Life’s Too Short To Live For Your House Payment
The Lawrence Journal World reports from Kansas. “It would have been a good month - 47 new single-family homes springing from the Lawrence ground. But neither local builders, nor the economy, had that type of month. Instead, 47 was the total number of Lawrence single-family housing starts for the first six months of the year. ‘It’s bad,’ said Bobbie Flory, executive director of the Lawrence Home Builders Association. ‘The national homebuilders association says we haven’t had a downturn in our industry like this since the Depression.’”
“To put the recent numbers in perspective, the city for nearly a dozen consecutive years started more than 300 new homes per year. That level of building, however, hasn’t happened in the city since 2004.”
“Home sale numbers are not any more encouraging. Marion Johnson, the Douglas County Appraiser, said his office has recorded 927 sales in the county through June. That’s down from about 1,200 sales in the same time period last year, which was far from a record-setting season.”
“‘From where I’m sitting, I’m not seeing any signs of a turnaround,’ Johnson said.”
“It has left Flory to admittedly plead like a broken record to consumers. ‘I just keep saying that it is a great time to buy a home,’ Flory said. ‘Interest rates are low, inventory is high and builders are motivated to sell.’”
The Chicago Journal from Illinois. “This July, Julie Marburger owes the property manager of her condominium building at 1717 S. Prairie a check totaling $5,226. And, as Marburger put it, ‘the big one’s looming.’ Next year, Marburger, the owner of a one-bedroom unit in the building since 2004, will owe an additional $26,015 to complete her share of the $6.5 million assessment.”
“The building was constructed in 2002 with the first residents closing on units in November 2003. The developer turned the building over to the newly constituted board in August 2004. It wasn’t long after that turnover that the problems started emerging at the building.”
“Marburger has stopped shopping like she used to. She’s not eating out and has skipped vacations to brace for the payments. If she drains her savings account to pay for the assessment-her bank recently declined to extend her home equity loan-she will be living paycheck to paycheck.”
“‘Here I am a first-time homeowner. You can imagine how disheartened I am,’ Marburger said recently. ‘And here’s the bottom line: It is forcing people into foreclosure. I am not there. I am not close to being there. But the thought and fear of that is just devastating is to me. I love this building. But our developer has totally devastated us.’”
The Sandusky Register from Ohio. “Realtors say in spite of major slumps elsewhere and a sluggish economy, the housing market in the Sandusky area is holding steady. Not everyone is buying into it, however.”
“In the most recent year, 525 houses sold for an average sale price of $135,000. As of Thursday, there were 676 houses for sale in the county, with an average listed price of $209,000. Huron appraiser Jim Delahunt said he views the statistics as a sign of a market that is still ’somewhat fragile.’”
“‘I don’t know that we’ve hit the bottom yet, but it looks like property values are stable from year to year,’ he said. ‘Compared to two years ago, though, they’ve dropped.’”
“Others say if the price is right, the buyers will still take the bait. ‘I think people think they’ll take a big hit on their home if they sell it, but really if they’re buying in the same market, they should do just fine,’ said Sally Routh of Coldwell Banker Routh Realty. ‘This is the 11th-best year in the housing market in 50 years.’”
The Niles Daily Star from Michigan. “Figures by the Board of Realtors for the Niles-Buchanan and Galien area for June show…dollars fell 34 percent from over $7 million in June of 2007 to $4.7 million last month. There was a 27 percent drop in units sold with 46 units sold last month - down from 63 in 2007. Average sale prices are down 9 percent.”
“When asked if the market is really as bad as it seems, Jan Luke, a Realtor in Niles said ‘I believe that’s a misconception. I think for the buyers it’s a good time, because the sellers are more negotiable,’ she added. ‘And they need to be.’”
“Buyers in the past may have been able to get themselves into homes that they couldn’t necessarily afford, explains Peggy Roberts, mortgage and loan officer with Chemical Bank in Niles.”
“Now, with the economy in its current state of struggle and flux, ‘I think you’re finding that lenders are being … more conservative,’ Roberts said. ‘Qualifications for a customer are very, very strict..’”
“It would seem that buyers buying smart is about more than just a good deal on a home - but a new tactic in gaining on the negative numbers. In a struggling economy - it may just come down to a test of wills. The will to shift focus from extravagant buying to economical buying.”
“‘You don’t want to live for your house payment,’ said Roberts. ‘If you’re going to be living to make your house payment - life’s too short for that.’”
Minnesota Public Radio. “It was only about 10 months ago that talk of a recession in this country started heating up. But the beginnings of the slowdown in Minnesota can be traced back several years.”
“In order to nail down when and where the trouble really did start showing up, we actually have to go back several years to housing’s boom times, when builders and others were laying the foundation for the downturn. For that, we’re heading for the Twin Cities suburbs — and 2003.”
“Builder Todd Bjerstedt says at the start of the decade, before the boom, builders were framing up an average of 12,000-13,000 new houses per year.”
“‘And it just kind of snowballed in the years of 2003 and 2004, building in excess of 23,000 homes per year,’ Bjerstedt said. ‘So we had in those two years alone, almost a 10,000 (homes) per year jump in new construction.’”
“”Diana Carter founded her company, WinStar Mortgage Partners, seven years ago, after years in the mortgage business. Carter found the good times in her industry profitable but nerve-wracking as well. Doubts kept nagging at her.”
“‘This is artificial, this is not real. Is there going to be a bubble? What’s going to happen?’”
