See A Visible Tell-Tale Sign Of A Tipping Market?
What’s your housing market observation this weekend? Lot’s of open houses, even on this holiday weekend. Know of a builder incentive? From one reader, “What are the tell-tale sign of a visible tipping market in your neighborhood? For example, I’m renting in Sacramento in one of the many, many new mega-neighborhoods complete with Club House and HOA dues, etc.”
“I’m seeing lots more homes for rent and actually being occupied. What I see happening (slowly) is the people who are moving into the rentals are 1) More people per house and 2) Cars noticeably not in the same price range as other owner/occupants: BMW, MB, Volvos vs older mini-vans, beater commuter type cars”
“Not passing judgement because I drive an old(er) Nissan pick-up just wondering if this is the beginning of renters outnumbering owners.”
“I saw this happen once before in Palmdale during the mid-90s. Tumbleweeds across front yards of empty homes were a common sight. Neighborhoods became checkerboarded–beautiful lawn next to dirt lawn. Empty or rented house next to owner-occupied.”
Or how about local spending habits? “Can anyone see signs that consumers are tightening their belts. Is it happening yet where you can see it anecdotally?”
Another shared this, “Examples of surging inventories leading to louder yelps from Madison Ave –i.e. more hawking and squawking about homes for sale. I just rode in over Manhattan Bridge and saw a huuuuuuuuge sign on a building hawking Dumbo condos. Also this Century 21 ad is a sure sign of realtors realizing they have to push to sell. And you simply can’t listen to the radio anymore without someone barking about mortgages/loans. Any other local/national examples?”
One found a tax observation. “I’ve been playing around with my county assessors’ web site and my local newspapers sold homes section. For homes 700K to 1.8M sold in the last 12 months, 6% have not paid their December tax bills and 38% missed their 4-10-06 deadline. This stat was for California.”
One saw the bust in the classifieds. “I think the housing crash is right around the corner; in the car section of the online paper here in Reno, more cars and gas guzzling SUVs for sale all of a sudden, saw one, where the guy is desperate to sell his truck in a hurry-and taxes due next week. Gas hitting $3 a gal soon. I think this thing is going to blow up before summer.”
One reader from Europe had a question about the holiday. “Is Easter normally a big selling weekend for RE in the US, and if so has it been different this year?”
I just drove by an open house; the fifth straight weekend for this particular home. Just the realtors car visible, but the garage sale a block down was well attended.
Do you notice an inordinately large number of garage sales these days (I do…)? Is it a symptom of FBs trying to raise the cash to make another mortgage payment?
I don’t know if a great number of garage sales is a good indicator of anything by itself. In a booming market, I would say it means that more people are getting rid of their old crap in preparation for moving. If it is a valid indicator (FB’s as you mentioned) in a falling market, then we very nearly always have an explanation for a “higher” number of garage sales which renders it less useful as a result.
The comparison to the Open House is perhaps more useful — more people are picking through cheap stuff than pondering the possibility of making that multi-hundred-thousand dollar plunge.
I guess the question is whether there are more garage sales than usual as the bubble unravels, and if these are due to the need to raise money to cover cash flow for FBs. I am not sure I get your point about “always having an explanation for a higher number of garage sales,” as in principle, we could figure out whether there was a FB motive behind lots of these recent garage sales (although I am not about to collect the data…).
What is for sale might be more significant than the number of sales. Is there any evidence that big-ticket toys (boats, RV’s, BIG plasmas etc.) are being sold in larger numbers recently?
I recall seeing *way* more garage sales when things were booming here in Ann Arbor. I think people have them when they’re moving…c’mon, really, how much “cash” can you raise selling old toys and crap furniture? The good stuff can’t get you top dollar at a garage sale anyway. least not in the midwest I think…maybe cali though, where the rules on just about everything are different!
If you’re happily moving up or out, you hold a garage sale. If you’re screwed you take stuff to a pawn shop or something, quietly, somberly, without your neighbors looking for bargains. imho.
Yeah… I think a fluctation in garage sales is due to typical seasonal activity. Does it make sense to have one in January?
Stucco - An “increase in garage sales” indicates to this humble Blog participant that it is officialy Spring time.
Yes! This weekend here in Reno there are 32 garage sales, last year at this time, maybe 10 if you were lucky. I also noticed more vacant homes, with no signs or listings - sitting empty for more than 2 months. More of this to come when flippers run out of time and money.
I think people are just realizing that having lots of stuff does not equal happiness.
Did you notice any hardly used stainless steel appliances, lighting or plumbing fixtures for sale?
