Seller Needs To Be Braced And Not Take Things Personally
The Seacoast reports from Maine. “A study released by Maine Real Estate Information System Inc. indicates that the drop in units sold statewide is a steep 24.32 percent, with the median sale price also dropping by almost 6 percent. According to MREIS, the median sale price for a home in Maine was down to $188,000 as of June. Among all the counties, Piscataquis suffered the largest drop at 37.5 percent in sales and 12.74 percent in median prices.”
“‘Buyers should negotiate aggressively for the property price and banking terms,’ said Jeffrey Wooster, the broker/owner of Lynam Real Estate Agency in Bar Harbor. ‘Buyers know they are in the driver’s seat and are asking for many concessions. The seller needs to be braced and not take things personally.’”
The Boston Herald from Massachusetts. “Massachusetts housing suffered its worst first half in nearly two decades this year, with sales down 19.1 percent and median prices off 9.2 percent, new figures show.”
“‘What’s clear from these numbers is we haven’t reached the bottom of the market yet,’ said Tim Warren of market tracker the Warren Group, which released yesterday’s data. ‘The rash of bad news about bank failures and Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s capital needs convinces us that a turnaround isn’t going to happen this year.’”
“‘The slump in condo sales is even worse than in the single-family sector,’ Warren said. ‘Condo prices haven’t retreated as much as single-family home prices, so condo units aren’t moving.’”
“‘We hoped that June (market conditions) would be better, but that just didn’t materialize,’ Massachusetts Association of Realtors President Susan Renfrew said.”
The Patriot Ledger from Massachusetts. “First-time home buyers with good credit histories currently have many opportunities, said Georgia Taft Pye, president of the Plymouth and South Shore Association of Realtors. With more than 35,500 houses and more than 15,000 condos on the market statewide, buyers can choose among a broad selection of inventory.”
“‘They can get a pretty good deal if they’re underwritten with a good lender and have a decent deposit,’ said Pye, in Duxbury. ‘(Lenders) seem to be holding people purchasing the upper-end homes to very strict requirements.’”
“‘The quality of buyer has improved, because the banks have tightened up,’ said Jean Dunn, a sales associate in Rockland. ‘Now when I see a pre-approval letter, you can almost rest assured they’re a solid buyer. It’s different than it was a year or two ago.’”
The Connecticut Post. “During the first six months of this year, sales prices of single family homes fell in 117 Connecticut communities, showing a 8.8 percent decline in value statewide, according to the Prudential Connecticut Realty report.”
“Peter Gioia, economist with the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, said Congressional action takes a long time to take effect and he doesn’t expect the proposed measures to be any different. But Gioia said what Congress is doing is helping investors in securities and lenders feel a bottom is in sight.’
“That doesn’t mean the market will rebound, he said, because lending standards will be tighter than they were during the boom.”
“‘The terms before were ridiculous,’ Gioia said.”
The Daily Gazette from New York. “The Capital Region’s mortgage crisis showed no signs of cooling down this summer, as the number of homes in various stages of foreclosure during the second quarter more than tripled over the year, according to RealtyTrac.”
“In the five-county area around Albany, foreclosure activity rose 276.6 percent, compared to a year earlier, to 1,062 by June 30. Foreclosure activity, which includes default and auction notices plus repossessions, was up 74.8 percent from 608 during the previous quarter.”
“Realtors are hopeful the $7,500 tax credit will spur sluggish housing sales by luring more first-time buyers into the market. ‘We’ll be looking to people who have been sitting on the fence,’ said Mary Trupo, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Realtors.”
“Barbara Whipple, president-elect of the Capital Region Bankruptcy Bar Association, said her Latham law office is getting unusually busy for summer.”
“New Yorkers are increasingly struggling with mortgage and credit card bills as record-high gasoline and food prices outpace lethargic wage growth. ‘It’s getting bad out there,’ said Whipple.”
The Post Gazette from Pennsylvania. “A total of 418 families lost their homes to foreclosure last month in the five-county region that includes Allegheny, Washington, Butler, Beaver and Westmoreland counties, according to RealSTATs. The bulk of the increased foreclosures, however, were in Allegheny County, where 257 homes were lost in June. So far this year, 2,320 homes have been lost to foreclosure.”
“Although residential foreclosures in metropolitan Pittsburgh were up 66.5 percent last month compared to June 2007, the numbers still have not eclipsed the spike in foreclosures that occurred in the first half of 2006, which was this area’s worse period on record for mortgage defaults.”