“While Carter did not offer high-risk subprime loans, she did sell…the in-between mortgages called ‘Alt-A loans.’ She got pressure to offer those loans from the national mortgage lender Countrywide.”
“Countrywide would buy some of WinStar’s loans, bundle them with other loans into bonds, and sell the bonds to investors. Those investors were hungry for new, potentially lucrative places to put their money. So they were asking mortgage lenders to keep sending bundles of mortgage debt their way — even risky mortgage debt.”
“Countrywide obliged, and pushed Carter to get on board with those risky Alt-A loans.”
“‘Some of their top executives were saying, ‘You need to look at expanding your product mix if you’re going to increase your profit margins. This is a really important part of the business. You have to look at doing this,’ Carter said. ‘And I’m thinking, ‘I don’t think so. No, I don’t think so.’”
“But Carter says she eventually felt like she had to do Alt-A loans to compete in the marketplace. So she started to offer them and did well initially. It was a move she would later regret. ‘We basically put a target on our chest and said, ‘Here, hit me,’ Carter said.”
“‘I was in that model here on your right when I first started to hear about the incentives being tossed around in the marketplace,’ Bjerstedt said. The incentives he mentions were a sign the market for new homes was starting to collapse.”
“But Bjerstedt couldn’t afford to cut his prices to match other builders. ‘My sales went from roughly 20 homes a year to one or two a year, almost overnight,’ he said.”
“At the time, Bjerstedt was totally baffled. Builders were still pulling plenty of permits to start new homes. The housing market looked really robust. ‘Somebody called a timeout, and I wasn’t ready,’ Bjerstedt said.”
“Keep in mind: This is spring of 2005 — way earlier than when most people usually associate with the housing downturn. Job growth in residential construction went negative in Minnesota in mid-2005. That’s about a year and half earlier than the national average.”
“By 2006, the subprime market was faltering under a crush of loan defaults and foreclosures. But the Alt-A market didn’t look so bad yet. So Diana was upbeat about her business. ‘Even in December of 2006, I was working with my staff to invest in growth, to add more sales people to really increase what we were doing,’ she said.”
‘Despite that optimism in 2006, Carter says things started to unravel in early 2007. Investors were getting skittish. By the spring of 2007, the investment banks, which had acted as intermediaries between investors and lenders like WinStar, wanted out. And when the investment banks pulled back, Diana Carter had a big problem.’
“‘There may have been 15 places I could sell the loan on January 1. At the end of March, there was either zero places to sell them or one place to sell them,’ Carter said.”
“One day in March 2007, one of Carter’s managers came into her office. Carter recalls him telling her, ‘We have $4 million of unsalable mortgages.’”
“T’he unsalable loans kept piling up. They went from “$8 million, to $10 million, to $14 million to $20 million of loans that we could not sell,’ Carter said.”
“Today, Carter only sees her WinStar office from the outside looking in. All the walls have been torn down, and the desks are long gone. Carter closed WinStar a year ago, after a wave of default and foreclosure notices swamped the business. WinStar wasn’t alone.”
“By 2007, lenders nationwide had accumulated hundreds of thousands of foreclosed properties on their books — with about 38,000 of them in Minnesota. At a recent foreclosure auction in north Minneapolis, bidders could snap up neighborhood properties for prices as low as $30,000.”
“It turns out that in Minneapolis at least, more than half of those foreclosed properties belonged to investors.”
“Last July, one of the big investment houses on Wall Street got scorched. Two Bear Stearns hedge funds laden with subprime mortgages had pretty much lost their value. ‘The first week of August last year, suddenly the phone started ringing,’ recalled Ed Padilla, the CEO of Northmarq Capital Partners. ‘It was just one call after another. And there was not any question that something was going on in the marketplace, very dramatic, and happening very rapidly.’”
“Despite that beating, it’s clear Padilla hasn’t lost his sense of humor about it. He laughs when asked what he told his wife that week. ‘I think it was something along the line of, ‘The party’s over. It’s time to change our perspective,’ Padilla remembered.”
‘Keep in mind: This is spring of 2005 — way earlier than when most people usually associate with the housing downturn.’
Not if you were reading here in 2005. Long time readers will remember that I followed the beginnings of the loan bust up that started in Minnesota. And many may not know that the subprime biz had a big toehold there. But those companies went away long before the Orange County mafia.
Ben Jones,
Yes I recall being a regular reader back then but frankly didn’t notice. I was too busy “laying the foundation for the downturn”!
2nd that DinOR.
“T’he unsalable loans kept piling up”
Well whatever you do, don’t stop!
Again for all the billions and billions of subprime loans written I’ve YET to find a MB that will actually own up to having done them? I mean ’somebody’ had to?
DinOR
That is why you hired all the Brittney fake boob little chicky poos in your front office…THEY did all the “work”
Responsibility and shame long ago went the way of the Dodo bird and $2 gas…
Turn out the lights,
The party’s over.
‘You can imagine how disheartened I am,’ Marburger said recently. .. I love this building. But our developer has totally devastated us.’”
Why, it’s as if you were a tree, or a frog, or a salmon-bearing stream, or any number of other basically helpless things that developers regularly and routinely ‘devastate’ in their greedy locust-hoardish ravening pursuit of money.
You know what, I’m waiting for the day that no one will be willing to admit to being a developer because they’ll either get shot at or spit on. Then after that lovely day arrives, I’ll start waiting for the even more glorious and lovely day when there will be no more developers at all, except for maybe one, kept as a specimen.
