instincts, apparently.
see how jeanamarie davis got crushed running as an anti gun rep ?
wow, what an idiot
scene from SOUTH PARK
boobby
when this harpy comes scurrying over from across the street to scold me for “frightening” her children with the open display of a firearm.
I love it when women use their kids as an excuse to act like The Boss of the Neighborhood. When I was living in Queen Village a recent yuppie transplant yelled at me through my window that my music was too loud and waking up her kids…
I looked outside and there wasn’t a kid in sight. “Are your kids sleeping outside, lady?” I asked recent yuppie. When I got no response, I turned up the volume on my stereo.
I
Why do yuppies even have kids?
Golly, where I grew up gunfire was common. It was called hunting. Sometimes we’d throw clay targets into the wheat field or shoot tin cans with a .22.
It makes a great deal of difference who has the guns, and what they’re shooting at whether gunfire is scary or not. As a kid I was never worried when I heard gunshots.
Friend bought a attached townhome 7 yrs ago. Charlotte,NC. No attached garage or otherwise. It is worth what it was 5 yrs ago 115k and no more. Actually, probably now much less, so much building going on. Reduced the value of her ‘home’ and others to pocket change. We did a few home viewings 4 yrs ago and I couldn’t get over how Tightly built the little subdivisions were when there was so much land around and those crackerbox “homes” were over 475k THEN.
Maybe a freestanding house, but not one where you had to share your driveway with neighbors etc. TIny streets everything. YIkes
“‘There are some buyers - not as many as there were two years ago. But for the most part, people have just stepped back and are waiting - it’s unclear what they’re waiting for,’ said Jane Rowley, a real estate agent in Federal Hill. ‘There’s that expectation that [prices] are going to go down, or have gone down, and that sellers will accept very low bids. That’s not actually what’s happening.’”
Aside from the mind blowing arrogance this moron, did anyone think to ask her to provide some evidence that prices aren’t down in and around Bawlmer?
If I lived in Baltimore, I would be waiting for Jane Rowley not to renew her real estate license.
The only cure for morons like Jane Rowley is STARVATION. I see hunger in her forecast.
She’s right — that isn’t what’s happening. What’s happening instead is the sellers are freezing themselves in place, paying too much on their resetting mortgages and eventually losing them to foreclosure, letting the banks get stuck with the problem.
“‘it’s unclear what they’re waiting for,’ …… ‘There’s that expectation that [prices] are going to go down, That’s not actually what’s happening.’”
Could it be, just maybe that you answered your own question……from my side of the fence, it is crystal clear what they’re waiting for…..
Let’s see… Median price of a house in Maryland is well over $300K. Median household income in Maryland is about $65K. Yeah, a 5 to 1 housing price to income ratio is just fine - NOT!
Oh, but it gets better! Once one removes the countless doomed houses in the pits of Baltimorgue since most people don’t like being shot at on a daily basis, I am sure the median household price climbs rapidly from there. This is also the case based upon just looking at the real estate ads and simply not bothering with anything in Baltimorgue.
But everything is fine in Maryland! You can get your Post-War rancher/shoebox for well over $200K, a cheap, cruddy condo for around $300K, a starter, zero-lot townhouse in the $400’s, and a nice McMansion - the dream of all American Consumers - starting in the $500’s. Yep, all is well if you just ignore that annoying thing called “paying off the loan!” Dur!
It’s quite obvious now is NOT the bottom, so why be an idiot and buy now?
Defer buying, and deny realtors that 6% they’re so richly entitled to? Why, you flinty-hearted rapscallion, you….
Also - why be an idiot and use this guy as your realtor? He’s really adding a lot of value and insight with a statement like that.
Hey David — watch prices and inventories. When inventories finally start to go down over a sustained period, prices will start to go up. At some point, you can assess local economic conditions, affordability, price-to-rent ratios, and new housing projects on the horizon in the area, and make an educated guess.
This guy’s the president of the local realtor’s association?
Again, I ask my usual question — is this guy actually this ignorant? Or is he just trying to avoid answering truthfully that there’s still plenty of room to the downside ahead?