“Several major cities have in recent months imposed a moratorium on foreclosures. A similar plan to halt the wave of home losses in Allegheny County is being sponsored by Sheriff William Mullen.”
“Sheriff Mullen has asked Allegheny County Common Pleas President Judge Joseph James to order lenders to meet with borrowers to try to work out a solution before any delinquent mortgage in the county goes to a sheriff’s sale.”
“‘This is more or less the last-ditch effort on our part,’ Sheriff Mullen said. ‘I don’t know what else we can do.’”
“‘We looked at Philadelphia. They established a moratorium. But we felt the most important thing to do is not postpone, but to get the lenders and borrowers to the table to try to work out a plan to save their homes. We think a moratorium only delays the inevitable,’ he said.”
“‘In general, we don’t think moratoriums are a good idea,’ said Dan Reisteter, VP of government relations for the Pennsylvania Bankers Association. He said Pennsylvania already has one of the longest foreclosure processes in the nation. It can take more than a year, he said, from the time a mortgage lender sends a notice to the borrower of their intent to foreclose to the time a property actually goes to a sheriff’s sale.”
“‘There’s plenty of time for a borrower to work something out with a reputable lender,’ Mr. Reisteter said, adding that national lenders will be reluctant to invest in areas where local governments are inclined to intervene.”
“‘If lenders don’t have the certainty and security of seizing a loan, they will be more hesitant of making mortgage loans,’ he said. ‘That, in the long run, will harm consumers and borrowers.’”
“Michael Sichenzia, chief operating officer of a firm that renegotiates mortgage debt for distressed owners, said government intervention in the mortgage mess is the equivalent of a Band-aid for a serious wound.”
“‘Anything we do that upsets the sanctity of the contract between two parties can not bode well for the long-term health of the mortgage and credit markets,’ said Mr. Sichenzia. ‘We have some well-meaning public officials who want to score brownie points for doing good, but they can’t see the forest for the trees and miss the big picture completely.’”
“‘You can’t use the law to effectuate the economic outcome you want. When you try to do that you throw more uncertainty into an already uncertain marketplace,’ Sichenzia said.”
The Star Ledger from New Jersey. “Across the country, the number of homeowners facing foreclosure more than doubled in the second quarter compared to the same period last year, and New Jersey’s foreclosure rate spiked even more dramatically, newly released data show.”
“The number of foreclosure filings in New Jersey jumped 140 percent from April to June to more than 17,000, according to RealtyTrac. According to the latest figures from the state Office of Foreclosure, there were 47,668 New Jersey foreclosure filings in the year ended June 30 — up from 26,132 the previous year. The state now has the 12th-highest rate of foreclosure filings nationally.”
“New Jersey may not have had the speculation-driven building boom seen in the Sunbelt, but ‘we do have a problem and it is starting to hit home,’ said James Hughes, a Rutgers University economist. He predicted housing prices in New Jersey will continue to decline and foreclosures will continue to be a problem at least until 2010.”
“None of this is news to Ayesha Iphell-Boyd, now struggling to halt foreclosure proceedings on the Irvington home she shares with her four children and her mother.”
“Iphell-Boyd said her mortgage payment soared from $900 a month to $1,700 — as the interest rate doubled to 13 percent– after she refinanced last year to get additional money to make home repairs. She soon defaulted on the mortgage while keeping up the car payments so she could commute to her job in Rochelle Park.”
“‘The mortgage company told me they would get me a good rate, but I never knew what the payment would be until the very end,’ she said during a foreclosure-prevention workshop in Newark.”
The Boston Globe continues to try and snow potential buyers, even when it’s foreclosures!
‘A handful of communities that have been hit hardest by foreclosures - notably Brockton and Lowell - saw surprising sales gains last month. Real estate agents said buyers are suddenly eager to purchase houses being sold by banks that seized properties from delinquent borrowers, or through short sales in which the homeowner averts a foreclosure by selling the property and paying the lender an agreed upon amount.’
‘The median house price in Brockton is $187,000 - down 28 percent since June 2007 - and Baxter said some buyers’ monthly payments are half what they would have been five years ago. ‘The rates are going to go up, and if you’re waiting for another price drop, you’re going to lose that in the rates,’ Baxter said.’
‘Re/Max agent Dennis Page, president of the Northeast Association of Realtors, said there are 400 fewer houses for sale in Lowell this year than two years ago, and interest in some homes is high.’
‘For instance, Page said, one client was outbid in an attempt to buy a four-bedroom house in one of Lowell’s nicest neighborhoods, Upper Highlands. He said there were 10 bidders on the property, which was listed for $179,900 and sold two years earlier for $317,000.’