It may be an indicator that people are not flocking to the malls or nearest home improvement store. They’re staying at home and finding things to do - like clean out the garage.
Is it a symptom of FBs trying to raise the cash to make another mortgage payment?
No, they are lightening the personal possession load, so they can load everything in the car and a U-Haul trailer, when put the keys on the counter and bail in the middle of the night.
This might be a stretch, but…
The local fishwrap had a front page article on how the southern portion of the county has risen 40% y-o-y. I live in an area that thinks it is particularly bullet-proof when it comes to housing prices. Keep in mind, the southern portion of my county is one of the prime meth areas of the nation, and is usually considered the poorest and most uneducated part of the county.
You might ask how that is a sign of the top. I would ask you to remember November of 1999 and the NAZ. It went up 30%+/- PER MONTH!!! The top was just a few weeks away.
When craziness just can’t get any crazier, it is a good sign of the top.
Well, besides the increasing inventory and 50K price drops every 2-4 weeks and properties on the market for over 200 days, here’s the thing that to me is very telling:
The MLS lists in Seattle are going out of control with de-listing properties and then re-listing with a new MLS #, new pics, new (reduced) price- thrown back on the market in a week with the tag “New on Market!!!”
The increase in deception in the past few months (this hardly happened in the Fall), indicates to me a new desperation is setting in.
‘The MLS lists in Seattle are going out of control with de-listing properties and then re-listing with a new MLS #, new pics, new (reduced) price- thrown back on the market in a week with the tag “New on Market!!!”’
That should at least help Realtors (TM) keep that “average time to sell a home” down to an acceptably but speciously low figure…
Question: Do the Truth-in-Advertising laws relate to real estate at all?
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/ad-faqs.htm
BayQT~
Bay QT- thankyou for that link. I read (okay, skimmed) through it and it looks like the RE industry could wiggle out of this notion of “truth in advertising” pretty easily.
So how can they be held accountable for the obvious misinformation on the MLS list?
And why in the world should anybody take any of their “statistics” as true when/if it’s easy (and legal!) for them to manipulate the baseline that they’re developing the stats from?
Please: Any realtors on this thread who know what the laws are (if any) regarding the MLS?
Or is it really, like it looks, a total free for all where anybody can re-list as new, roll DOM’s back to 1 day, etc.
In Seattle , I’ve seen properties rolled back to “1 day” not just once, but 2 times.
And it DOES make the market look hotter than it is to the buyer. So they get to keep up the “get ‘em while they’re hot” mantra a bit longer. And in the process screw more and more unsuspecting people who are unaware that the market has cooled considerably from last Fall.
Considering that this RE market is poised for a HUGE dump, it would seem like somebody ought to be held accountable for outright consumer deception. A lot of people are getting dragged into buying in a falling market because of the lies. Isn’t that unfair to those buyers?
Do realtors have any ethical guielines by which they HAVE to abide? Or does anything go?
Please, any realtor on the list: Enlighten us.
Lawsuit in Glendale, Ca where MLS posted similar untruthful DOM. Don’t know result. Does anyone know?
Buyers are not misled by DOM, only Dataquick and NAR reports are skewed.
Buyers’ realtors always look at the property history to see how many expired listings there are, and add up the DOM for each listing. In CA, you can’t pull off a listing and relist it the next day; you have to keep it off the market 30 days. If you let it expire, you can relist the next day.
in AZ u need to keep it off mkt for 90 days to get it to reset to ZERO
Thats a good rule to keep the MLS from becoming like Craigslist.
Where I live they have seasons with/ without leaves. It is hylarious to see new listings in January with nice green leaves, or in june with snow.
Seattle Price Drop: Sorry, no realtor. But I’m surprised you take those MLSs as fact. I’ve always considered them “marketing”, not a legal document. They are so “Buyer Beware”.
We’ve been told and found to be true to check out everything….go down to your tax office, find out about lot size. These are often wrong. You might discover easements too you won’t be happy with. Or that the line of trees you thought were yours really belong to your neighbors. Tax info on those sheets is very often dated on purpose. Many home characteristics are a joke. IE our home listed air conditioning. Our air conditioner had been purchased 15 years before when the home was built yet it was never run or maintained. It was essentially a piece of junk that we had to pay to get off our property! The deck the MLS sheet trumpeted was not up to code to the point that our insurance wouldn’t grant us coverage until we got it fixed. In other words, they included it in the value of the home but it was a tear down. (luckily my husband was in construction and knew this when we were dickering)
Each state has its own “code of ethics” for its licensed real estate agents.