“Prospective home buyers awaiting a sign that prices are on the way down in Charleston could be in luck. Local home prices took their biggest monthly slide in recent memory in November, suggesting that more sellers are willing to offer discounts to close deals amid a sluggish market.”
I am going to miss newspapers and their way of gilding the lily, when they go away.
Jane Rowley, a real estate agent in Federal Hill. ‘There’s that expectation that [prices] are going to go down, or have gone down, and that sellers will accept very low bids. That’s not actually what’s happening.’”
So Jane,…pray tell, what just exactly IS happening?
We have to get prices to reality. The banks are only going to loan maybe 3X earnings and want that pesky down payment thingy. Also with rents anywhere from 30-60% cheaper than owning only a fool would buy.
As for all the Laurie Talbots out there I feel sorry for people if they bought withen their means and their neighborhood went to hell around them. Happened to my parents in the 90’s. One apartment around the corner went from high end to section 8. It went from being a nice neighborhood to gang land in just a couple of years.
We have to get prices to reality.
Arnold Kling says the same thing.
Buying a house that is 3x, 4x, 10x your income is kind of a moot point imo. Houses need to be priced in line with rents, so that if a move is necessary, and the house doesn’t sell, then it can be rented out for enough to at least cover PITI.
Section 8 housing, if managed well, can be an asset to the neighborhood. And, no, I haven’t lost my mind.
In fact, I’m thinking of a nearby complex that has excellent ownership and management. It’s within earshot of my house, and let me warn you, I am very sensitive to noise. But that complex has never disturbed a moment of my peace. Ever.
Whenever I see the owners and managers, I make it a point to tell them that I appreciate their good work.
Permit me a moment to clarify: The aforementioned complex isn’t just for Section 8 renters. There are other people renting there as well.
I’d also like to add that the owners and managers are no-nonsense people who don’t put up with guff from any of their tenants. And they don’t hesitate to evict troublemakers.
Hi Slim -
I don’t think you’ve lost your mind. When I had rentals, two of my tenants were Sec. 8. One was a disabled woman whose young son lived with her in a 3R apt. She kept the place spotless.
The other was in cahoots with my rent collector to rob from me and from Sec. 8. When I found out, I got rid of the collector and the tenant. That’s my limited experience with Sec.8.
I can see though how if an entire complex is Sec. 8 it could be a godawful mess.
From the Charlotte article:
“A lot of these neighborhoods have basically become giant apartment complexes without any management to maintain the property and keep tenants in line.”
Section 8 housing, if managed well, can be an asset to the neighborhood.
In a large metro area, this is quite likely to be the exception rather than the rule.
That’s exactly what happened to my old apartment complex, which is one of the reasons I bought a townhouse, (89K, 30 year fixed, 5.75% - I’m no fool).
The previous mayor of Bawlmer, Kurt Schmoke had a brilliant plan called Move To Opportunity; he demolished the welfare high-rises and moved all the drug dealers out to the county for new opportunities to ruin more neighborhoods. A lot of them ended up in my apartments, coupled with an invasion of illegals, (10 in a one bedroom apartment), I thought it was high time to leave.
Exporting poverty is a vital part of the “make all American’s have sucky lives” program. This will continue until all neighborhoods are crime-ridden ghettos. That way, everyone will enjoy the “ekwality” this brings to our lives.
Baltimorgue is such a mess, and the place has a real talent for chosing worthless leaders!
They required a $10,000 deposit and $200 of the rent goes toward the purchase of the $195,000 house a year from now.”
Good luck with that . . .
I know firsthand of Northern Virginians who also were wildly speculating in Charlotte with D.C. equity.
Virginia proper is full of cabinet making facilities and everything imaginable related to homebuilding. We got a gorgeous mailing the other day with a CD included on how we could have a dream landscape. Too bad we’re renters.
Saunders added, the costs of many building materials have dropped
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read real estate pumpers saying prices of building materials would only increase, “better buy now” . . .
“Virginia proper”
Love it. We used to say that when people confused Virginia and West Virginia. Now it’s to keep from confusing Virginia with the D.C. suburbs.
An acquaintance offered double the $249 retail price, and Rothman sold the game over the weekend.”