RE: Mazzland-Contract Law?
What’s contract law?
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/07/29/fighting_the_foreclosure_crisis
Meanwhile A&E network aired an ‘Intervention: In-Depth’ television program about Brockton, and how its high school is overrun with OxyContin and Heroin use, and that the city over the last three years has seen 200+ deaths from opiate overdose.
$187K is a wishing price. Those houses should be selling for $100K max, probably less.
Kids in High School useing heroin ??
Apparently. Have close friends who live in Brockton with kids at Brockton High who told them about the OxyC and Heroin. They’re now trying to figure out how to afford private schools, and college, with negative home equity. Bad scene. Does anyone elese remember the 1980’s Brockton Moratorium - no new waterline hook-ups - because their wells dried up? There are some places even the biggest, stupidest bubble just can’t help, and Brockton is one of them. As sad as it ever was…
Got Water?
Marquis Dee
‘The median house price in Brockton is $187,000 - down 28 percent since June 2007 - and Baxter said some buyers’ monthly payments are half what they would have been five years ago. ‘The rates are going to go up, and if you’re waiting for another price drop, you’re going to lose that in the rates,’ Baxter said.’
I hear this argument all the time. Buy now while the rates are low, and believe me, here in the Boston burbs everybody thinks that everybody should be a “home owner”. I try to explain that as a person, with a down payment, who wants to buy and pay off a home that higher rates help me. I say that banks lend on monthly payment amounts and as rates go up prices have to go down to get the same payment. I get arguments against that to which I retort “Why do prices go up when interest rates are low?”. Most don’t make the connection. Then I point out that as prices go down my down payment takes a larger percentage of the house price out of financing actually making my payments lower. To which they respond “you should buy now before the rates go up.” Perhaps they don’t teach math in Mass, I’m an import.
Sure, they teach math: housing prices only go up! Nobody gets that the equation works both ways. I was an import to MA too, did the same math you did, realized that every drop in rates just translated right into higher prices, which fed the frenzied panic to buy at any cost, saw dogfood houses at caviar prices, and left MA in 2000. And that was before the insanity became even worse! I wonder what “normal” will ever look like there…
Got Water?
Marquis Dee
Ah, so rates will go up, but housing prices will remain the same. Right… because the previous logic of salaries remaining the same or declining, but housing prices doubling to tripling is working out sooo well right now!
Argh! Prices MUST return to what incomes can support, and with incomes declining and other expenses eating into what little is left, there is no room for absurd housing price increases.
But, our leaders have chosen the “Lost Decade Path” so far, with some potential hyperinflation thrown in for “fun.”
Lowell’s nicest neighborhoods? I was there once for 3 weeks and all I remember is was that it was way far from Boston and had a huge landfill with a ton of seagulls all over because of the garbage dump which looked like a mountain.
I wouldn’t be in a hurry to “outbid” anyone.
Oh, come now - they aren’t making any more landfills!
No recovery in Housing no matter what charade Paulson and Bernanke put on. The US government directing capital into the construction of more non-productive McMansions represents a total misallocation of resources. - DJC
S&P: Home prices drop by record 15.8 pct. in May
Tuesday July 29, 9:05 am ET
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080729/home_prices.html
Private housing index shows home prices dropping by record amount nationwide in May
NEW YORK (AP) — A closely watched housing index shows home prices fell by the steepest rate ever in May, as the housing slump continued to deepen nationwide.
The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city index, released Tuesday, is off 15.8 percent for May compared with a year ago, a record decline since its inception in 2000. The narrower 10-city index has fallen 16.9 percent, its biggest decline in its 21-year history.
DC,
Right, “We’ll be looking to people who have been sitting on the fence” ( with their newly minted $7,500 tax credit )
They still can’t give it up can they? Still trying to “pull sales forward” by taking more people that are in no way ready to own a home, INTO a home! Isn’t this exactly what got them in trouble to begin with?
“as a similar measure did in the mid-70’s”
Being as I was in HS in the mid 70’s can anyone find a-n-y thing on this? I did a quick search and the only stuff I could find was programs for Low Income people, ( not a comparable “fence-sitter” ) program?
Unless I’m way off here I have no memory of a new program in the 70’s designed to save realtor’s commissions and MB’s fees? Trying to draw connections between real poverty in the 70’s and today’s unabated greed is beneath contempt.
RE: I have no memory of a new program in the 70’s designed to save realtor’s commissions and MB’s fees? Trying to draw connections between real poverty in the 70’s and today’s unabated greed is beneath contempt.