In my area, the regional MLS covers four states and Washington, D.C.; it is privately run and funded using fees paid by licensed real estate agents, so it is not monitored by state agencies.
Each regional MLS is different. The MLS for my area when I was an agent back in 2002 had two fields for “days on market.” One field showed the total days on market for the property during the past 6-12 months (I can’t remember the exact number), even if the listing had expired or had been withdrawn. The other field showed only the days on market for the new listing of the property.
In my area, the buyer should always ask for the FULL LISTING REPORT, which shows both: total days on market for the property during the past 6-12 months, and days on market for the new listing.
The MLS has employees who audit listings for inaccuracies (and other agents can report inaccurate listings to the MLS). The MLS fines agents for repeated or uncorrected inaccuracies in listings, and I think they report agents who consistently abuse the system. The state is responsible for investigating the agent, which may lead to a suspended license.
I have noticed the same thing. I have been tracking about 40 homes in the Seattle area. They disappear for a month or so and then come back with a new MLS and a lower price. I track by address so this scam is obvious. The smell is overpowering….
The other thing is that I woke up at 5am today and watched TV for a half an hour and found rampant “road to riches with RE” shows. I couldn’t believe it. The channels were dripping with flipper infomercials. It was sad, funny, and ultimately…disgusting. I finally got to see the “fuel” for the insanity the past few years “doing its thing”. Last call boils down to “you want it bad, you get it bad”. And bad it shall be.
I give Seattle until fall before “the fall”. I predict several “dead cat” bounces between now and the fall with all the cheerleaders pointing and saying “see, see, we told you, it ONLY GOES UP! And the fools shall rush in…
I am renting and biding my time. The biggest bubble in history will soon be just that….
Anyone remeber Tom Vu?
He was the short, pudgy, pidgeon-English speaking Vietnamese guy that would pimp his “seminar” from yachts, while being flanked by really hot white chicks in string bikinis.
Tom Vu, an American icon of the early ’90s.
I have a good friend who works at a hotel-resort in Huntington Beach who told me that Tom Vu was booted out of the hotel last year.
Apparently, he claimed he was Jesus, and was throwing hundred dollar bills around like they were gumsticks.
My friend found out he’d escaped from his halfway house, and his family had been looking for him. He was off his meds, apparently.
Sounds like an interesting fellow.
Yeah he’s related to my brother in law turned flipper, Juan Vu. Says we are special in the Inland Empire, Ca. Prices will only still continue to rise unlike other areas and the market is just ‘correcting itself’. What a crock of sheeat.
Does anyone know what happened in the suit by a buyer in Glendale, Ca where the MLS DOM were deceptive due to relistings ect???
YES!! Good one Pismobear! Can we follow up on this??! Lordy, I really want to get to the bottom of this crap. It’s just too wierd to willfully manipulate info like this.
Bear & Drop;…..On our MLS the listing provides a complete history of the property being listed or sold….No covering up days on the market on our board…
Email spam for Viagara has been completely supplanted by ones for low mortgage rates
Hmmm…I cannot help to think that FBs are the target audience of both.
That’s because there’s a viagra shortage. A truckload of the stuff tipped over into the Cheasapeake Bay. Now there’s no more soft crabs.
I slay me….
Scroll to the bottom of Patrick’s Bay Area Crash blog to see a cool graph of the average over the 100 most recent Bay Area Craigslistings…
http://patrick.net/housing/crash.html
It suggests that the average has trended down from $690K to $640K over 14 days (and usually one would expect prices to go up over this period, as the highest prices in a normal year are during the peak late spring sales season…).
I would love to see something of this nature for SD, NYC, Miami, etc.
In Reno, 89 octane gas is already over $3/gallon at many stations.
FWIW, over the past 6 months or so I am seeing houses in my subdivision that appear to have been “abandoned”. Newspapers in the driveways, lawns unmowed this season. Not too many yet, but there’s one just three houses down from me. Nice two-story house, built around 1996. Yet I haven’t seen one For Sale sign in my subdivision. How long for the foreclosure process before the bank attempts to sell?
Houses are cheap here. I think what happened is lower income people qualified for these houses using ARMs with no money down, and now that interest rates are going up they can’t afford the payments. Unlike CA, we never had the appreciation so these homeowners couldn’t refi to get the cash.
I think in the long run this will be good for my neighborhood since the people who really shouldn’t have bought a house in the first place will be weeded out and we’ll have more stable neighbors.
BTW, here’s the house.