Yes, but she doesn’t have to mow the lawn and can lock her door and leave at any time.
urban living = one big housing bubble joke.
“urban living = one big housing bubble joke”
You can’t be referring to the “Bench of Despair” in DC with so many lock boxes one couldn’t sit down!?
“You can’t be referring to the “Bench of Despair” in DC with so many lock boxes one couldn’t sit down!?”
Could that be sent over to the Senate Banking Committee for their next Fannie/Freddie bailout hearing?
Could that be sent over to the Senate Banking Committee for their next Fannie/Freddie bailout hearing?
I’m pretty sure that we’d be afraid of the resulting legislation.
Well that and the bastard has to be heavy as hell?
“urban living = one big housing bubble joke.”
This is one of my problems with Kunstler and other people that claim the ‘burbs will become wastelands. I don’t see anyone rushing back to the cities and if we do need to return to an agrarian lifestyle the cities are just as defunct as the ‘burbs.
It’s weird because Kunstler claims Florida has no future, but then I compare it to places like Buffalo or Dayton or Natchez or Mobile or Memphis or Milwaukee, and I think, well, no place really has a future then.
The majority of the southeast has no future aside from being perhaps the very first multi-state shooting gallery, as i’d guess there are more guns there, than anywhere else in the country.
‘The majority of the southeast has no future aside from being perhaps the very first multi-state shooting gallery’
I think they’ll be OK Mad Max…
Summary of Southeast’s strategy the last 25 years:
1) Offer lower wage, non-union jobs supplemented by lower taxes, and lower cost of living than the north (you can include California in ‘the north’ if you wish).
2) Take jobs from the north.
3) Laugh at the north.
4) Do not invest in infrastructure, education, etc.
5) Laugh at the north
6) Pay University football coaches $4mil salaries.
7) Watch economy collapse as manufacturing jobs go overseas. Due to crappy schools and 3rd-rate state universities, there are no tech or other cutting-edge business there to take their place.
#7 hasn’t happened yet, but it will.
“The majority of the southeast has no future…”
You should spend some time in the deep south, it’s not the stereotype some people on the coasts believe it to be. However, I have found the coasts to be the sterotypes people believe them to be.
I’ve spent time in the deep south, and it’s not a pretty sight.
“The majority of the southeast has no future…”
I sure wish that the job market in Colorado was half as strong as it is in Raleigh, NC. My brother (in Raleigh) has been laid off twice in the past year. Both times, before the ink dried on his severance check (Ok, about 1 week), he had found a new and better paying job. He was laid off from apparel and construction materials companies (to quote the knight in Indiana Jones: “He chose poorly” when he accepted those jobs).
Still, he has had no trouble quickly finding jobs that pay about 100K.
“as i’d guess there are more guns there, than anywhere else in the country”.
I can’t speak for the rest of the Southeast, but here in South Carolina most house holds only keep one gun per family member. Our favorite gun of choice for home protection is a 12ga. pump shot gun. The sound of a shot gun being racked crosses all possible language barriers. Of course a S&W model 500 is fun and impressive also.
I’ll be in the Deep South at this time next week. Can’t wait — I love Southern Hospitality.
“The sound of a shotgun being racked crosses all possible language barriers.”
That sound can serve one well if used as a doorbell.
Lad, of all the places we’ve lived, my wife and I both feel this place is the best. The bubble has burst here as well so we’re stuck for now, but would much rather be stuck here than MD, NoVA, PA, TX or FL. Especially FL.
But I guess it all depends on what you expect out of a community.
BTW, present-day, coastal Florida can no longer be considered part of the Deep South.
A friend who’s a heavy duty Federal Law Enforcement Officer, spent 6 months @ FLETC, (Federal Law Enforcement Training Center)in Georgia, and he was blown away by how much crime there is in the deep south, compared to California.
More guns, more crime, more possibilities to use your cannons in anger…
“BTW, present-day, coastal Florida can no longer be considered part of the Deep South”.
I concur, I lived for 3 years in Ft. Lauderdale in the late 90’s and was very happy to get back to South Carolina. They didn’t even have boiled p-nuts there.
You can have my boiled peanuts. I like them roasted or raw.
“More guns, more crime, more possibilities to use your cannons in anger”…
It has been proven in City after City time after time. That when permits to carry are allowed, violent crime goes down, no if ands or buts about it.
Permits in a civil society are one thing, but what happens as things break down and fear takes over?
“Permits in a civil society are one thing, but what happens as things break down and fear takes over?”
Look to L.A. for your answer to that one, not Georgia.
Almost nobody has a carry permit in L.A., very rare.
You do realize that two of the three highest paid college football coaches ply their trade in the states you consider “north”: Notre Dame and Southern Cal…
The north hasn’t done a great job with infrastructure either - witness Minnesota…
Have any of you had loved ones or friends murdered by somebody they knew, with a handgun? (a common occurrence, sadly)
Unlike tv or the movies, the grieving period is a little longer than a minute or 2.
“Almost nobody has a carry permit in L.A., very rare.”
I was speaking more to the fear and break down part a la Reginald Denny.
I lived in the southeast for a few years a couple decades ago. It’s a mixed bag, a wide variety like anywhere else.
People are certainly more friendly and trusting there than any place else I’ve ever spent much time. Much more likely to extend themselves to you than in the cities, by a couple orders of magnitude. If things really break down in society, it’s the best and most safe place that I could think to be, guns or no guns. I’ve never owned a gun myself and never spend much time there talking to friends about their guns. It just doesn’t matter that much, until the government makes noises about confiscating them, I suppose.