The real Pandora’s Box in Maine relative to housing inflation began during the pricing run-up during the late 80’s boom.
The Maine State Housing Authority in it’s infinite wisdom decided to give income qualified “1st time homebuyer’s” subsidized 30 year fixed rate mortgages which were 2 basis points below whatever everybody else has access to.
The rationale behind the program was that the price of housing was inflating faster than the rate people could save for a down-payment.
Monies were financed thru the sale of state bonds.
What the program essentially did, was to allow the real estate industry to peddle and profit from the sale of a whole lot of garbage housing to marginally qualified borrowers.
In the long term this distorted the conventional supply and demand curve which eventually resulted in a “push-pull” factor to the balance of the market which all came crashing down in the bust of the early 90’s.
But the real crux of the problem was the government disavowal of the simple principle that interest rates are suppose to be reflective of risk…or in other words-WTF is a 1st time homebuyer (RISK), gettin’ a lower interest rate than others who better qualified financially.
But the real profiteers in it all were the Realtawhores, because the program which was suppose to be temporary-became permanant.
many more good gov programs on the way
hd74man,
Thanks for sharing that. If I understand correctly though that was a local program, not part of a nat’l program or trend?
Well here we go again playing “fetch” while NAR parrots make claims “we” have to scurry about to debunk! Again MSM reporter takes talking head at their word and leaves us to pick up the pieces. “I’m sorry, what specific piece of legislation from the 70’s were you referring to?”
It’s just not my take on things? IIRC people just had to suck. it. up. or move into the folks basement.
Stocks rallly on the good news???
Stocks jump on consumer confidence data; investors examine Merrill write-down plan
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080729/wall_street.html
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rose Tuesday, rebounding a day after their steep tumble as a jump in consumer confidence offset some of the market’s increasing concerns about the financial sector. Falling oil prices also helped lift the Dow Jones industrial average by about 125 points.
So a one point blip on consumer confidence offsets a record home price drop?
Bear trap.
RE: the median sale price for a home in Maine was down to $188,000 as of June.
Welcome to The Peoples Socialist Republic of Maine-The Way Life Should Be*.
Median income in Maine…$33,000. (39th in the country)
That’s Massachusetts house prices on Mississippi incomes.
*(#1 highest taxed state in the country on the basis of property taxes, state income tax, and sales tax as a percentage of income)
With the amount of imported slime from Boston/NY/NJ and elsewhere that descended on ME over the last 10 years, separating said slime from their wallets is a good thing in my estimation.
Why anyone would live in ME when NH right below it has a much lower tax burden is way beyond me.
Considering NH property taxes are the most oppressive in the nation, there is no reason to hold it in such high regard.
Where’s that data from? I always thought Jersey was the king of property taxes.
http://www.taxfoundation.org …… NH is in the top 3 highest taxed (property).
Jersey’s still the worst, though, on that site.
So maybe move to NH and rent?
Highest property taxes but no income tax. There’s also very few ‘gotcha’ taxes. Car insurance is optional and highly deregulated. Zero permits required or licensing required to own a gun. No sales tax.
From wikipedia:
RE: Why anyone would live in ME when NH right below it has a much lower tax burden is way beyond me.
BINGO EdG.
The interesting thing about the circumstance, is that Maine has far superior natural and internal resources via it’s timberlands, huge coastline, connection to Maritime Canada, watersheds, (bottled water supplying has become a huge biz), hydro potential et. el.
However, as Exeter notes above…An anti-business Demo controlled government who keeps the welfare masses and public employee unions well fed combined with the NIMBY out of state retirement crowd who have fouled their own nest in the amassing of their fortunes and are only too happy to keep the natives backfoot and ignorant, so long as their idylic settings are undisturbed, have long since run everything into the ground.
The state government is currently borrowing money to keep everything runnin’ since anybody with half brain who can produce something has long since bailed.
At one time Maine had the capacity to be truly energy independant. But the regulators and eco crowd did their thing and at the moment the DEM governor is begging for enormous increases in FED fuel oil subsidy money.
I just got back from a 450 mile backroad trip across the main tourist areas of central Maine/NH and down into western MA to do some whitewater rafting on the Deerfield River. My bud and I had the highways literally to ourselves.
I figure tourism revenues gotta be down 50%. And tourism, education, and health care for retirees is about it for jobs.
A cold winter is gonna trash this region bad.
how bout them Somalies, yo
they come for the weather, and stay for the welfare
RE: how bout them Somalies, yo
When O’Bama Boy gets elected my expectation is that scores of Africans will be imported here ala the Somali’s.
