Homes ‘Sitting And Sitting’ Is ‘Just A Sign Of Spring’
An update on New Jersey. “The real-estate market has been slowing dramatically. In Morris County, sales during the first two months of the year were off 16 percent, and the inventory of unsold houses leaped 61 percent. That’s in line with figures for the entire state: sales down 14 percent, along with an increase in the unsold inventory of 61 percent.”
“In Somerset County, the inventory of unsold houses climbed the most, to 103 percent; in Camden, the least, with 32 percent. The biggest fall in sales: Cape May County, with 41 percent; the least, Cumberland County, with a rise of 34 percent.”
“The months supply of houses for sale indicates how formidable the inventory may be, and a six-months supply is considered normal. Morris County has a six-months supply, but Cape May has a 21 months supply, while Camden has only four months. The entire state has seven months.”
And the Hartford Courant. “Turn down Scarborough Street in Hartford’s upscale West End, and you can’t help noticing four ‘for sale’ signs clustered together. ‘It does look like, `What’s going on here?’ said Susie Hatch, an agent in West Hartford who has one of the listings. ‘But it is just chance that they are for sale at the same time.’”
“There are seven homes for sale on Scarborough and Prospect that have list prices of $500,000 or more. The ‘for sale’ signs that have cropped up on Scarborough have become all the more noticeable because two have gone up within the past month and a half. And two of the properties are right across the street from the other two.”
“There has been some slowing at the upper end of the housing market, and some of the homes for sale in the West End have dropped their asking prices. The owners of 1160 Prospect Ave. purchased the 21-room estate for $900,000 in 2000. Two years ago, they unsuccessfully tried to sell it for $1.9 million. The property was listed in November at $1.4 million.”
“‘It’s slower at all price ranges,’ (agent) Susie Hatch said. ‘There are four or five houses for sale on one street that a year ago would have sold bing, bing, bing. But because there is so much more inventory, they are just sitting and sitting. It’s going to take longer to sell these houses.’”
“And more competition means sellers need to be more realistic about prices, the agents said. ‘This year, the pricing is so important. You can’t just tack on 10 percent,’ (agent) John Hoye said. ‘That type of growth is behind us.’”
I’ve got two of em sitting and sitting across the street from me. Both overpriced. Both on the market since Thanksgiving. No lookers at either one.
Two houses? What a coincidence.
The funny thing is that these are both ~300K in price which doesn’t seem like much when you toss the Cali type numbers around. But it’s way too much for this neighborhood in Dallas TX
Maybe they’d sell if you’d quit TP’ing the trees in front
So, when will the sellers get it that they have to reduce prices? When the bank is ready to foreclose?
You got it
The sellers of that 900k home that was written about realized the error when the hosue took so long to sell. They were poorly advised by the listing agent about how much the house would go for. They weren’t being greedy–the agent was.
I don’t think you need to worry about the person who had this million plus house.
They’ll do what they did during the stock crash. They’ll wait till the market is at the bottom ,and absolutely dead,and sell at a loss because they can’t wait anymore. Human psychology, aint’ it great…
like spring of 89 - realtors = brain dead
at realtytimes.com 90% of the comment/ads have gammar and spelling errors
“at realtytimes.com 90% of the comment/ads have gammar and spelling errors”
-Are you a realtor?
90% of the comments are all bullish, err.. Bullshit!
That is a pretty broad generalization. Sure there are lots of sleazeball realtors, but there are also those that know the market and are honest. In hard times such as we are reaching it is the realtors who get referrals for being genuinely useful to people who make it. Keep in mind also that the realtor base are women who are often otherwise employed as housewives or with other work and sell homes part time. These are salesmen to be sure, but much of the time are more innocent and constrained than car salesmen or telemarketers. If there is a specific realtor who has done something awful then by all means let us take them to task, but be cautious in throwing condemnation around. People still need homes and in any context being able to make deals happen has some value.
?? for all
is bubble talk fading or coming on ?
the heads on the tube seem unfased
MSNBC has become much less cautious in it’s language even using the words “crash” and “collapse”. Last year there were still a number of guests insisting housing prices would continue to appreciate significantly. No more. Unfortunately MSNBC has the lowest viewership in news programming.
Much more cautious?
“Consider making offers that are 1 percent to 5 percent below the low end of the seller’s price range”.
Or sit it out this silent spring and make offers that are 35% lower in the fall as the winter of seller’s discontent approaches.
Once we hit say July 15, it will be too late to get into a new house for the start of school. If you think buyers are taking their time now, just wait for July 15th.
Said another way, only 97 “sitting days” to go before all hell starts to break loose.
“Or sit it out this silent spring and make offers that are 35% lower in the fall as the winter of seller’s discontent approaches.”