“‘I got an offer I couldn’t turn down,’ Rothman said.”
Ahhh, the Wii bubble is forming . . . ACT NOW and double your money in a few short months!!! Use your unflipped property for Wii inventory storage!!
“…but daddy…I WANT an umpa loompa NOWWWWWW!!!!”
and we all know what happened next.
I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’m borrowing my sister’s box for her Wii and wrapping it for Christmas, figuring that with all the other stuff (way too much) that my kids are getting, they’ll not fret over Dad’s delay in getting it set up on the tv until after Christmas.
“After six months, Eric Rothman hadn’t had any luck selling his North Raleigh home despite cutting the price and offering to throw in a new privacy fence. Two weeks ago, the Raleigh personal trainer upped the ante: He promised a Nintendo Wii to any broker who finds a buyer.”
“‘In this market you’ve got to try and make your house stand out from everybody else,’ said Rothman, who had bought the hard-to-find videogame to play with his 6-year-old son.”
Ah…
Father and son playing the whims of the marketplace.
This is hilarious.
Thank you, Eric Rothman personal trainer, for your sage advice on how to sell a home in a stalled market.
Now please remove brain cells from your latissimus dorsi and place in cranium.
Jane Rowley, a real estate agent in Federal Hill. ‘There’s that expectation that [prices] are going to go down, or have gone down, and that sellers will accept very low bids. That’s not actually what’s happening.’
Jane will soon concede and confess that sellers are accepting lower prices - or the bank will.
Jane Rowley, a real estate agent in Federal Hill. ‘There’s that expectation that [prices] are going to go down, or have gone down, and that sellers will accept very low bids. That’s not actually what’s happening.’
“Jane you ignorant slut!”
You kids sure were on fire last night in the Cali thread with the Coffman’s and their equity extraction. What a hoot.
The pot growing segment brought back a few memories too, at least the ones I remember.
Yeah, they all lit it up pretty well didnt they. The quote of the day (IMHO) when to azmortbrkr with the “death by ugga bugga” one liner. If you’re out there man, brilliant, just brilliant……..lovely timing and placement too….
“Two weeks after offering the Nintendo Wii, Rothman still hasn’t found a buyer for his house. Not so the Wii. An acquaintance offered double the $249 retail price, and Rothman sold the game over the weekend.”
Dumb move on the seller. $250 isn’t going to sway someone on a house, not unless they’re brain dead stupid. Besides, the Wii is a baby game system, Nintendo has been sinking since the N64. Nothing but baby games.
Oh, and it would be nice if people would stop with the doomsday predictions on this site. Yes, we could see a huge increase in crime and yes people will take a bath on their houses but this is NOT the end of humanity. Humankind has run into much worse stuff than a bogus housing bubble blowup and still survived. The media makes up so much stuff that it’s not even funny. It’s like the peak oil people or the global warming nutjobs. They say that we’re going to run out of energy (impossible) and that the whole earth will heat up and everyone dies. Personally, I think the PO and GW movements are religions, and that same loony tunes thinking is what got people sucked into the hou$ing bubble to begin with (buy now or be priced out forever). No meaning to be insulting but doomsday predictions aren’t helping here.
aeyra…. Add the terrrrrist boogeyman and red scare to the list of bogus fear mongering issues.
“They say that we’re going to run out of energy (impossible)” I don’t see any viable substitute for oil/gasoline coming out of the labs do you ?
The theory — which was first advanced by a geologist, and applied to domestic petroleum production in the U.S. — is not that we’re going to run out of energy. It is that discovery and production of oil, and by extension other non-renewable natural resources, rise to a peak and then decline.
People on this blog tend to reject conventional wisdom, which hasn’t “helped” anyone lately. If that offends you, go back to your gaming, because that sounds a lot like your religion.
SC,
That is because common sense isnt all that common, and conventional wisdom is usually neither.
We’ll never run out of oil, or energy. If it costs more, we use less….funny that. Oil is just energy unless you’re making pantyhose or plastics. In every circumstance there is a replacement for oil. Every one. Yes, it takes time, and yes if oil stopped shipping tomorrow we’d be in a bit of a bind. However, over time, oil prices go up, substitutes are found and life goes on.