Plenty of water and good land and long seasons in the southeast for growing. Plently of forest with good wood for heating. We’re thinking about going back, primarily for those reasons, because land is more affordable and it’s some of the best.
Of course if you simply want to sop up the worst of the cartoon stereotypes about southerners, because you have a lot of hatred toward certain groups and don’t know any better, feel free.
“We’re thinking about going back”
Where abouts (if you don’t mind)?
My wife and I will probably live overseas for a while, but we’ve also considered moving a little north (out of Florida). Unfortunately middle Tennessee has been swarmed, I really liked it there.
Aladinsane shouldn’t be so hard on all us culturally unso-fisticated yokels out here in flyover country. One of these days one of us might save his live…..
“But then again, maybe one of us won’t……..”
Taking your absurd hypothetical to the outer limits, how would you know it’s me, when you are in the process of saving or not saving my life?
“how would you know it’s me?”
We hurd you gots purdy teef, ummm, yup.
Seriously though, you don’t like guns, that’s o.k. This string is going in about 20 different directions right now. I like the south, other people like the south, I like guns, other people like guns, Alad doesn’t like guns or the south, house prices are too high and so on.
The south itself is charming, it’s weird mix of bad ingredients, not so much.
Ummm…PLENTY of WATER? Maybe relative to the Southwest. I travel in the Carolinas for business, and I know it’s rained since, but this Spring was so dry in NC it was frightening. Reservoirs bone dry. (And Atlanta has ONE water source). Besides that, and sprawl, the Mid-South has a lot going for it, and I generally like being there. Hard for Northerners to adjust at times (CARY, NC is an acronym - Containment Area for Relocated Yankees) but folks are friendly, and It’s much easier to find a job in Raleigh/Durham than anywhere else right now. And NC is now the 10th most populous state.
But I live in Cleveland and love it, it’s affordable, friendly, unpretentious, a great location from which to do business, actually DOES have LOTS of WATER, and highly underrated. And manufacturing is far from dead.
But then, I was born and raised in Detroit, so anyplace I go is wonderful. And that was a city full of people who moved from TN, KY, and WV to work in the car plants; now the auto jobs are in TN, KY, and beyond - to AL and MS! Guess things go full circle..
Regarding guns, there are as many - and as much cultural attachment to them - in Michigan as in the South, I suspect. In Detroit in the ’80’s, we used to have a billboard that had a big counter on it, tracking the number of people killed by handguns there. Never drove by it without seeing it register another death as I went by.
But, to get back to the beginning…GOT WATER? Don’t wanna die of thirst marching North to take it at gunpoint from non-relocated Yankees….
For the record, I like Tennessee, too…and Kentucky. Partly because they are NOT Florida.
Got Water?
Marquis Dee
Rush on back to B’more, all you New Urbanists!
We’ve got plenty of excitement for yah! A murder every other day all over the city, corruption on all levels, police that aren’t much better than the clowns they chase, and a wide assortment of “off the tax record” jobs for “industrious, go-getters.” Oh, and our beautiful rowhouses stretch for blocks without end, each street looking like its own faceless urban dystopia, devoid of any life (unless you count the locals, which depends…) or beauty, each part of a crumbling maze that will keep out any fools that dream of New Urbanism.
You can walk wherever you wish, provided the crime, drugs, filthy bums, and flying bullets don’t get in your way. While out on the streets, take note of the varied colors of the local gangs in the spring, and the pretty, blue, flashing police monitoring lights in the worst areas of town.
Yes, indeed, Urban Living in the way of the future - if your a masochist or have delusions of being a super-hero fighting crime in a crudhole city full of people who just don’t care.
Urban living as a justification for jacking up the price of your McCrapbox condo with bars and yuppie amenities in walking distance is a definite HBB joke.
Suburban living is also a HBB joke: tons of gas money and hours on the freeway for a McMansion and the frappucino lifestyle.
What’s important here is to see “urban living” for what it is (both good and bad) and price it accordingly. Chicago was at its best when it was an affordable city - hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars for glorified apartments is NOT affordable/sustainable.
These yuppies shelling out crazy money for living here grew up inside prosperous slivers of this society. To them Chicago is bars, restaurants, and ballgames. My old lady works at the courthouse - if they saw what she does everyday they wouldn’t think that $250k, $300k, $400k etc. is a good deal for an apartment here.
As far as condos here go - mid 1990s pricing - $50k for a studio, $100 for a 1 bdrm, and on up by fifties. Anything more is complete and utter waste. The Windy City worm turns slowly, but now that the mania is dead good luck finding someone willing to spend too much for an apartment.
Yeah “urban living”, I can ride my bike to work, but I can also get shot dead for the lint in my pockets. That means “urban living” better be cheap, it’s a big city after all, not Sesame Street.
Cook County… courthouse?
Nah. Nothing but the “upper crust” there eh?
As far as condos here go - mid 1990s pricing - $50k for a studio, $100 for a 1 bdrm, and on up by fifties. Anything more is complete and utter waste. The Windy City worm turns slowly, but now that the mania is dead good luck finding someone willing to spend too much for an apartment.
I’d love to see that pricing again, frankly, but I’m not sure when it’ll happen — except in areas that’re already marginalized or teetering (e.g., Austin or Garfield Park). Well, I’m sure this winter will offer a bracing dose of Reality, but we’re still a long way from affordable.
