The Housing Bubble

National Public Radio reports on Massachusetts. “In August, the global credit markets seized up, as investors around the world realized there were many securities floating around that no one was sure how to value. ‘This summer was shocking,’ said Paul Willen, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. ‘Those days in August when there was bizarre stuff happening in interest rates… I mean, you’d look at the screen and you’d think, ‘That must be a mistake.’”

“Willen conducted a study on people in Massachusetts who bought homes with subprime loans; he found that nearly 20 percent of them ended up in foreclosure.”

“‘The role that subprime lending has in this crisis and the reason why it’s very important right now is that it created a class of people that were extremely vulnerable’ to disruptions on the housing market, Willen said.”

“‘They buy the house and then something goes wrong,’ Willen said. ‘Like, it needs a new roof, new furnace — and that’s $10,000, and there’s just no way they can do it.’”

The Cape Cod Times from Massachusetts. “An exact figure of how many have left is difficult to pinpoint, but Cape travel agents say sales of one-way tickets to Brazil are way up.”

“‘We sold four times more than last year,’ said Rubia Galo, who works at a Main Street store that sells plane tickets and arranges money transfers for many of the area’s Brazilians. The store sold about 1,000 one-way tickets to Brazil in the past two months, she said.”

“Paulo Chacon runs a taxi service from Hyannis to New York airports. Chacon fills his van with about 10 people each time he makes the trip, he said. In the past six months, business is up, Chacon said. ‘They tell me that the cost of living here is more expensive every day,’ Chacon said.”

“Chacon also has heard more in the past few months from people who need work and are feeling the effects of the Cape’s real estate slowdown. ‘On a day like today, for example, I cannot tell you how many people came to the office because there are no carpentry jobs, there are no painting jobs,’ he said.”

“The real estate subprime shake-up also affected many of the Cape’s Brazilians, said Viviane DaSilva, owner of Brazil Real Estate.”

“‘Three years ago, it was just people buying,’ DaSilva said. Many Brazilian homebuyers chose adjustable-rate mortgages that began with a low interest rate, she said. Now that the interest charges have risen, they need to sell homes they can no longer afford, and many discover they may be better off going back to Brazil.”

The Standard Times from Massachusetts. “Home sales continued their slide, falling 28 percent in Bristol County and 17 percent in Plymouth County in November compared with the same month a year ago, according to data released Tuesday.”

“Statewide, sales of single-family homes were off 15 percent in November compared with a year ago, the third consecutive month of double-digit decline, according to The Warren Group.”

“The drop in home sales comes in the wake of the credit crisis that started this summer, said Katie Curnutte, a spokeswoman for The Warren Group. ‘I don’t think it is a surprise to anybody,’ Ms. Curnutte said.”

“Locally, the median price last month for a single-family home in Bristol County was $259,250, nearly 6 percent less than the same month last year. The median price for Plymouth County was $284,950, off more than 12 percent.”

“Since last year, the housing situation was suddenly transformed from a sellers’ market to a buyers’ market with little middle ground in between, said Doug Azarian, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors’s president.”

“‘There was really no smooth transition,’ he said.”

“However, the buyers’ market offers opportunities as homes become more affordable. ‘With a buyers’ market, we have more inventory at the $300,000-and-below price range, which makes it much more affordable and presents opportunities for first-time home buyers and first-time investors,’ Mr. Azarian said.”

“The more affordable homes will help create demand and keep the market going, he said. ‘We don’t want buyers to miss this buyers’ market,’ he said.”

The Boston Globe from Massachusetts. “Facing a slumping housing market, a developer has apparently backed off on plans to transform a dormant paper mill site on Main Street into a residential and retail village.”

“Apparently chilled by the sluggish real estate market, Freedom Development failed to meet several submission deadlines for moving ahead with the purchase and sale agreement, said Jerome Epstein, chairman of the company that owns the mill site.”