Kind if reminds me about the story of what happened when oil was discovered in the first place. You didnt hear people winging saying things like “what will we do when we run out of steam??” We can always go back to steam. All the nuclear vessels in the navy are run on steam. Yep. Steam. Nuke is just an easy way to do the heating.
Oil is just oil, and gold is just gold. Food, water and oxygen are necessities. Oil is a convienence
Besides, the Wii is a baby game system, Nintendo has been sinking since the N64. Nothing but baby games.
It definitely targets a family friendly audience. If your idea of a good time is playing Halo, then the Wii is not for you. That said, the Wii continues to outsell the PS3 and the XBox 360. And Nintendo actually makes money selling the consoles, unlike its competitor’s who sell theirs at a loss. We have both a Wii and a PS2, an as far as I’m concerned the only downside of the Wii is the lack of titles. But the ones we have are very fun.
“Oh, and it would be nice if people would stop with the doomsday predictions on this site.”
Not a doomsdayer myself, but i have witnessed some unexpected calamities. The Newark riots come to mind. Civilization isn’t likely to come to an end because of a silly little recession, but in our lifestyle is increasingly fragile. It isn’t unreasonable to expect some other dominoes to fall besides housing. I think if we have a depression like the last one, it won’t be like the last one at all.
A little dose of paranoia was probably a factor in keeping many readers of this blog out of the current housing mess. Maybe it’s OK to let it percolate once in a while.
Americans have become so wimpy. Scared by everything: killer bees, aging, the weather, foreign countries with armies. We have enough nucs to pulverize the earth 60 times over, so why are we afraid of our shadows? Pathetic.
Could anyone enlighten me on the whole love affaire with being “Transferred” with in a company you work for.
What I mean is what kind of dollar increase do these people get? For me to transfer anywhere for a company they better be paying me third to a half more than what I was getting before.
If I was making 100k and settled, the same company for me would have to at lest come up with 150K,
some companies they tell you transfer or lose your job
builder boy,
I’ve been with my company 11 years, and have been in 6 locations (NC, AL, GA, KY, FL, SC). In my company, hardly anyone transfers to lateral positions, they only transfer for promotions. The top managers are exceptions, they transfer for laterals to get the experience necessary to go even higher.
BTW, I did most of my transferring with no children, I have two now and believe I’m done with all that. The company always did all the packing/moving, agreed to buy the house if it didn’t sell, paid the UHS 6% and a bonus if it did, agreed to pay a loss-on-sale up to $75,000 plus the taxes (I lost $60,000 on the last one from FL to SC), paid a lump sum for settling in costs, etc. etc. etc. They make it pretty easy on the employee.
I have a plan. Why don’t we have another form of BK. For each person, they can eliminate all debt over 10 grand, including student loans. Student loans get first priority, then secured debts, then unsecured. If you are a credit card issuer or even a student loan company, you are screwed if your student owes more than 10 grand.
Sure, this would stick it to the banks, and probably the responsible, but it would also teach banks a lesson. Don’t make money cheap!
Ok, I don’t really agree with this, but I could see the Hillary doing something like this. What do you think?
you can pick up their tab !
“stick it to the banks”
we are the bank
go to you tube and download the speech to boyle
No way. Everyone would figure out they should take on as much debt as possible and then BK.
The banks would react immediately and lower everyones credit limits on their credit cards. That would cripple our consumer debt economy.
Darn and people would actually have to save? Yikes.
Tom
The world is run by banks and bankers. Not by ordinary Joe Sixpack’s or politicians. Politicians and thus legislation are bought and paid for by the banking and other areas of the financial world. Joe Sixpack is waaaay down the food chain even though he likes to think he isn’t. When push comes to shove the banks, bankers and The Wall Street Financial Gangsters own the casino and totally control the roulette wheel which they “fix” in their favor.