Yes. There was a significant seasonal slow down around October of last year on the SF Peninsula. And that was in a relatively strong market. I hope the seasonal slow down this fall will be much more significant.
When the realtors say “sellers are reducing prices “,or” the listings will take longer to sell “, doesn’t mean anything .Most sellers list above last years prices , than they lower them to last years price. The listings are taking longer to sell because sellers do not price them right to begin with . Alot of experts think for every 1% increase in interest rate that will compute to a 5% to 10% decrease in price .That’s why a lot of builders will end up buying down the interest rate to sell.
“Alot of experts think for every 1% increase in interest rate that will compute to a 5% to 10% decrease in price”
I am not an expert but I have been telling relators that for every increase of 1% in interest rate my offer will be reduced by 30K. (My offers are for 300K houses in south NJ and with 20% lowball)
Yep , usually the seller pays for interest rate increases .
“There has been some slowing at the upper end of the housing market, and some of the homes for sale in the West End have dropped their asking prices”.
When the higher priced homes crash, a distinctly possible scenario is those who were about to move up to such homes will slam on their brakes, waiting for prices to really tank. And this could be the beginnings of a pileup, not unlike a 50 car crash.
What’s worse, “crashlets” will start at the low end too, as the plankton can no longer get into the “fool chain” because of tighter lending practices.
Housing’s house of cards is getting nailed at both foundation and roof.
So are you saying the middle prices will be selling ?
No, the middle prices won’t sell because they will wait for the prices above them to get more attractive.
I remember in the 80’s the lower end held , and I think the area that took the biggest bath was the high end . The reason the lower end held up was because that was the only thing affordable ,especially with really high interest rates at the time . Maybe it will be different this time .
When people take their loss on the big home they still have to live somewhere!
I’m a builder in Cape May County. I’ve been telling people to sell whatever real estate they had for the last two years. The Cape May County numbers may be skewed by the troubles in Wildwoods - where the buyers tended to be more blue collerish and maxed themselves out to invest without any cash cushion to rely on - but prices were way out of hand and have a ways to correct in my opinion. People were buying without even doing basic back of the envelope math. The last project I worked on was several hotel rooms…er,.. I mean “condos”….that sold at what now consider the top of the market last summer for just under $400,000. On one of my last days there as I was finishing up a young couple walks in having just purchased one of the units and asks me, the stupid carpenter, if I think the units will rent.
OT:
Homes Too Rich for Firefighters Who Save Them
“BEDFORD, N.Y., April 4 —This town in Westchester County, famous for its famous — and well-heeled — residents, is sprucing up a rundown ranch house and planning to sell it at a bargain-basement rate to a member of an increasingly endangered species: a volunteer firefighter.”
I just read the article about the town of Bedford, NY building affordable homes for firemen and police.
Many celebrities live in Bedford, or thereabouts such as Susan Sarandon, Richard Gere, Martha Stewart, Ralph Lauren (300 acres), George Soros, Michael Crichton, Glen Close. The list goes on and on. What many of these celebrities do is allow police officers from the twon of Bedford to live in their homes or live in a guest house on their property. This provides not just affordable housing, but free housing for police. And you thought they were just getting free donuts. The wealthy people get protection as a result. Would you burglarize a house with a police car parked in the driveway?
There are three “hamlets” in the Town of Bedford - Katonah, Bedford Village and Bedford Hills. One thing a real estate agent will never tell newbies to the area is that there are increasingly large parts of Bedford Hills where 30 illegal aliens are living in one time middle class houses. They’ve also packed into many apartments. The rich people higher a gazillion illegal aliens to build their patios, blow their leaves, plow their snow, construct their stone walls, replace shrubs the deer have eaten, do their gardening and essentially catch their Lyme Disease in one of the nation’s Lyme hotspots where many residents fear to walk on their lawns. (With the Indian Point nuclear reactor leaking 20 miles to the west and all of NYC’s problems 40 miles to the south, it’s a hell of a place to live and small wonder inventory has exploded as outmigrants are fleeing enmasse).
Over the past 10 years, the area has become incredibly Hispanic compared to what it was - a haven for white flight. The slums that I described in Bedford Hills exist in other places nearby such as Mt. Kisco, where much of neighboring Chappaqua’s illegal alien workforce resides.
No fast forward five years. The rich get richer, they need a yet larger servant class, prices on middle class housing soften, McMansions continue to be built and the Hispanic illegal alien population legalizes via an incredible birth rate.
What will happen then - and write this down - those McMansions will be taken over by “families” of 50 illegals and a whole new era of white flight will begin.
Isn’t it beautiful - the McMansion solves the housing problem for the undocumented masses.