So…better go start takin’ your Sawahili language courses in addition to your Spanish.
Please touch * for a directory of which numbers to hit to converse in your native language.
“Buyers know they are in the driver’s seat and are asking for many concessions. The seller needs to be braced and not take things personally.”
“Right…the possible sale of your wonderful greed nest with irrelevant loving memories, stale cupcakes, dancing squirrels and potential reitirement fund hopes is a contract BUSINESS transaction, subject to attorney review and nothing else to me. Please be advised that your Dreams of Tahiti and Personal Financial Problems mean absolutely mean absolutely NOTHING to me!”
“My LOWBALL offer is final with NO price negotiations, you have 48 hours to take it or leave it. Nothing personal…Have a nice day”
mikey,
Why the attitude? Don’t you understand? That’s how America works now’a days. You step in, pay whatever said seller feels they need for a ‘comfortable’ retirement, travel, medical and credit card bills and then fund their retirement (1) payment at a time!
In turn YOU get to max out credit cards, put kids through college and when it’s your turn to retire ( at age 47 ) someone ‘else’ steps in and funds YOUR retirement! Sheesh.
I’m so cheap, that as a kid I used to hide my US passport whenever I could and lived and traveled with a great big Canadian Maple Leaf plastered all over my bike, backpacks and jackets. Hell, even my C.O. in NAM used to have fits because always I drew the Maple Leaf on my helmet and a boonie hats
Everyone in Europe and Asia knew there were few things more STUPID in life as an American with some Money.
Seems like the like some our Friends and Neighbors at home figured THAT one out too
Even during the late 70’s/early 80’s I don’t recall needing a passport in the military and certainly not one as a civilian for CA or MX and a lot of other places?
That aside I don’t believe this by any means is a uniquely “American” problem. One of our local posters took her kids to Spain every summer and said the locals dread the Brit “football fans” on modest/public pensions from the U.K they called the “No Habla’s”. They couldn’t speak a WORD of Spanish and made drunken fools of themselves in public on a daily basis. Most had “cashed in” on the sale of their flats in London and were an embarrassment.
I suppose it’s a legacy that started with the Rolling Stones hiding out in France on tax-evasion and I’m sure Gary Glitter is no longer welcome in Viet Nam ( among other euro sex tourists? ) It’s a lot of the reason I’ve always scoffed at “The Ugly American” notion. IMHO.
True story: When I was visiting my British relatives back in the 1970s, they told me about a trip they’d taken to Switzerland. This was a group tour that included Americans.
Cousin Bettie just couldn’t get over how aloof those Americans were.
Arizona Slim,
As a young sailor we used to make regular stops in Singapore. There was a place ( as evil as any on THIS earth ) called Bugis Street. Everyone called it “Boogie Street”. Hash, heroin ( in abundance ) opium, hookers, TV hookers and puh-lenty of alcohol to “kick start” things off.
There were ALWAYS Australians, British, Scandanavians etc. there making TOTAL fools of themselves on a nightly basis. The Yanks were but a small minority. So of course they want to “drink you under the table” or they’ve run out of money and need to start a fight or “roll” somebody but for some odd reason it’s always the Americans that are to blame.
I didn’t buy it then and I’m not buying it now.
“There were ALWAYS Australians, British, Scandanavians etc. there making TOTAL fools of themselves on a nightly basis.”
Is there anything new to a scandanavian making complete horses ass out of himself?
Don’t they hang people who get caught with heroin, hash or opium? Heck, they flog you for spitting your chewing on the street.
exeter,
Oh… AND Canadians by the way!
…. and even more shocking is that to many vendors, shop keepers, bartenders etc. there, we ALL “look like Americans”! I mean, if they’re tall, light-skinned and speaking english… well they MUST be Americans, right?
I remember getting b!tched out by the C.O when the ship would get under way and a lot of the trouble started AFTER our “liberty” expired or no one had any knowledge of the rumble etc. The local poster we had said the British would get absolutely plowed early in the day and ’stay drunk’ their entire visit. BUT… it’s a lot easier…
kato,
“Boogie Street” was Singapore’s “dirty little open secret”. Clearly you would not leave that few square blocks with any kind of an “illegal” substance but trust me, through the late 80’s if you couldn’t find it there you couldn’t find it any where!
DinOR…you really loved the 3 hots and the cot
Good Lord. Singapore will ALWAYS be a hell hole in my mind. For the very extremes mentioned here. In much of the shopping/rest. district there’s a Sing cop every 50′ and then Boogie St. where the cops wouldn’t come ‘within’ 50′. If you got raped, robbed or rolled down there that was YOUR problem!