As for Hillary (or any of them come to that.) She would throw Joe Sixpack under a bus before doing anything to change the financial status quo. Besides, if she did go against the banks, bankers and The Financial Gangsters Of Wall Street, the only way she could raise money for her political ambitions would be to stand on the corner with a tin cup…..and if she looked like she was going to be a problem, the banks, bankers and financial gangsters would buy the corner, have her arrested and charged with loitering.
A lot of people are going to get thrown under the bus before this is over - but it ain’t gonna be the money guys.
The neighbor came over last night to ask for advice on what to do with the house directly behind him. It appears the owners have moved out of the house but they left all of the doors wide open. My husband told him to close them but the neighbor said he didn’t want to get involved.
I am going to drive over and get the address and look up the mortgage company to let them know.
I can see the house from my house and the garden doors and the back door are blowing back and forth in the wind. The yard is a jungle of high grass and weeds.
Kind of creepy.
In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight (falsetto wail I can’t quite muster).
Debt Offensive, late 2007.
Charlie knew our defenses were laid bare, and we’d be out shopping more than likely, and they struck us hard.
A co-ordinated attack from within our perimeter, perpetrated by the powers that be.
I knew the gig was up, when Walter Cronkite went on tv, telling us there was no chance at victory, against the East Asians…
Here—I’ll do it for you. (tooooNIIIIIGGGGGHHHHHTTTTT.)
How was that? Pretty good, from my end. I believe I scared the livin’ bejabbers out of a lot of coffee drinkers. Serves them right, for drinking that stupid fancy stuff.
Always happy to help you hit the high notes, Olympiagal
“but the neighbor said he didn’t want to get involved.” And he’ll be the 1st to be calling the city to complain about his falling property values once the vandals notice and start moving in. Lazy stupid ass.
As I’m fond of saying, “Want a better neighborhood? Be a better neighbor.”
Very interesting comment by Warren Buffett concerning the current state of the US economy, which reveals why the government is manipulating the unemployment numbers.
We all know that there has been massive layoffs in real estate which the government cannot hide. From construction workers to those working in the financial world and those who make their living on the edge of the real estate industry like suppliers, etc. That’s only real estate related employment but there have been plenty of other areas which have been hit. However, like clockwork, out come the government positive numbers every month followed by cheerleaders from the administration or the likes of “Sniffer” Kudlow telling us, “Employment is low so there are no problems.”
However, Buffett (who I prefer to believe) said the economy will be fine if the unemployment numbers stay low but he added, there are problems and the economy looks like a line of dominos. Should unemployment rise a lot of problems will follow as the dominos start to fall.
I like Buffett because he’s a down to earth straight talker from the old school unlike the groomed comedy act anchors and the shark teeth CEO hype merchants who are paraded before our eyes on the CNBC Comedy Business Show.
That said, I now know why the government and the Fed are manipulating the numbers and denying a recession is in the cards. If unemployment numbers were correctly reported, that will be the final straw which will cause a total real estate meltdown.
The effects of unemployment occur whether or not the numbers are reported correctly.
If you have cancer and your doctor tells you that you are in good health, without treatment you probably die.
Tuxedo_junction
Very well put.
“Investor Warren Buffett on Tuesday told CNBC television that a plan by some large banks to create a fund to buy tarnished mortgage securities is unlikely to cure what ails financial markets.
“You can’t turn a financial toad (into a prince) by kissing it or by securitizing it or by transferring its ownership to somebody else,” he said.
Separately, he said U.S. retail sales were “looking soft” following a post-Thanksgiving burst.”
Reuters
http://tinyurl.com/2y5fnv
True, but I would state it this way….
If a meteor was on collision course with earth and it would kill just about everyone, do you tell them before they can see it coming themselves.
It would cause mass panic in which there would be further suffering.
However, there are those that could profit from even a meteor destroying the earth. Hey, it’s adding real estate.
Considering every 100 billion in MEW extraction equals roughly 2 million 40000 dollar a year jobs I’m more worried about the fall out from this. We are headed for a world of hurt as MEW drops over the next few years.
That math only holds if each of the $40K wage earners hoards all that they earn. Wouldn’t there be an exponential number of jobs tied to this stream of money, like the flip side of reserve banking credit expansion?