People are still shooting for pie-in-the-sky prices even if no suckers are biting. On our walk to the train this morning, saw a newer 3/2 condo on the boulevard with a For Rent sign asking $2500. The comparable rent in my neighborhood is $1400-$1700, depending on looks, age and amenities. Looks like another FB trying to cover the monthly nut.
People are still shooting for pie-in-the-sky prices even if no suckers are biting.
Asking and getting are two different things.
Yep, I bought a 35th floor 1 bdrm in 1997 for 120K that was just across the street from Lincoln Park by North Ave. Prime location. Sold it in 2000 for 144K. The current price would be about 250K. Ridiculous.
“You can imagine how disheartened I am,’ Marburger said recently. .. I love this building.”
I wonder if this is a small part of the problem. Was moving into a condo the first time some of these folks had ever lived in a “nice” building - at least a superficially nice one - at least one that looked a little bit like the ones they see on TV? I know I was very excited to move from my first studio apartment to my first one bedroom apartment. Actually having a door in between the bedroom and living room was quite exciting and the lack of roaches was positively dreamy despite the fact that it still wasn’t all that nice an apartment. If you went from an apartment that was a total dump to a nice clean place that you owned, you might associate the nice feeling with the fact that you owned it, instead of to it actually having level floors and no bugs and a working elevator?
Maybe people who live in nasty apartments should live in a nice apartment before they buy, just so they know where the good feeling comes from.
Maybe they couldn’t afford first and last months’ rent. Cheaper to get 100% financing. LOL
Now that is scarey - possibly true, but scarey.
I dunno, but I could be living in the Hearst Castle and if someone hit me up with a $26k assessment - I’d hit the road in a heartbeat. Paying $26k to stay in a 1 bdrm - fughgittaboutit!
Ditto!
I knew a fellow in Fla. once who’s property tax was $88,000.00 per year and this was in 1999. Nice place place on a canal downtown, but not that nice.
I think that is some pretty good advice. It may well be the digs rather than the ownership..
The word “developer” has long been a dirty word in Tucson.
“Why, it’s as if you were a tree, or a frog, or a salmon-bearing stream, or any number of other basically helpless things that developers regularly and routinely ‘devastate’ in their greedy locust-hoardish ravening pursuit of money.
You know what, I’m waiting for the day that no one will be willing to admit to being a developer because they’ll either get shot at or spit on. Then after that lovely day arrives, I’ll start waiting for the even more glorious and lovely day when there will be no more developers at all, except for maybe one, kept as a specimen.”
Olympiagal, how well said. The economy tanking in large part due to the housing bubble - yep, that’s bad. I can survive that. But where I get so dang angry is how irreversibly UGLY these moral criminals are making our country. I’m seeing it around where I live and it sickens me. No is is even buying the crap they’re building. And to know it’s happening everywhere, well, I can only have faith that there is a special hell for these greedy ignorant SOBs.
They paved over Paradise and put up a McMansion…
“It has left Flory to admittedly plead like a broken record to consumers. ‘I just keep saying that it is a great time to buy a home,’ Flory said. ‘Interest rates are low, inventory is high and builders are motivated to sell.’”
It’s always a great time to buy a home when you’re a homebuilder or a Realtor (TM), just like it’s a great time to buy stocks when you are a broker. Let’s cut through the BS to reality:
1. Interest rates on mortgages are not low. 30-year mortgages rates are 6.3% on conforming loans and 7.3% on 30-year jumbo mortgages according to the table in today’s Wall Street Journal.
2. Inventory is going to get a lot higher. The more home prices keep falling, the more people will bail on their homes. Option ARMs are just starting to recast and reset, and they will wreck havoc on higher-priced areas.
3. Builders are going to be a lot more motivated to sell in 2009-2011. Builders will be begging people to buy homes at prices where the monthly cost of buying is far below the monthly cost of renting, as it should be. After all, when you rent, you can move whenever you want, so it should be cheaper to buy then rent.
Keep the popcorn popping,
Red Baron
Do the following to get through the depression: 1. Get and keep a job 2. Rent a place or live in an RV so you can be mobile for your job 3. Save at least 25% of your after-tax income 4. Eliminate debt unless you could pay it off if you lost your job.
“‘From where I’m sitting, I’m not seeing any signs of a turnaround,’ Johnson said.”
Come sit on my side of the field Johnson…
“…the housing market in the Sandusky area is holding steady.”
It depresses me that people live their lives like this.
Sandusky is an interesting little city of 30k people. An old city sitting on the shores of Lake Erie, about an hour west of Cleveland, and hour east of Toledo, and 2 hours north of Columbus.
There is some business there.. A GM/Delphi parts plant and a Ford parts plant, but most of the city employment revolves around the tourist buisness. Cedar Point is located there. A wonderful bay for boating is located there. The islands are just off the coast there.
In other words, if you are a boater in North or cental Ohio, or even Detroit for that matter, you want to be at Sandusky. There is still enough money in the large cities to maintain a boating class that is stable.
Most of the townies in Sandusky are poor, considering the type of jobs there. They are renters. The city is something like 60-70% renters. So housing is stable. The growth has been in condos along the shore that the elites of Columbus buy and use on the weekends.
The growth appears to be leveling off, but the developers still plan to build more. (the latest proposal is for condos behind the mall, some 5 miles from the lake…. I don’t understand that one.)