Since our landlord here in Colorado Springs is selling our rental out from under us, I had to find another place recently. My tour of rentals was telling. I looked (with no intention of biting) at a few “rent to owns” that had flipper-stink all over them — poorly kept up and the new owners had made minimal improvements. One, in a nice neighborhood, had sat empty for months and had either been completely trashed by the previous occupants or (as a neighbor told me) vandalized by local neighborhood kids no doubt inspired by their parent’s disparaging comments about the flipper-owner’s poor judgement in selecting tenants or making sure the place was kept up (it was an eyesore among the well-tended yards and houses on the block). I blasted the owner and told him no respectable tenant wants to deal with such a disreputable/indifferent landlord, especially at that price range ($1500/mo).
The only quality rentals were those owned by Air Force officers who were deploying overseas with their families, but wanted to eventually retire in Colorado Springs, and a very few conscientious owners who hired reputable property management companies. We finally found a great place at a good price, and will happily park ourselves there for the next 12-18 months and watch the housing bubble implode all around us.
Here is Seattle there are many SFH rentals and most of the ones we saw were disgusting. Soiled carpets, loose or missing fixtures, bad smells, rotting fences, etc. In other words, you could tell nobody had lived there or if they had, they had trashed the place. They simply didn’t give a flip (sorry, couldn’t resist). One place even included a vintage pile of dog poop in the basement. You can just hear the realtor, “cute home, needs TLC and incense” (AND A BIG JUG OF CLOROX!!!)
These “flip flops” are an eyesore and if they represent the flipper legacy, then the flippers are a cancer. God I’ll be glad when this is over.
“Greed is good”….Ivan Boesky (flipper God)
Looks familiar… there are quite a few empty houses (pre-own and new-build) where I live, or at least there are now that I’ve been looking at houses… many empties in new-build developments, gives the area a sci-fi-disaster feel, and that’s not common here in Ohio.
One other thing I saw today; a for-sale sign in front of an *occupied* house in a new-build development that couldn’t be more than a year old. Was it payments, the neighborhood, or something else? Dunno, but they want out now.
Our neighbor is moving overseas for two years and plans to leave his house vacant. There are some weird vacant homes here in Northern VA, too. One of them is a former model home. I suspect that the owners are confident in their recent equity gain and don’t think they have to rent it or otherwise occupy it.
Arwen,
Please let me know your neighbor’s address so my family can squat there rent-free ;-). I’m kidding of course (or am I ???).
How long for the foreclosure process before the bank attempts to sell?
Depends on who holds the mortgage and how logistically squared away they are.
Small local banks are usually right on top of the situation with the process runnin’ 6 months to a year.
Big banks and mortgage wholesalers are pretty screwed up. The work-out dept’s have been overtaken by females who don’t have a freakin’ clue. They can take over a year.
Government guarantee agencies aka FHA, VA HUD are the worst. Years can pass. Saw a 5+ year house virtually destroyed by mold because the VA failed to winterize an abandonment which caused the plumbing/heating pipes to burst, flooding the basement. Over the next couple of years the mold grew and rotted the interior of the house from the inside out, ruining it.
Your tax dollars at work.
In Ca, when a home is in foreclosure there is a red notice on the front door, usually. During the NOD (Notice of Default) there is no evidence, but if the NOD isn’t cleared by payment, then the foreclosure process starts. BTW, nice looking home. Has some style.
SD ziprealty inventory is steadily growing like a slow California landslide…
Greater SD = 18859 homes on 4/15/06
Only 421 more homes are needed to reach the July 1995 level of 19,280 (but if you added in FSBOs, Craigslistings, etc., I am guessing we are already there…)
Stucco;…19,280 as a percentage of SD population in 1995 & now 2006 ??
I doubt if San Diego’s population has grown much at all.
I got a call from a buddy two nights ago trying to raise cash to try and save a condo development he is trying to build in the upper midwest. It seems he has HELOC’d or refi’d his home and property rentals to the tune of about 1.5Mil which he has already spent on the soft costs of this project. The bank wants 30 units presold before the 1st phase can be built and he only has sold 15 (250k/unit) after a year of marketing. The carrying costs are eating him up apparently. I did a development further south from him a couple of years ago and he was looking for some input on cash flow strategies, needless to say I don’t think he liked what I had to say about my take of what is going on. Anyway, I gathered from the conversation that some of the money held in escrow from the 15 presales was able to be used to offset interest charges on bank loans. I didn’t want to get into whether he was actually pulling these funds to do this or not (I still am shaking my head over the bank allowing this). So, he has basically used his home and rentals to collateralize this project that is soon to go BK, if I’m reading the tea leaves correctly. Also, he may be indebted further by the use of these escrowed funds and subordinated land, but I don’t know for sure. I do know that there is no way out regardless of the loan situation without further large expenditures. I have another guy I know, former business partner, in the same situation a few hundred miles south only worse off, if that is possible.