Blue Skye,
I agree as far as spending power for necessities like granite counter tops, plasma tvs, His and Hers BMWs, this is like 10 million jobs per 100B. People buy bling with MEW not groceries.
The News & Observer from North Carolina. “With the once-booming Triangle housing market cooling off, home owners and builders are resorting to new tricks to survive the slump. They’re offering extras from cars to video games. They’re swapping homes with frustrated sellers in other markets. They’re doing more lease-to-own deals.”
______________________________________________________________
I know this is going to sound crazy, but . . . have the ever considered . . . lowering their asking prices?
Aimee, you heretic!
But it’s the Triangle. Strong job growth, lots of tech and bio research jobs, highest concentration of Ph. D.’s in the nation (Cary). It can’t go down…can it?
“‘Timing the market is difficult,’ said David Kent, president of the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors. ‘No one knows when the top is. No one knows when the bottom is. So now’s as good a time as any.’”
Great advice, that comment is right up their with one of my favorites from the MASH television series:
Frank Burns: “Somebody, do something; anything!”
Hawkeye: “Yeah, good idea Frank, do anything.”
If you can’t call the bottom then why does Lawrence Yun and the NAR keep calling it?
Because they can’t find their bottoms any other way.
“‘Timing the market is difficult,’ said David Kent, president of the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors. ‘No one knows when the top is. No one knows when the bottom is. So now’s AS GOOD A TIME AS ANY.’”
“You keep using that word, i do not think it means what you think it means” Inigo Montoya; Princess Bride
“as good a time as any” but not quite as good as NEXT year, that’s all I know!
“‘There are some buyers - not as many as there were two years ago. But for the most part, people have just stepped back and are waiting - it’s unclear what they’re waiting for,’ said Jane Rowley, a real estate agent in Federal Hill.
Is this poor woman a moron? Hmmmm….yes. I guess there’s no way out of the diagnosis.
See, Stoopid Jane, buyers have lost faith in you yacking shills and have realized–there IS a better time to buy than the present. And that time’s not gonna be anytime soon.
Jana has bills she has to pay : )…
And all those people are waiting for their current house to sell before buying a new one :-)…
“aeyra…. Add the terrrrrist boogeyman and red scare to the list of bogus fear mongering issues. ”
I agree with you here…terrorism and the red scare were real but they are not as bad as the media makes them
““They say that we’re going to run out of energy (impossible)” I don’t see any viable substitute for oil/gasoline coming out of the labs do you ?”
To be honest, the data for Peak Oil isn’t very strong. We have really no idea how much oil is overseas. There may be 2 trillion barrels worldwide, 1 trillion barrels, 200 billion barrels, maybe 100 trillion barrels, we really don’t know. Hubbert’s peak isn’t a very strong argument at all for PO because his data and research aren’t very reliable. He made the conclusion that we’d hit PO by 1995 even though his data made no indications that it would (I’ve read his data, BTW). Since much of the peak oil movement is based on Hubbert’s ‘peak’, the whole entire concept is seriously questionable. Even if we were running out of oil, the States collectively have the largest reserves of coal on the planet. It isn’t infinite, but we could at least have something to fall back on.
“People on this blog tend to reject conventional wisdom, which hasn’t “helped” anyone lately. If that offends you, go back to your gaming, because that sounds a lot like your religion.”
Actually, I have faith in God(not Christian BTW), but thanks for your politeness. The reason why I say that the PO and GW movements are religions is because they tend to behave like them. There are plenty of people in these movements who probably don’t believe in a God, but they believe in much of what the ‘experts’ say even though much of what the experts say is not really supported by any factual evidence. YOu could argue that the housing bubble was a bit of a religious movement. Lereah, Bernanke, Watts, etc. are the priests, the Federal Reserve is “God’, housing always goes up because “God” says it does, buy now or spend an eternity in renter damnation. Like religions, the PO and GW movements do some things and make assumptions that often are contradictory to real life. Look at Kunstler. He predicts we will run out of oil. He moved to upstate NY because he thinks that area is the safest. Guess what, upstate NY and VT and New England actually burn through more petroleum per capita than the Upper midwest does. And the people who call petroleum a dirty fuel need to take a look at biomass. Biomass releases more carbon into the atmosphere per KG than petroleum or natural gas do, and it’s not as energy effiecient. Wood is even worse. This is of course, assuming that CO2 is causing global warming. It’s even the same with how people are approaching the economic and political problems in the USA. They think they will buy housing or a ranch in ID, MT, UT, AZ, MO, TN, SC, VT, NH or whatever flavor of the month state is a good ’survivalist hideout’. They think they are bad@$$es and they will hide in a bunker with guns and MREs. This is in states that claim to be libertarian even though they aren’t in the real world. In reality, the states these people are going to will take it in the butt big time if the USA ever did break up. If they are so libertarian, then why do they keep taking $$$$ from Uncle Fed? Maybe when they get enough beans and Ramen noodles they will magically become ‘libertarian’.