Basically, Sandusky is the playground of Northern Ohio and to some extent, SW Michigan. The Michigan traffic has really dried up over the past 2 years. The Ohio tourist business is steady, if not growing.
Holy Schnighkees!
( Isn’t that where the movie “Tommy Boy” was set? )
I was commenting more that rust belt people like to spend their days convincing themselves that they’re different when it comes to the bubble.
Nothing against Ohio (birthplace of aviation and yours truly).
WinStar is the name of a big casino in OK.
“Countrywide would buy some of WinStar’s loans, bundle them with other loans into bonds, and sell the bonds to investors. Those investors were hungry for new, potentially lucrative places to put their money. So they were asking mortgage lenders to keep sending bundles of mortgage debt their way — even risky mortgage debt.”
This is the root cause of all the bubbles we have been seeing, and will continue to see: Investors hungry for outrageous returns, ignorant of risk and without a game plan for potential losses.
“Investors hungry for outrageous returns” ???
What are you talking about? 5%, 7%??
The FED made our money worthless with 1% interest rates. ALL holders of money need to make 4%-6% just to keep pace with the inflation the FED creates.
FED funds should make bank returns of 4-5% NORMAL.
Pension funds and retirement account managers have projected for YEARS a MINIMUM return on their investments of 8% just to cover the costs of their plans.
They don’t have a choice. They need to be able to get some return on their investments. The NEED to find a safe investment vehicle to cover their required returns.
The SAFEST used to be US TREASURY NOTES.
What kind of “Outrageous” return do you think you should be able to get? Just because the lenders were raking in 12%, doesn’t mean the buyer of the bonds was offered that. The lenders were getting the huge rake-off, but the AAA debt didn’t pay that.
However, it was the ONLY game in town.
Thank you Alan Greenspan for your inept management of the FED and the lenders.
What kind of “Outrageous” return do you think you should be able to get?
You sound pretty defensive, Diogenes…did someone buy too much Pets.com stock?
To answer your question: I consider a reasonable return to be anything that reflects the income and actual value of underlying assets.
If you don’t rely on what a Realtor tells you a property should cost, how can you rely on what a bond rating agency with clear conflicts of interest says? Just like buyer’s realtors getting paid by the seller, the rating agencies were getting paid by the companies they rated.
Let me turn your question around: Do you think people should buy stocks based on the data from a company’s PR department, or based on their own review of disclosures required by SEC regulations?
They got higher returns for taking the riskiest tranches or by leveraging the heck out of their holdings or both.
Many investors may be ignorant, but don’t make the mistake to think they all are. I think this whole housing thing was done in part intentionally to milk the money out of people’s hands. Unfortunately, some people REALLY REALLY got lucky and made out with bounties they honestly did not deserve.
The the powers at be are what I am talking about. The real money makers in the background…the same bastards who cause rallies in the market, take it up, drop it down, and take the money of stupid, dumb, and ignorant greedy people.
After all this personal loss of money from so many, the “background” group is ready to come in and buy everything at a penny on the dollar. It’s the perfect system that has been repeated several times and is flawless in operation. Why? Because people always end up blaming the wrong groups, always end up pointing fingers at the middle men, and no one ever learns anything because they are so damned greedy, they are willing to do it again, and again, and again.
My wife and I never bought a home in LA…and I sincerely doubt at this point we ever will. We sit and ask ourselves….what is the point to buy an overpriced piece of sh&t, in a POS city, surrounded by POS people?
Even now, in places like Glendale, Burbank, Pasadena, the prices are STILL STILL STILL too high. Who the mega-douches are who are still buying or not letting go, I don’t know. But there is still an utter aire of arrogance here that is astounding.
This bubble was just a wealth transfer just like the Farming transfer from small farmers to conglomerate corporate farms.
Farmers, small ones were just kinda ignored by the media as the volume of transfer in people #s were small compared to millions “owning/buying” houses.
Still Farmland transfer was huge and yet we didn’t pay much attention.
“‘You don’t want to live for your house payment,’ said Roberts. ‘If you’re going to be living to make your house payment - life’s too short for that.’”
Along those lines is this passage from Sterling Hayden’s autobiography Wanderer published in 1963, as cited in Wikipedia:
To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… cruising, it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. I’ve always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can’t afford it.” What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all - in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?
Mad tiger that is a MOST excellent quote.
Of every quote that I have read on this blog in 2.5 years, that is a great one.
I love the part about worshipping our security by flinging our lives beneath the wheels of routine.
Hey, I am not saying we all sit around, hold hands, and sing Kumbuyah (sp?).
However, like food, one should live in a house, not live for a house.
WHen your life and the ones you love play second and third fiddle to a shelter and that is all it really is at the end of the day, then you really have abandoned your life to the material.
Despite all my cries of debt, banruptcy, and GDII, this is the most sad.
To give one’s life or 30 years just for a shelter.
Truly a sad commentary on America and many other parts of the world!
RE: Sterling Hayden’s autobiography Wanderer published in 1963, as cited in Wikipedia:
Enjoyed the read, M_T.
Thanks for the post.
also enjoyed the posted narrative comment - thanks mad tiger
Dude never had child support payments to make, I can tell you that.
?
Didn’t you read it? He “just… sailed away”.
“The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience.”
As well they should. The sight of 40 year old men in heavy metal garage bands is pathetic to behold.
This peaon to the glory of the grasshopper is a sad reminder of how many people want to live as children for their entire lives.