McMansion becomes El Mansion. Just wait.
You wonder, don’t you, if there is anywhere you can go to get away from that.
I know. New Zealand. Unfortunately, they won’t let us Americans just walk into the country and do what we want, including soliciting us to borrow money to buy houses.
The colder the mean temperature in winter, the lower the % of illegal aliens. Of course that doesn’t mean there aren’t any - just fewer. They follow the money.
When enough boomers are burnt by housing, stocks, their inability to save and their companies firing them, they’ll start competing with illegals for at least some of the less distasteful jobs. Welcome to Walmart.
Ouch. I’m a boomer/Genex cusp-er.
But we’ve learned to live on next to nothing even though we have quite a bit. It’s all about freedom to me. Worth more than any physical possession.
I saw a special on CNN last night where the illegals had taken over very nice middle class housing in a period of just six years in Georgia. The guys who had moved into this beautiful big house just six years prior was going nuts and basically approaching day laborer morning shapeups on his own and demanding Green Cards.
NY’s Hamptons are also increasingly sprouting crops of 30 family houses to serve the Hummer set. A few weeks ago it was the cover story of one of the major newsweeklies. Couple that with the traffic, lousy drinking water, hordes of pretentious pigs and Southampton’s Shinnecock Reservation (READ: Crime ridden ghetto) and you wonder when the bloom will be fully off the rose in the gaudy getaway.
You couldn’t pay me to live there or even visit.
Give me Flagstaff or Santa Fe any day.
oh don’t kid yourself… this is happening everywhere. In my town… my best friend moved from a Norman Rockwell painting neighborhood… but before she moved, several neighbors sold as well. Only THEIR houses quickly became the abodes of several families in each. The house right next door to my friend had at least 4 families in it. and I chit you not… we were outside in the backyard when over the fence comes crashing a lump of something white. We walk over… and from over at the 4 family abode they had literally thrown over a dirty diaper! WTF? That was easier than putting it in the trashcan on their own property? We went over there and returned it and of course got the blank stares that they had no idea where it came from. It was almost convincing too… except for the fact that we had been outside and witnessed it being thrown over with our own eyes. 2/3rds of the original residents have vacated the neighborhood.
I know the feeling. One of the big reasons we sold, was the alarming increase of single-family homes turning into multi-family homes in our neighborhood here in the San Joaquin Valley, CA. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when a multi-family of 20 purchased the home across the street. Our street became an overnight bario with ten more junker cars parked up and down the street. Our new neighbors enjoyed their leisure time on the their front porch drinking cervesas and making cat-calls en espanol to the young lady next door. What a great place to raise a family!
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange is shortly to begin marketing Housing Index futures and options. All those who really believe that housing prices are due for a substantial drop, can finally profit if they are right. Unfortunately, it will be an expensive and clumsy contract, and will probably not be succesful, but it gives you the opportunity to back your judgement.
I doubt there will be enough liquidity in those to make them worthwhile trading but it would be great if there is.
It’s a great concept, but I tend to agree with TXchick57. Hedgestreet.com is doing this now, but there is very little trading taking place.
Why not just sell homebuilder stocks short? If you select several for diversity, you will profit when the crash really hits. Pick out 5 or 6 so you spread the risk over several instead of just one and you will get the same general effect as if you shorted an index.
It would be easier to short the homebuilder index ETF symbol XHB. But be cautious about how well the homebuilder index tracks the NAR’s price index.
Trouble is the smart money has already done that. As an example Toll brothers has gone from a high of 58+ down to a Feb low of 29 which is close to a 50% haircut. Like real estate, the time to sell is when things look great.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui
The inventory here in New Jersey is really piling up. There are for sales signs everywhere. We posted some pictures of the for-sale signs in Hoboken yesterday, if anyone wants to check that out:
BubbleTrack.blogspot.com
The problem with both the CME and Housing Index products, is that property, in the form of an individual house, is not a homogeneous or fungible product. Each home (unless newly built) is unique, and has its own value. Whilst theoretically one can trade ” the market “, in practice, it is open to manipulation and price fixing.
Right on Alan. All it takes is cash. Just another game for the promoters to skim cash from, and another derivative innovation to manage and refer to and give support to the underlying asset, reals estate.
Hedge Street recently gave me $20 worth of Amazon gift certificates to tell them why I’m not using these and other of their products.
I just drove thru a US Home/Lennar development called Heritage Harbour in Manatee County, Fl. Conservatively speaking at least 20% w/4 sale signs and 5% for rent signs. At least 30 open houses. AND NO TRAFFIC. Also the roads, which can’t be 3 years old are in a rapid decline w/big cracks and potholes. Can you say “special assesment “.
Just trying to post