This fall is going to be a bloodbath for sure.
I gathered from the conversation that some of the money held in escrow from the 15 presales was able to be used to offset interest charges on bank loans.
“Pat, I’d like to buy a vowel?”:
P_NZ_ SCH_M_
Can he legally use the funds in escrow? I thought that that money was untouchable until the contract’s obligations were met, or someone “broke” the contract. Can someone clarify this? Thanks!
Stupid, stupid, stupid. If the money is truly escrowed, taking it for any other purpose is illegal. In my previous real estate dealings, I always made escrow deposites to the title company.
I wouldn’t be trying it yet, but this is the sort of situation where a bottom feeder with cojones can get some bucks. Basic idea is to negotiate a “ridiculous” deal which allows the developer to just get out with a whole skin.
For example, how would your buddy respond if (s)he was offered, say, $2M for 20 units with half now half on completion and a guaranteed 5-year exemption from HOA? If that upfront $1M cash injection gets the whole deal over the line you might have a deal.
My buddy offered me a “two for one” deal if I would pay them the whole amount on the every unit ordered and allow them to use the money during construction (bank interest, whatever). The risk is that they are never built. So there you have it. I’m sure that my buddy will extend that offer to anyone who has the inclination. I believe something like you propose above would be seriously looked at as well.
Sonofabitch. Here I was talking pure hypotheticals, and you’ve been offered an actual deal in the same ballpark :o!!
If I lived in the US within daytrip range of that project, and if I was allowed to take a real good look at both the financial and constructional state of play, I might take a flyer. If the apartments actually got built you could always live in one and take whatever you could get in rent for the other.
But I’m 5000 miles away and I don’t know the developer (and $US250K would be a very large chunk of my net worth; certainly an amount I couldn’t afford to lose).
I think I’ll pass.
ajh;…are you smelling a little blood pal ??
Dee dum … dee dum …
Everybody wants to be a developer….Its easy money, right ??
hehehe…Deja Vu for the crash of ‘89 thru ‘91…
Here are some ads for rentals in the Brookfield subdivisions in Cornville, AZ. There are some pictures of this project in the slideshow this weekend. Be sure and refresh your brouser when you view the pictures.
Available 5/1 (probably still being constructed) 3br 2ba new home. 2,135 sq ft pets welcome w/dep Brookfield Montara $1,540/mo
Verde Santa Fe new La Privida Biella 3br 2.5 ba 2,200 sq ft Granite counter tops, Lease/purchase $1,600/mo ( he’s dreaming)
Verde Santa Fe New Amante 3 br 2 ba Every upgrade Lease purchase $1,600/mo
The last two were right next to each other in the paper, and the writing is so similar that one person probably ownes both. These houses are for sale for between $350-550k.
Hah! Truly dreaming. It’s out in the middle of freakin’ nowhere. What a joke.
this won’t help.
Mortgage Rates at Highest in Nearly 4 Yrs.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060413/ap_on_bi_ge/mortgage_rates;_ylt=Ajxdw7s2dpEdsNHDSfFsyHUDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBhZDhxNDFzBHNlYwNtZW5ld3M-
I added this question to the post; from a reader in Europe:
‘Is Easter normally a big selling weekend for RE in the US, and if so has it been different this year?’
I recall a few stories here of Open Houses over Christmas, which is right off the graph.
Easter is always at a different part of the spring, so I don’t think that any generalizations about inventory &c would be as valid as something like The Start Of Spring.
Here in Northern VA, it looks like most of the open houses were held today, although I expect to see some tomorrow. Most people in this area tend to go to church and make big meals for family (my eggs are pickling now) and I don’t expect it will be a big weekend for sales. Spring break for students also falls around this time of year - I know we will be travelling to visit family on vacation and not house shopping.
Hi Ben,
I actually will be in Europe during May, but I live about as far from there as it’s possible to get and still be on planet Earth :D.
The reason I asked the question is that here in Australia Easter is also incorporated into the first term school holidays. It just struck me that this sort of break during spring (which of course here it isn’t :)) would be a logical time for house hunting.
Right, sorry, I got you mixed up with the poster who also uses three initials for a screen name.