Only children have dreams?
Man, you have one sad life.
Truely an excellent quote. But to take it literally would be a disservice to oneself. I think the concept of sailing away into the clear blue yonder without a safety net should be taken metaphorically. Personally, a 2 ft wave would throw me into bouts of sea sickness, and losing the sight of land would throw me into hysterical panic.
There are many many other ways where a person can forego the security of a ‘routine life’ and launch into an adventure, whether it be starting a new business, a non-profit for a passionate cause or any other pursuit.
My personal criteria is: will this pursuit leave this community or world in a better state then when the said adventurer arrived. If the answer is yes, than kudos and God speed, otherwise it was all a waste and the childish pursuit to ‘recapture ones youth’
“If the answer is yes, than kudos and God speed, otherwise it was all a waste and the childish pursuit to ‘recapture ones youth”
You obviously didn’t get the point of his quote. He explicitly stated that you can choose a bankruptcy of purse over bankruptcy of life . To call someone childish and a waste because they didn’t succeed in “making a difference” to the community or the world, as you put it, indicates a smugness in having chosen security yourself…the whole paragraph was about taking risks, and that includes the risk of not succeeding.
are you arguing just for the sake of arguing.. cause taking risks in doing something new does cause ‘bankruptcy of purse’ but sure makes life enjoyable for the risk taker.
I just disagree with the self centered concept of enjoying oneself all the while using the security and safety provided by the community around without contributing anything worthwhile. Case in point : suppose a said person does take off sailing the blue yonder, i would like to inquire if the are going to stay within earshot of the US coast guard or are they willing to sail the pirated waters of the fareast?
I”m not arguing for the sake of arguing…I’m pointing out that you can’t have it both ways, saying that it’s “childish” to take risks without the safety net of your community. Who are you to judge?
Some people may actually be happier and lead more productive lives sleeping in the back of a van and working odd jobs around the country, without saving the world or community. I’d rather do that than be a fat beer-guzzling worker drone paying a ridiculous mortgage and breeding pups with my trophy wife, while casting aspersions at people who choose to live differently.
“‘You don’t want to live for your house payment,’ said Roberts. ‘If you’re going to be living to make your house payment - life’s too short for that.’”
I guess I was day early with my comments yesterday. Thanks for the kind words, DinOR, about the 30-yr. note comments I made yesterday.
Well, here it is.
THANK YOU ROBERTS! If all these people had half a brain in the last 6 years, we wouldn’t need this quote, now, would we?
Then again if all these FBs had half a brain, it would be half a brain more than they currently have.
I want to go back briefly to what Prof Bear mentioned yesterday about the 30 year loans coming in after the GD. I understand that.
All I was trying to say is that people should have realized back then and even now that it is better to buy very cheaply and have a shorter loan. SInce, what are the odds they will make the 13th or 14th monthly payments each year and shorter the note?
Better to buy the house for 125K on a 15 year or rent, then get stuck for 30 and as we have seen even 40 and 50 years on a 250K or more home.
I realize that here in South OC it will be tough. I won’t call it Kool-Aid, but there is a lot of PRIDE. People will not go quietly into that dark night.
I will be up front with you guys. I am blessed to make more the 70K, have a wife that stays home w/the kids, HAVE NO DEBT, have some savings, work close to home, rent a great condo and have a great LL, work 7 miles from work, and am able to take the family on a vacay every year.
Why would I ever want to change that by buying a home I can’t afford?
Roberts is right! I did that for almost 12 years.
Pay the mortgage.
Mow the lawn.
Put new tiles on the roof.
Mow the lawn.
Paint the inside of the house.
Mow the lawn.
Drive 65 miles EACH WAY to work.
Mow the lawn.
Sleep all weekend.
Mow the lawn.
Now, send the LL his rent check and as PB said yesterday, get him to pay taxes, HOAs, membership fees, and deal with the falling fake paper equity.
Now, if I could just find a nice home in this town for 200K, instead of the 400K everyone wants.
That would leave you $200K to pay some other bloke to mow the lawn.
“Others say if the price is right, the buyers will still take the bait.”
A bit of a slip here - “bait” indeed!
I remember Huron being a bedroom community of Cleveland years back with the McMansions. I wonder how Huron is doing now since gas prices have doubled.
The Chicago Journal from Illinois. “This July, Julie Marburger owes the property manager of her condominium building at 1717 S. Prairie a check totaling $5,226. And, as Marburger put it, ‘the big one’s looming.’ Next year, Marburger, the owner of a one-bedroom unit in the building since 2004, will owe an additional $26,015 to complete her share of the $6.5 million assessment.”
I don’t get why this woman doesn’t walk. If you read the article this isn’t the first assessment, there have been at least 2 prior to this one. And this assessment is likely to go up because of the foreclosures in the building. What exactly does she “love” about that building? It sounds like an effin money pit to me.
Marburger may as well buy a boat and pay for the slip.
Boats, like houses, are money pits. But I find sailboats
and life on the water so much more alluring.
VIews, waterfront property, something fun to do, social life,
nature, and more waterfront property/views.
Oh and great nights sleeps.
desertdweller,
No kidding. One of the reasons I’ve enjoyed bubble blogging as much as I have is that we don’t support the urban myth that “owners = nice neighbors”.
Renters may have loud parties etc. but I’ve had some long standing feuds with “neighbors” that didn’t see anything wrong with an 8 year old operating an ATV?