“While the real estate slump is reducing new revenue growth in some towns, a trend worrisome to many officials, other so-called smart-growth projects across the state are also at risk from the downturn. Such projects cluster residential and retail life into one common village area in an attempt to cut down on traffic congestion, land use, and energy costs.”

“In Pepperell, Selectman Darrell Gilmore expressed disappointment at the news regarding the old mill site. ‘I think there’s still potential, but I think the question is, how they are going to push it through in a tight economy?’ he said. ‘If you build it, who is going to move into it?’”

The Eagle Tribune from Massachusetts. “Every day, it seems, the news gets worse. Home sales are down, prices are falling and properties are staying on the market for months longer than in the past. Meanwhile, the number of foreclosures keeps going up, further depressing the market, and banks are reluctant to loan money to anyone who has less-than-perfect credit.”

“The avalanche of bad publicity is starting to take a toll, say some people in the local real estate industry. ‘Media reports have home buyers scared to take the first step,’ said Frank Novak of Novak Finer Homes in Haverhill.”

“‘This is a terrific opportunity to get into the market,’ he said. ‘People can buy an entry-level house at the same price they would have paid for it in 2004 or 2005. That’s pretty good.’”

“North Andover real estate agent Debbie Moore only half-jokingly suggests that in 2003 and 2004, ‘people were used to houses selling in 15 minutes. But it was never meant to be that way. Real estate is a long-term investment.’”

“Most communities in the Merrimack Valley and Southern New Hampshire are struggling. Karen Yasenka of Yasenka Real Estate in Hampstead, N.H., said her business is way off over last year. She said the problem is that people have lost faith in the housing market.”

“‘Usually in a poor market, you’ll see developers and investors who will come in, buy a house and flip it for a profit,’ she said. ‘But even handyman specials you can get for under $200,000 are still sitting there. Nobody has any confidence in the market, and they don’t want to play with it.’”

“She recently heard of a good deal for 10 acres of land in Salem, but when she mentioned it to a local developer, he just shrugged and said he didn’t want the hassle. ‘There’s a real malaise in the economy,’ she said. ‘Faith in the housing market has to be restored.’”

“One of the major stumbling blocks to a healthy housing market, however, is the increasing number of houses being foreclosed on. ‘The street I live on has three homes that have gone up for auction,’ she said.”

“Short sales are becoming very popular, said Lawrence broker Raul Ortega and other local agents, as more banks recognize that it’s better to take a loss on a property than to foreclose on it and board it up.”

“Many banks, however, are still holding onto foreclosed properties because they are refusing to enter into short sales. Furthermore, some companies refuse to reduce the price of bank-owned properties.”

“‘If you go to an auction, you expect to be able to start bidding low. But when the bank establishes the starting point, people around here are not used to that,’ he said. ‘Back in the 1980s, people would start at $5,000 and work their way up. Banks now are being tough on that. I see those same properties sitting there forever.’”

“A combination of foreclosures and short sales are double-teaming to erode market values throughout the region, said Ron Carpenito of The Prime Property Team in Haverhill.”

“‘If you see a lot of short sales happen, it will hurt a lot of people,’ he said, noting that in one local community there are two, nearly identical houses side by side at vastly different prices. The reason? One, which is going for $280,000, is a short sale by the bank. The other, which is a market-value house being sold by the owner, is going for $350,000.”

The Worchester Business Journal from Massachusetts. “Real estate has perhaps been one of the gloomiest sectors this year: The industry has faced declining prices, increased foreclosure rates and homes that sit with ‘For Sale’ signs staked into their front lawns for months without even a look.”

“The market will be ripe for qualified buyers, and sellers willing to improvise can continue to take advantage of crafty options. One of those includes ‘auction-by-choice,’ in which sellers willingly put their homes up for bid.”

“Already, it’s a rapidly growing alternative. Mark Shear, president of Berman Auctioneers & Appraisers in Worcester, noted that he had more calls in the last year for by-choice sales than he had in the previous 17 years combined. He estimated that foreclosure auctions and by-choice auctions will comprise about 30 percent of the industry next year.”