I would think that any holiday weekend that brings families together leads to more discussions around the table. This year’s Easter dinner real estate discussions will be more sedate than years past. This in turn spills over to the water cooler tomorrow.
This might be a little old - but I don’t recall seeing it in here or in the on line version of the SD Tribune. I think Mr. Burns in spot on with his timing. http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060409/news_1h09sandiego.html
…is spot on… Rats!
I’m starting to see “the perfect storm” more in articles like these.
And not just a sudden squawl either… The larger economic “Perfect Storm” has been builing, I fear, for close to two decades in some respects.
Don’t forget the sign flippers!!
I have “literally” (MAD TV sketch) seen 3 flippers at 3 opposite corners at a 4-way light here in Sacramento. I did like the variety in styles though: a younger girl with a killer cheerleading routine, an older guy doing an old skool hula style swing-and-shuffle and a real older guy kinda just shakin’.
Are they the “mimes” of the 2000s?
Start packing a camera! It’s raining AGAIN today in Silicon Valley so I’m not making my rounds at intersections where I know there’s the possibility of seeing three or four twirlers for as many different condo-farms. I’ve been trying to get a picture of that for weeks.
Cabin;…There are a couple out by the great mall in Milpitas on the corner near Dave & Busters…DR Horton project….
If the local utility companies could figure out a way to generate power from all those ceaselessly spinning signs, we wouldn’t need any more windmill farms.
oh geez, we have these people now too; there has been a furniture store which keeps a guy dressed in an Uncle Sam outfit on a busy local road… wasn’t too long ago that they all looked like homeless people, but now we have the ‘outfits’. Haven’t seen this for real estate… come to think of it, I *have* seen the planes with the ad banners for RE agents; usually they only come out on football Sundays, but not it just takes a sunny day.
If I can pack my cam at the right time of day, I’ll get a pic of this Uncle Sam guy.
In past years, virtually no listings came on the market the week before Easter, as both buyers and sellers are preoccupied Easter weekend. This year, listings, at least in the DC area, are actually rising before Easter.
I see many open houses this weekend. One would think these folks have family to visit, etc.
Next weekend should be a doozy for unattended open houses!
My mother in law related a story about a friend of hers. The friend just sold a house they could only get $900,000, they paid $1million two years ago. A 10% haircut. It was on Long Island.
If you factor in real inflation (about 8-9%, unlike the cooked Fed “hedonic” inflation rates) it was truly a Red Cross de-lousing haircut.
They were lucky to get that much … they must be relieved despite the paper loss
am in west sonoma county,ca. iinventory way up,dom way up, some small price reductions,ARMS and i/o loans very popular here for several years,so will get ugly soon,i’m a loan broker…just the small drop in prices and rise in rate makes it impossible for many to refi or break even on a sale.
i’m a loan broker
Bought yourself some body armour yet?
http://tinyurl.com/qrork
The above url is to a listing for rural property near Bellingham, WA. It came to my attention because the realtor has a sign on the street corner that looks like something from a used car lot - various neon colors with a bunch of info on it all crammed together, the price (just the numbers 450 to indicate the price, not even a dollar sign) a phrase that says something like “become a millionnare” - I guess that means if you buy this $450k rural WA property you will become a millionnare!?
There is a diiferent corner also in a rural area near the above mentioned sign with several RE signs pointing in various directions. (I need to get my digital camera up and running.)
Anyway, I’ve been tracking total inventory of all kinds (res, manu, land, comm…) for the entire county from one of the local realtor sites:
01/04/06 1,951
04/15/06 2,610
Looks to me like there are more & just slightly better places to choose from this year compared to last for the same money - but prices are still quite bubbly (thank goodness we didn’t buy last year - found Patrick.net & Ben’s blog instead!).
BTW, thanks Ben and all the great posters on this blog who offer vaired opinions on things, as well as cordiality and amazing humor.
I’ve been tracking the 98225 zip in Belingham for just a couple months. On April 6 it was at 146, on April 14 at 254 (SFH and condos).
Happy to see your stats start in Jan., was wondering about that.
Once they quit lying about the market in Seattle, it’s going to unravel quick here. Or , I don’t know, it may unravel quick here even if they NEVER quit lying about the Seattle market!
Hard to hide an inventory that practically doubles in one week.
Construction BOOM in Pittsburgh
It’s a 1 paragraph article. I don’t know who they’re building thses for. We keep losing pop… We also tend to be slow in picking up trends.