Never made more clear than when we rented a houseboat one vacation and a bunch of kids ( on Priest Lake, ID ) had to park RIGHT next to us for the night! ( Well all we did was weigh anchor and find another island ) Try doing THAT with a house!
I agree, Wicked. I see no other choice except walking in this situation. That building is a disaster!
“Next year, Marburger… will owe an additional $26,015 …That number… could go up, should other unit owners fall into foreclosure…”
“There are already five units in foreclosure at 1717 S. Prairie, said Leonard Szwajkowski, the board president. He estimated another floor-10 units-could go into foreclosure at the building because of the economy and assessments.” (I think 10 is way too optimistic, personally)
“The board… had to twice raise monthly assessments for building operations by 18 percent”
AND, they’re in a lawsuit which must be disclosed to prospective buyers and should certainly deter them from purchasing there. Not to mention there are 8,000+ condo units coming up for sale in Chicago in the next year.
The article said that folks are taking money out of their 401Ks to pay the assessments. Life is going to smack those stupids HARD. 401Ks are protected in bankruptcy. They’re almost better off just letting the association put a lein on the unit. The association is so broke, it probably can’t afford to initiate foreclosure proceedings. If it did, they’d still have to pay the bank, and foreclosures take a long, long time in IL.
***** “It has left Flory to admittedly plead like a broken record to consumers. ‘I just keep saying that it is a great time to buy a home,’ Flory said. ‘Interest rates are low, inventory is high and builders are motivated to sell.’” *****
reminds me of the old saying: ” insanity = doing the same thing over & over while expecting different results ” (paraphrased)
but, thats ok, cause she is a REALTOR, so she “just keeps saying” what is programmed into her narrow-minded brain. no thoughts of doing anything different. no thoughts to dare to break from the herd. thats why most ex-cheerleaders (male AND female) gravitate to real estate: they LOVE being part of a social group. the NRA provides the leadership while the local carp follow blindly in like direction, like a school of fish.
whatever else happens they MUST. NOT. CONTRADICT. POPULAR. CLIQUES. or risk losing head shot in paper/magazine/bench. HORRORS !!!
just last year the agents were pissy as hell against foreclosures, but currently it’s THE BIG THING to boast about them. in fact, several years of public blogs from local wannabe socialite .. errr “realtor”Julie Jalone here in Sacramento rails about “bottom feeders” her quote), yet now she chirps along each week as if short sales were always in her best interest. unless of course the sale takes longer than expected, or doesnt go thru, then she throws a fit and its everyone else’s fault for wasting her time!
now dont get me wrong, anyone can change their mind, and should, if or when its obviously a flawed concept, but have you ever seen/heard/read about the RE industry ADMITTING the market has changed & now they need to sell foreclosures? of course not! just a silent about-face. what was bad yesterday is good today. wrong is right. up is down. dont think, just do. conform. obey.
why, we consumers just need to check our brains at the front door of every open house & BELIEVE whatever current self-serving tripe comes out of the realtors mouth. (all data skewed for the obvious benefit of whatever fish they are trolling, of course.)
done - for now
The rough times are here. Even in communities that are expanding, the building is slowing. It’s getting scary.
PowderLover
I have a roof over my head, food, health insurance, a job that pays for those things, and family/friends. There are no tough times ahead, IMO.
However, people who risk losing their big toys, bragging rights/status and insatiable appetite for creature comforts are in for a world of hurt, and frankly I don’t care. After the way they have been behaving for the past 30 years, they deserve it.
Right next door is a family that used to have three vehicles — one big honker of a pickup truck, a sedan, and a vintage Jeep. In the past few weeks, the sedan and the pickup have gone away. Only the Jeep remains.
If it were my choice, I would have kept the sedan and ditched the other two, but, hey, when you’re into toys, you have to keep at least one.
Hey -
isn’t Lawrence, KS ( Home of KU) supposed to be one the “Top 25 Place in the U.S. to Retire”
I guess not - too close to Topeka, the sewer of the Mid-west!!
One of the mommy-bloggers* I read lives in Lawrence, KS and makes it sound like Beverly Hills, CA. Just as fake and pretentious…lots of breast implants, veneers and French manicures. And everyone is supposedly loaded, living in big McMansions and driving very expensive cars. Who knew Kansas had anything but corn and scarecrows?
*mommy blogs = BEST birth control ever. Should be required reading for 6th grade girls.
Wordpress ate my post.
Marburger needs to walk. That condo is a money pit. There have been 2 prior assessments and the article stated that this assessment may go up because of all the foreclosures. What in the hell about that condo does she love so much? Endlessly forking over her money?
Her hubris over how far away she thinks she is from being foreclosed was interesting. Actually, she’s right - she probably will not be foreclosed upon - she will walk of her own accord once that building’s bad rep gets around.
That’s the booming South Loop of Chicago - condo towers aplenty and more on the way. She best dump it before new construction undercuts her (probably too late though).
I don’t get why Marberger is so in love with a tiny crappy box that leaks.
Then you have this to consider;
“He said the water repairs go too far. “A good analogy is the car to get you to and from work-you could get by in a Chevy or in a Mercedes.”"
Yeah but what if they going for the Pinto repair. I agree with the President of the HOA, you want the repairs done right. Water travels and you don’t want to be dealing with mold issues.
ASU real-estate Professor Karl Guntermann Guntermann…
I’ve understand the desire for hyphenated names, but this takes the cake.
Did he marry someone named Guntermann, and they couldn’t decide whose last name to use?