Oh, and RE does NOT always go up. In fact, this time it may go down tremendously and not get up in some places. SC will get reamed just like the other states will. As far as the media goes, the Internet is no better than the TV or the newspaper. Do you really believe everything online? I don’t, not even on this site. Most of the stuff in the MSM or the alternative media is garbage anyways.
I reported last week how dead Best buy was. Looks like retail traffic is WAY DOWN this holiday season. Looks like the consumer is tapped out!
http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/11/news/economy/mall_traffic/index.htm?cnn=yes
Tom,
Thank you for posting this I have been looking everywhere for indications of retailers doing badly.
Retailers doing badly? Who-da-thunk-it?
I’ve seen slow retail traffic since LAST YEAR. So have other people on this blog!
YIkes– Newscasters last night, stated that ALL the big box stores were jam packed. I don’t know when they went, but I don’t see the cars jamming the pkg lots.
“‘It’s frustrating because there are so many new houses going up, and they’re practically being given away,’ said Herman, whose husband is being transferred.”
I would hardly call current prices “given away”. Once they eventually do sell, I wonder if they will be looking at prices going “they are practically being given away” - Especially if moving to a strong bubble market…
I got into a little spat with my sister today because she is trying to sell her house in FL while living in northern VA. She was upset that I was of the opinion that she should wait out the market in VA even though she has found houses that she’s interested in, and sell her house in FL for much less than she’s asking for…..
her exact words were ‘I know you’d like to see the market go down to nothing but that day is never going to happen. They’re not going to just give it away, ya know. I think you’ve lost touch with reality.
We hung up and I logged on the HBB for my daily dose of reality.
Danni, my BF also tells me I’m not in touch with reality - when I’m the one who has facts and figures to support my prediction that real estate prices will be down 15% in 2009 (PHL metro).
I’ll take my hard data (and experience) in favor of greed-colored hopes and wishes any day of the week.
Damn, why ain’t they girls like you in Raleigh
?
Your BF leveraged in real estate ?
No…that’s the head-scratcher! He owns one house - his personal dwelling - free and clear. Cheapazz couldn’t stand the thought of owing money to the bank.
The fanciest coffee should ever get is to be stirred with a candy cane during the holidays, or have whipped cream poured on it, if one feels totally whimsical, and of course very very liberal additions of brandy and whiskey and such are not only permissible but vital. Other than that–no fiddling with coffee.
This is just my opinion, which I have a lot of today.
And you know, that falsetto shriek was so much fun that I believe I’ll do it again! Energizing!
Ooops, that post was supposed to go further up in the thread, after Sammy Schadenfreude’s post with his high pitched screeching ‘The Lion King’.
Boy, I’m sure sorry I’m missing that.
From Ben’s post on Baltimore:
“He’s hoping a $10000 reduction to $345000 will prod an offer.”
ho HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
“‘There are some buyers - not as many as there were two years ago. But for the most part, people have just stepped back and are waiting - it’s unclear what they’re waiting for,’ said Jane Rowley, a real estate agent in Federal Hill. ‘There’s that expectation that [prices] are going to go down, or have gone down, and that sellers will accept very low bids. That’s not actually what’s happening.’”