But obviously it bugs a lot of us to have to listen to the notion that somehow being a drunken braggart is an American “exclusive”. Any time a Yank fell in with Brit’s etc. be it for a drink or to share a cab etc. they’d always look for a way to stick you with the tab.
whats the difference between a “hooker” and a “TV hooker”?
seriously.
48 hours is too long, you shouldn’t give them more than 24. Last offer we made, we gave them 2 hours. (They were “insulted” by our low offer and didn’t respond, fortunately, since the offer was really too high. This was a year ago; the house has since been taken off the market, part of the “shadow inventory” I guess.)
“She soon defaulted on the mortgage while keeping up the car payments so she could commute to her job…”
See REIC, for the gloabalized workforce mobility trumps owning a house. Take note agents, priorities are changing…fast!
“First-time home buyers with good credit histories currently have many opportunities, said Georgia Taft Pye, president of the Plymouth and South Shore Association of Realtors.
With a 20% down payment, with a decent job, with no CC debt, with no student loan debt, etc. Pretty small pool of people.
“New Jersey may not have had the speculation-driven building boom seen in the Sunbelt, but ‘we do have a problem and it is starting to hit home,’ said James Hughes, a Rutgers University economist. He predicted housing prices in New Jersey will continue to decline and foreclosures will continue to be a problem at least until 2010.”
Are you KIDDING ME???
NJ housing prices are INSANE. Taxes are INSANE.
But we are just a 1 hour train ride from NYC…so we can price our house accordingly…
Better make sure that those jobs don’t disappear otherwise you’re an hour away with not a whole lot.
That’s not true, Faster. They’re still an hour away from a majority of the nation’s housing projects, welfare check collectors, food stamp issuers, dangerous criminals, and fashion shows.
RE: we do have a problem and it is starting to hit home,’ said James Hughes, a Rutgers University economist. He predicted housing prices in New Jersey will continue to decline and foreclosures will continue to be a problem at least until 2010.”
And this dude gets HOW MUCH MONEY? to make these brilliant, and astute prognostications? No wonder college tuition fees are runnin’ $30/$50k per year employing these ivory tower losers.
Another financial scheme developed to extort and impoverish the middle class.
Sigh. He’s probably making $150k tops. So figure he teaches 20 students a year. That’s $600k in tuition. Now assume that the classroom, office, and parking spot run $150k/year. Now you get to wonder where the other $300k/year goes ;-).
College tuition is another great scam. Unlike the housing scam, there is no way around it. You can’t rent a degree!
I can’t help thinking that some innovative soul (or souls) is going to come up with a virtual university that will undercut the h-e-double-hockey-stick out of the overpriced bricks and mortar universities.
I’m envisioning something like the medical tourism industry that’s already cropping up in various Asian countries. Only difference is that the virtual university degree can be earned from anywhere in the world. You won’t actually have to go to the campus.
Already happening. University of Phoenix Online and a number of others.
“Buyers know they are in the driver’s seat and are asking for many concessions. The seller needs to be braced and not take things personally.”
Sellers also need to be braced to understand that this buyer refuses to pay top dollar for the house, and bail the sellers out on the SUV for her, big truck for him, the toy hauler, the boat, jet skis, harley, ATVs, pool, vacations, dining out, designer clothes for the kids, electronics, enhancements for her (well maybe that), etc. that was purchased with the HELOC. Not going to happen, let the bank that was stupid enough to give you money pay for all that first and then I will negotiate with the bank for pennies on the dollar.
Or how about simply…
“seller needs to be braced” ?
Yeah I spent a ‘little’ bit of time looking at a disastrous REO yesterday just for a goof. 1920 built home in Marion Cty. OR that at one time was priced at $246,950 and now is on the block for 175k. After a scary tour of stone foundations and cobbled, challenged roofing my wife and I said: “It’s a tear down”. Sad but true.
The flipper/realtor spun off the side lot and probably made a killing then sold the home to a wannabe’ flipper that quickly found themselves in foreclosure. You couldn’t even see where any recent improvements had been made? For all I know they did their “equity skimming” up front? Yet this process was repeated time and again.
“The seller needs to be braced and not take things personally.”
A lot of sellers are ‘braced’ between a rock and a hard spot.
A 20-50% ‘haircut’ is VERY personal when it involves a radical change in lifestyle…
We’re all just one bad haircut away from humility… ;~]
To me, the word “brace” conjures up images of the military brace. Not a comfortable position to be in.
I love the stupid $7,500 “tax credit.”