OK, here’s an odd observation: we have several new (in past 3-5 years ) real estate offices here. One of them has pictures of homes for sale on windows, and when you walk past they USED to start playing audi descriptions of homes for sale. It stopped sometime during last few months. It was incredibly annoying, but for years, they would shout out descriptions of homes. Not anymore.
More Condos in Dwtn Pittsburgh - From a 1st Time Investor
They are fools. They are converting office space into condos. Dwtn is open 9-5pm. People will not go there to shop. They work, go home. These Richard Florida followers don’t have a clue. Jobs, then cool people. Jobs, then housing will “appear”.
Today, the temperature in Washington, D.C. got up to nearly 90 degrees. It was a nice day, but a little warm to open the sunroof. I did notice a tremendous amount of Denalis, Hummers, Escalades, and Navigators that had all 4 windows down. Seeing one, I would pass it off as someone who likes warm weather. After paying $3.09/gallon to fill up my car, I chalk it up to people having trouble keeping up with rising costs and pinching pennies where they can.
They didn’t see the mythbusters episode.
It is more efficient to keep the windows up and run the AC than to lower the windows and increase drag.
Although I’m sure it depends on the speed of the vehicle. Not generating much drag sitting at a stop light.
As I was driving around today, I noticed quite a few of the more expensive homes in our little town (pop. 6000) had gone on the market in the past week. Two acquaintances just this week put on their $750-1 mil homes. $1mil home is 20 acres w/lots of lakefront, 4000 sqft home….it’ll be high compared to others that are already on. Other is not on lake but on end of McMansion cul de sac, 5000 sq ft builder’s home. Horrible lot w/backyard overlooking a main road…very small plot of land and no privacy at all.
I also noticed a lot of the smallest homes in our community were going on too. A lot of people here just move to other homes in community but the 4000 sq ft lakefront is going back to Fla where his business is. Nothing at all going on w/homes in my price point. No competition…no showings.
I do have to say though….many things I’ve read on this blog make me wonder if we should just be staying. We had hoped to get to a less “materialistic” neighborhood as it was not our style and not what we wanted kids to grow up thinking was important. But maybe some of these people will be taken down a notch. Also found some 3 bedrm rentals in target town…$1500/mo…..way, way higher than my present mortgage for 1/2 the sq footage. And no tax write offs. A huge mistake!
Sounds like Palm Beach County as far as materialism is concerned! I don’t know of a town here with 6,000 people though. The building continues here as the inventory grows and grows!
The area I moved from isn’t selling . I have been tracking 5 listings from this area and they have been sitting for 5 months . The lady who lived across the street from me listed her house for 939K. She has 200 square feet more than I had , yet she wants 239K more than I sold for a year ago .I can’t believe how these people refuse to lower the prices . My old area is aout 40 miles from downtown L.A.
Human nature. If you watch Deal or No Deal you’ll see it in action almost every game. Once the contestant gets to a certain $ amount and then gets an offer that is lower they stop thinking clearly and try desperately to get back what they once “had”.
People in these homes have mentally adjusted to “having” a certain amount of value in their house. It’s going to take a hard slap in the face to make them accept otherwise.
I’ve had been after my brother - a pretty level headed fellow - to sell his condo for 2 years now. He finally put it up for sale this past winter just as prices started to fall. He had to list it for 50-70k less than he would have just a few months earlier and had a hard time accepting the fact. I had to convince him that tho he didn’t get the home run he wanted, he still got a triple and better take it before it turns into a single.
“I’m seeing lots more homes for rent and actually being occupied. What I see happening (slowly) is the people who are moving into the rentals are 1) More people per house and 2) Cars noticeably not in the same price range as other owner/occupants: BMW, MB, Volvos vs older mini-vans, beater commuter type cars”
Hmmmmmmmmmm….
Perhaps the observer got it wrong:
I PRESUME the beater cars are owned by the NEW OWNERS of the tract houses (because it took quite a sacrifice to buy at the overinflated prices)… and the BMW’s, Volvo’s, MB’s are owned by the RENTERS (because they are paying market rate, and still have money left over to purchase stuff)??
Snicker Snicker….
I just drove around my neighborhoos today. There are so many buildings still going up, its shocking. There may be a slowdown in buulding starts but where I sit, there is not end in sight to the building going on. The contruction trade here must still be booming.