“it’ unclear what they are waiting for”? Different folks are waiting for different things:
(1) investors are waiting for prices to come down low enough to get a house that cash flows
(2) smart renters are waiting for prices to come down and align with what they are paying for monthly rent
(3) current homeowners are waiting for prices to come down to levels where it’s feasible for them to sell their current home and buy into a different one (upsize, downsize, different location, whatever)
So I guess they are all waiting for prices to come down
Ms Rowley is correct that sellers are not accepting very low bids. She has to know that a lot of these sellers can NOT accept these low bids because they probably owe 100% of their asking price to their lender. They might as well wait to get foreclosed on. Then you have the other type of seller, the one that does not need to sell and they prefer to wait a long time (long, long time) to get the price they want.
“(3) current homeowners are waiting for prices to come down to levels where it’s feasible for them to sell their current home and buy into a different one (upsize, downsize, different location, whatever)”
That’s me. Lower prices means more house for the money. My family has grown, and the dork who built our house had 1/2 acre to work with and still managed to put it on the lot so it’s hard to add on.
Truss, but verify
“Gary Saunders is president of Timber Truss, a homegrown company that won a small business award this year from the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce. In late November, Saunders said his company’s sales started falling about a year ago, following years of exceptionally good market conditions.”
“‘It was like a light switch went off,’ he said. ‘It just never came back.’”
“JANE” by Jefferson Starship
Jane you say it is not over for buyers and sellers
There’s a time for buying and a time for letting it be baby
Jane you are playing a game called the bigger fool by its real name
Making believe that there is no housing bubble…
Ooops….forgot. (JS on utube)
http://tinyurl.com/3xaktf
Fed just cut by 1/4%
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/business/11cnd-fed.html?hp
Fed just cut rates by 1/4%
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/business/11cnd-fed.html?hp
But investors still are not happy. Dow dropped. Can’t decide it they wanted more of a cut or were hoping that the Fed wouldn’t cut which supposedly confirms that things are bad.
Has there been any other occasion this year when the Fed has cut and the market has gone down by 300? The articles are saying that this was “expected” but I I don’t watch this stuff closely enough to guess just how much of a break with “the usual” this is/isn’t.
Regarding the 1/4% drop, I wanted to understand exactly what that move meant, and how it affects people… this is what I found:
“The move Tuesday, combined with Fed cuts in October and September, have led 1-year Treasury yields to plunge from 5% to just over 3%, McBride says. On an adjustable-rate mortgage with a rate of 2.5 percentage points over the Treasury bills, the decline will result in a new rate of 5.7% instead of 7.5% if the loan had reset in July, McBride says. For a homeowner with a $200,000 mortgage balance and 27 years left on the loan, that works out to an increase of $140 a month, vs. $370 if the rate had reset a few months ago, he says.
About half of adjustable rate mortgages are tied to Treasury securities. The Fed rate cut will not help borrowers whose adjustable-rate mortgages are tied to the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, index. Most subprime loans, which are loans to borrowers with impaired credit, are tied to the LIBOR. That index has remained high because many banks are still reluctant to lend.
Credit card holders may see a slight decrease in their interest rates after Tuesday’s rate cut, but only if they have excellent credit. The average interest rate for variable rate credit cards was 13.46% last week, down slightly from a week earlier, according to Bankrate.com.
Savers will see rates on certificates of deposit decline, although not by much. CD yields are “falling like a feather rather than falling like a rock,” McBride says. The average rate for a 1-year CD was 3.49% last week, but some of the highest-yielding CDs are still paying 5% or more. For that, savers can thank the credit crunch, which has made banks eager to attract deposits, McBride says. ”
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2007-12-11-fed-quarter_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
BayQT~
“He said in many cases sellers have been basing their asking prices on values established while the market was still climbing. ‘People were riding on the wave of the boom from a few years ago,’ Mullen said.”
$erfaris…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5D07c0dJuQ&feature=related
“‘It’s frustrating because there are so many new houses going up, and they’re practically being given away,’ said Herman, whose husband is being transferred.”
HA! That was a good laugh! They’re “giving away” houses! There should be a law specifying minimum sale prices for houses!
He could have opened up a snake farm on his front lawn in order to make up for the declining value. Terrible to hear.