Right - homes in Maryland run at about 5 times median income for any given area for a small, old, starter home. So, one can easily blow away $100,000+ from the average housing price to get a more realistic look at what it should be selling for based upon incomes. I don’t see the logic in “saving” $7,500 just so I can overspend by $100,000. Seems like the government is just involved in the “bad math” tricks to try to create more debt-people crushed under impossible mortgage payments.
Then there’s the other little fact - the “tax credit” is a LOAN that has to be paid back! Hahahaha! I love it!
well, that’s what you get when the same idiots/criminals that created the housing mess, are set to come with THEIR solution.
they free the black slaves
so they could make you all debt slaves….no discrimaination there
there is ONLY 1 solution
NWOrder
so they will tell you soon
WAKE up American’s
TURN OFFFF the TV
Well, thanks again Mike. We’ll keep that in mind.
who invited crazy Mike?
Don’t look at me!
And “crazy” Mike is dead on.
Yep, I am with you on that exeter.
he may be somewhat right, but his “craziness” detracts tremendously from the message.
plus, we don’t need some looney Dane telling us what to do. they have their own problems to focus on.
if mike takes back brigitte nielsen all is forgiven.
Until he proves she’s really of the female gender.
“Realtors are hopeful the $7,500 tax credit will spur sluggish housing sales by luring more first-time buyers into the market.
I really enjoy the use of the word ‘lure’ when they refer to spurring home sales. I guess they understand they are asking buyers to come on in and be captured and perhaps killed.
Cross my heart, this happened about 20 minutes ago. A realtor knocked on my door (driving my dogs nuts) here in Thousand Oaks, ca. When I opened it he handed me his card:
Realtor: Hi. I’m calling on people in the area who might be interested in selling or buying. As you know, the property market has started to pick up…..
Me: Actually, we rent….
Realtor: Well, that’s great because you’ve probably been waiting to get into the market and now (here it comes!) IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY.
Jeez. Will somebody pleeeeeze write to the NAR and tell them to let their members know that the phrase, “Now is a great time to buy,” has been flogged to death and does nothing but elicit a laugh. Anyways, I told him to knock on my door again around 2012.
This is one Mike who is crazy like a fox!!
Thousand Oaks RE is what about 400 per square foot ?
One question:
When is it ever a bad time to buy?
ROCKLAND! Oh God, me laugh so hard! Rockland is Brockton, ‘cept more crime!!
“‘If lenders don’t have the certainty and security of seizing a loan, they will be more hesitant of making mortgage loans,’ he said. ‘That, in the long run, will harm consumers and borrowers.’”
This to me is an excellent argument in *favor* of enacting “foreclosure moratoriums”. The fewer mouthbreathing idiots and reckless lenders I have to compete against, the better. I am not “harmed” by sane lending standards and less lax borrower qualification, I am helped by it.
Albany, moved here in 11/2007 for work, see many on homes that were on market then still for sale now. Many homes here run down and not updated, not impressed with area, way overpriced.
Albany, NY?
Re: Albany
I was in Albany, NY the other week for a wedding. As my wife and I drove through the city on the way to the church, she turned to me and said, “this city is dead”. Maybe I was just in the “wrong” part of the city.
The reception was in Saratoga Springs. I had never been there before. One big tourist trap. Again, maybe I was in the wrong part.
RE Albany NY
from Jim Knunsler-July 28th, 2008
The Coming Re-Becoming
Everywhere you turn in this nation, you see a society primed for implosion. We seem unaware how extraordinary the American experience has been, especially in the last hundred years. By this, I don’t mean that we are a better people than any other society — these days, ordinary people in the USA make an effort to appear thuggish and act surly, as though we were a nation of convicts — but for decade-upon-decade, we were very fortunate. Even the Great Depression of the 1930s may seem like a relatively peaceful and gentle “time out” from a frantic era of hypertrophic growth, compared to the storm we’re sailing into now.
We were fortunate to inhabit a New World filled with productive land, lots of minerals, and plenty of coal, oil, and gas; and the land itself was insulated physically from the great theaters of 20th century conflict, though we fought in wars “over there.” That experience itself, especially our victory over manifest evil in the Second World War, left us with a dangerous mentality of triumphal exceptionalism. Even now, we think we are immune to the epochal hazards of history. The notion that nothing really bad can happen to us is reflected in the blind cluelessness of our current news media and their simple failure to report what is now happening.