Simmsays…
Wackiest Products for Your Dog
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I notice on Realtor.com, for the entire zip code where I’m looking, literally every house has the special “Showcase!” heading. Last year only a handful would have that special heading, a real special house or a cream puff. Now the whole zip code is a “Showcase!”
showcase listings on realtor.com . the brokers or agents have to pay more for using the showcase listings. they pay for a certian level of service on realtor .com. when i sold my house that was explained to me by my realestate agent, because i complained about my listing on realtor.com did not look as good as some others with the showcase listing. the house i sold last aug is listed on realtor.com. #252858 i sold it for $225,000 and the flipper put it right back on for $269,000 and it is now lowered to $249,000. it has been on the market for 8 months now. i can feel the pain of his $1600.00 month payments for a 2bd/1bth no garage home built in 1963. i am renting a new 3/2 for $875.00 just waiting to buy.
Wait a couple of years and you can get your old house back for under a 100K.
Auger you and I think alike. I’ve been telling people for the last few years to sell their houses and they’ll be able to buy them back with improvements for less a few years down the road. I’m starting to get the ’should’ve listened to you” comments now and I can’t wait to read / hear about someone who buys back their old house for less than they sold it for.
That would be assuming that people knew how to take care of things. Too often here I see people just trade in for a new one instead of put any money into upkeep at all. A co-worker of hub is thinking of moving now that the roof is getting older and a few other things need to be done.
i dont want it back even at $100,000. so california is a septic leach field. nw arizona is where it is at for me. no traffic and clean air.
Sonoma’s inventory (95476&95442) according to GMAC has hit 285 listings.
Last year 471 properties were sold
Last week the number of houses sold were: 3
I’d say the following quote from NY’s Sojo Journal is a possible sign of trouble:
“In the Hamptons, the up to $750,000 market is the new entry level for home buying. Even local landscapers who are not yet legal can find that kind of money”.
http://www.sohojournal.com/Show_Story.cfm?StoriesID=185
That is infuriating on so many levels.
While the landscapers may be crowding in together to buy $750,000 homes, others are quietly leaving. The Hamptons is nothing but a fashion statement and by definition, fashions get dated.
When it becomes common knowledege that homeowners who bought out there in the last 3-4 years are watching their property values spiral down, owning in the Hamptons will know longer be the in thing or smart thing to do.
A couple of people we know made the mistake of buying last spring & summer before selling and have not been able to sell. They are each carrying their original 30 year loans, extremely large home equity loans which they needed when making their recent home purchases and have ARMs on the new homes.
They each have made price reductions several times and there have been no offers. Not even lowball offers. They are getting extremely agitated.
One of them states “we know our price is right”, there just aren’t any buyers at our end of the market.
Garage sales are mostly a sign of spring; A lot of work to make a couple hundred bucks usually; the reward is more in the getting rid of stuff. Enough to help for one month’s shortfall, but then what?
What I would be watching is the volume of classified ads/etc for bigger toys for sale: Boats, Jet Skis, Motorcycles, and to a lesser extent ’status’ cars/SUVs for sale.
I say lesser for cars because I would suspect that many people in the FB position have leased vehicles (lowest payment being all they care for), and only one car they need to get to work in. Not owning the car, they’ll probably be going back to the dealer/leasing agency first to turn the car in and get something cheaper.
Heh.. Just realized that FB’s trying to find a buyer for their H2/ C-class / whatever, and probably in for resale value shock. With the job the auto industry has done in the last few years to get eveyone into a new car, residual values have probably taken a good hit across the board.
Santa Clara, Ca….(Silicon Valley)…We have bounced between 50 to 90 houses for the past 1 1/2 years….This for a town of 100,000.
A balanced market would probibly be 175 houses…1991 total was around 500…Cureently; 82
wait… you have 82 houses for sale? or 82 houses sold?
82 houses for sale in a town of 100k is not even a drop in the bucket.
In sonoma… just the town… think barely over 9000 people we have 285 for sale…. of actual residences… existing residences… this does not count all the new houses in the new subdivisions or land for sale.
Athena;…82 for sale….Extreamly low inventory has helped hold prices….
From today’s Chicago Tribine:
“People work their whole lives and save, save, save, but buying a home and living in it will make them more money than anything else they do.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/yourmoney/sns-yourmoney-0416spending,1,5790626.story
Portland Mainer, that book upon which the Allentown Morning Call did a story,(and subsequently the ChiTrib bottom fed on) was written in 2003.
The Automatic Millionaire : A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich by David Bach (Hardcover - Dec 30, 2003)
Which is arguably may be a sign of the tipping point - big media, who oughta be ashamed, dipping waaaaaay back to get anyone urging people to buy a house, especially like this article did -with a low-down risky mortgage (or should I say lowdown mortage).
Two mile drive from highway to destination in New Hampshire - I counted 24 “for sale” or “for rent” signs.