“‘We know there’s going to be a surge’ in 2008, he said. ‘The numbers are strong.’”

“Shear stressed, however, that the process is most successful with desirable properties that haven’t been listed anywhere else. It’s also helpful when sellers maintain a realistic expectation of the current value of their property. ‘Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay,’ he said.”

“We’re likely to see increased foreclosure rates that will continue to do ‘lots of financial damage’ in 2008, according to Jeff Hall, VP of the Worcester Regional Association of Realtors. ‘It’s going to take us another couple of years to turn it around,’ he said.”

The Times Herald Record from New York. “Homeowners increasingly failed to keep up with their home-loan payments in November, as the number of foreclosure-related filings surged 68 percent nationwide compared with the same month a year ago, according to a mortgage research company.”

“Compared with October, filings in Orange increased 78 percent, while Sullivan’s climbed 46 percent.”

The Daily News from New York. “The number of city homeowners caught up in foreclosure woes rose by one-third last month from a year ago, but actually dropped from the previous month’s total.”

“As the subprime mess continued to unfold, another 2,848 city households filed foreclosure-related papers in November, according to RealtyTrac. Queens saw 1,338 foreclosure-related documents, up 55% from November 2006.”

“‘Queens looks to be the weak link,’ said Rick Sharga of RealtyTrac.”

The New York Sun. “New York City’s status as a rosy exception to the nation’s slowing housing market may be starting to come to an end.”

“New York, one of the 10 cities in the Standard & Poor’s S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, saw home prices drop 4.1% over the past 12 months. These New York numbers include a large swath of northern New Jersey, Fairfield County in Connecticut, and Putnam and Nassau counties in New York.”

“‘When you look at the amount of inventory out there, the fact that lending standards are tightening, and the flow of mortgage credit has slowed — particularly for jumbo mortgages — we still have farther to fall,’ the chief economist at Mission Residential, Richard Moody, said.”

“While the S&P/Case-Shiller index may not emphasize Manhattan proper, ‘we track a large area where the homeowners’ livelihood ties back to the New York City economy,’ the chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor’s, David Blitzer, said. ‘The home prices in New York have been weak, and don’t show signs of a quick turnaround,’ he added.”

“New York home prices began dropping in June 2006, and have fallen roughly 5% over the past 15 months, bringing the Case-Shiller indices back to the level they were at in September 2005. In the past 5.5 years, the New York market has increased 115%.”

“‘So anyone who bought a house before September 2005 is probably still ahead of the game,’ Mr. Blitzer said.”

“As for Manhattan’s coop and condo market, ‘I don’t think Manhattan apartments are immune to the downturn,’ Mr. Blitzer said. ‘My sense is that we will see softness here over the next several months.’”

“‘For New York City, the wild card will be what happens with Wall Street,’ said the director of research at Radar Logic, Jonathan Miller. ‘The impact on real estate will be more associated with jobs and bonuses than anything else.’”

The Courier Times from Pennsylvania. “At the beginning of the year, homebuilders were predicting the housing market wouldn’t fall much further. But as 2007 wore on, builders realized the end was nowhere in sight.”

“Lower Makefield-based DeLuca Homes joined other builders in offering weeklong fire sales to reduce inventory, offering discounts of up to $150,000.”

“Complicating matters in the housing market was the rise in home foreclosures and the subsequent fallout in the mortgage industry. In Bucks County, houses sold at foreclosure were up 42 percent from last year, according to the sheriff’s office, which handles the foreclosure sales.”

“The high foreclosure rate led to a tightening of credit rules, with banks requiring higher credit rates in return for loans.”

“Not even Toll Brothers, the nation’s largest luxury homebuilder, was safe. The Horsham-based company reported an $81.8 million fourth-quarter loss earlier this month, its first quarterly loss since it became a public company 21 years ago.”

“‘By many measures, fiscal 2007 was the most challenging of the 40 years that Toll Brothers has been in business,’ CEO Robert Toll said at the time.”