I drove up along an obscure stretch of the upper Hudson river on Sunday, starting in the old factory town of Cohoes, north of Albany, where the Mohawk River runs into the Hudson. There is a powerful waterfall there, and along the high bank the massive old red-brick Harmony Mill still stands with its Victorian towers and mansard roofs, like a vision from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Behind them are streets of red-brick, three-story worker row-housing from the same period. Today they are inhabited by a different kind of poor people, not necessarily working, and probably suffering from a sheer lack of structure in their lives as well as plain poverty of means. These are people who probably don’t follow the Bloomberg financial bulletins, and their experience of a cratering economy may only be the rising cost of cigarettes and beer.
The tattoo quotient among both men and women there is impressive. In the days when the Harmony Mill was built, only South Seas cannibals and sailors wore tattoos. You wonder: are tattoos now the only way left for this class of Americans to assert their selfhood? And what exactly are they proclaiming? I am a warrior. Or is it: I am a television (I display pictures, too) !? The expanding class of the poor-and-idle has been remarkably passive in the face of their dwindling prospects. Perhaps they passed the point years ago (a generation or two ago!) when there was any sense of sequential improvement for the family’s station-in-life. The destiny of their everyday lives must seem totally beyond their control. They are subject to the fate of distant corporations who sell the staple corn-syrup byproducts and gasoline on which daily life is based. Where government is concerned, they are all potential victims of Katrina-ism, awaiting their own personal disaster.
North of the junction of the Mohawk and Hudson was the old town of Waterford, where the Erie Canal began its journey west — bypassing those powerful waterfalls. The locks are still there and still in operation for the infrequent tanker ships and ore barges that come and go to the Great Lakes. But the operation of the canal system is automated to the extent that it requires only a handful of people to run the locks now, and the town around them has deteriorated into slum and semi-slum garnished with a few convenience stores and pizza shops. There is no other commerce there. No matter how poor, the denizens are required to drive a car to a giant chain store for groceries or hardware or clothing.
As you leave Waterford, the river road becomes a suburban corridor of 1960s-vintage ranch houses and stand-alone small retail business buildings which, if used at all now, are mostly hair salons, chiropractic studios, and other services not generally rendered by the chain stores. All this stuff was deployed along the road with the expectation that Americans would be driving cars cheaply forever. Now that this is distinctly no longer the case, corridors like this are entering their death throes. The awfulness of the design and construction of these buildings is now especially vivid as the plywood de-laminates, and the vinyl soffits fall off, and the dinge of neglect forms a patina over it all. Hopelessness infects this landscape like a miasma. Whatever young adults remain in these places are not thinking about a plausible future, only looking to complete their full array of tattoos and lose themselves in raptures of sex, methedrine, and video aggression.
Eventually, after running through the disintegrating towns of Mechanicville (once a place of earnest labor, just like it sounds, now a morass of sinking car dealerships and Quik-stops), and Stillwater (smaller version of the same), the road turned completely rural and few other cars ventured up there. The decisive Revolutionary battle of Saratoga was fought near there on the bluffs and hills overlooking the Hudson in 1777. You wonder what the heroes of that battle would think of what we have become. What would they make of the word “consumer” that we use to describe our relation to the world? What would they think of excellent river bottom-land that is now barely used for farming — or, where it is still farmed (dairying if anything), of farmers who will not even put in a kitchen garden for themselves because it might detract from their hours of TV viewing?
The sclerosis of American life is shocking. If you go further north up the Hudson River, to Fort Edward and Hudson Falls, you’ll see a nation that seems ready to crawl off and die. There, it appears too far gone to even put up a proxy fight on a video screen. Frankly, I don’t want that version of America to survive — the America of chain stores, and muscle cars, and grown men obsessed with video games, drugs, and pornography, and women decorated like cannibals, and the vast, crushing purposelessness of it all. I have no doubt we’re heading into a convulsion that will wring much of this junk and dross into the backwaters of history. We’re capable of being something better than this, of putting our time on earth to better use, including a more respectful treatment of the land we inhabit. This year and the next will be the years of letting go, and out of that we’ll commence a re-becoming.
Haven’t been here in a while, good to be back among all you feisty renting deadenders! I feel so at home…
No lie, the other day I was at the laundromat (my rental home has many amenities, but washer/drier ain’t among them) and was chatting with another, very nice, woman there. Turned out she was a real estate agent. We talked about many things and she was actually quite realistic about what was going on in the market, then got onto other subjects. As I was getting ready to leave she asked me if I owned or rented. When I said I rented, she said (wait for it), “This is a really great time for first-time buyers.”
The kicker is, she was in the process of getting out of the RE business and taking a salaried job the next week. But it’s such a reflex action to say that, they really CAN’T help themselves!!