‘Facing The Hard Reality’ In Fresno
The Fresno Bee reports on the bursting housing bubble. “The number of existing homes sold in the Fresno/Clovis area fell in March to 692 from 824 the same month last year, a drop of 16%. More than 3,000 houses are for sale in the Fresno area, which gives buyers more choice. Real estate agents say they are having trouble persuading sellers to lower prices to better compete.”
“‘I see a lot of discounting,’ said (realtor) Ron Thomas in Fresno. ‘We are in a buyer’s market.’”
“Jody and Debbie Rosen bought their ‘perfect’ house last May. Now, after being transferred to Atlanta, they are discovering that even perfection is difficult to sell. The Rosens beat out two other offers to buy the two-story house almost a year ago for $499,000.”
“This time, things are different. The Rosens, who bought a house in Atlanta and are carrying two mortgages, lowered the asking price twice from $569,000 to $535,000, and their real estate agent wants them to shave off an additional $10,000. A sale at $525,000 would net a 5% gain, but fees and commissions would eat most, if not all, of it.”
“‘My big fear is that the prices will keep going down and we won’t be able to sell it,’ said Debbie Rosen, who said an offer at $525,000 would receive serious consideration.”
“‘The market hasn’t found itself,’ said Katrina Harman, the agent trying to sell the Rosens’ house. ‘It’s frustrating for people. They want to catch appreciating value.’”
“The Rosens’ house is competing with at least seven other houses under $529,950, Harman said. ‘They need to price their house with the competition..Pricing too high and waiting for the market to reach one’s price does not work in this real estate market,’ she said.”
“Houses are coming up for sale faster than they are being sold, values are not climbing at the same rate and sellers are facing the hard reality of having to cut prices to compete. A day picked at random, last Wednesday, revealed that 125 listings came onto the market, 64 sellers lowered their prices and 62 houses went into escrow. Prices aren’t likely to climb much when the number of houses being listed for sale outpaces those being sold by 2-1.”
“Thomas said the real estate market has simply returned to normal, which is good for buyers. ‘We probably have never had a more friendly market for real estate than we now enjoy. We have a large inventory of new and resale houses, we have a mortgage infrastructure which is literally pouring money into the market with offers of 90% and 100% loans, 40- and 50-year loans, interest-only loans and more things every day,’ he said.”
“‘There is no market in which everyone is going to be happy,’ he added.”
Thanks to the reader who sent this link in!
They need to price their house with the competition…
No, they need to price their house below the competition.
Supply is obviously outpacing demand. At what price do you think the two would match right now? 10% drop? 15% drop?
Considering that fantastic houses that sold in Fresno for $250K just 5-6 years ago now go for $700K, I think the more important question is what local wages will support.
Fresno is fundamentally a farm town (grapes, raisins, peaches, etc.) with dank foggy winters and broiling summers. It has always had high unemployment and high car theft rates. It and other Central Valley towns became the darlings of coastal investors, along with Vegas, Reno, and Phoenix, but NOTHING will prevent future uncontrolled growth. (It’s the land of overnight cookie cutter subdivisions, allowed by politicians with greased palms.)
I myself wouldn’t buy in Fresno or other flawed second-tier cities for at least 3-5 years.
Don’t forget all the Hmong vs. Hispanic vs. Crips/Bloods gang dust-ups and “wilding.” Suburbistan at its worst.
Can some please splain to me WHY THE F**K IT WAS NECESSARY TO BUY ANOTHER HOUSE BEFORE THEY SOLD THE ONE THEY HAD!!!! And WHERE IS IT WRITTEN THAT YOU WILL NOT LOSE MONEY WHEN YOU SELL? This gets more irritating by the day.
Thank you!
They are fools.
Along with the 5 W’s they must teach journalist students to never ask the most obvious questions. Case in point. Why doesn’t the writer ask Debbie why she thinks her house is worth $25,000 more than it was just a year ago.
I will answer that for you: California real estate always goes up in price. That was altogether too obvious for the jounalist to bother putting into print
Debbie thought it was worth $70,000 more than a year ago. They were forced to lower it twice allready and it’s likely they ain’t done yet.
Because inflation is 3.1% and houses have been appreciating at double-digit rates for the last five years.
No, wait, sorry. You asked why it WAS worth $25K. Yeah, you got me, I dunno.
or $70,000 for that matter
These are the people who will lead the market down. Something has to give when you are paying mortages on two homes, neither of which you can really afford to buy, while watching the market price of both steadily decline…
Hold on my friends! They bought the house *almost* a year ago, but the job transfer happened 5 months later. LESS than a year and they wanted to boost the price by $70K. But here’s the deal….what they and others are trying to do (along with make a pretty penny) is have the buyer pick up the 6% that it will cost to sell the damn house. The nerve. Nice dream….wrong market to try it in.
Regarding buying another house before one is sold….I wish I knew but I see/hear stories like this all the time. Here’s another question: So, ok…his job is transferring them to ATL…WHY can’t they RENT until they get a feel of the area and neighborhoods BEFORE they plunck down $$ they really can’t spare?? I’m assuming they can’t spare it or they wouldn’t be stressin’ over lowering the asking price. Perhaps they have kids….come on! A LOT of us grew up in apartments (my sister and I did until Dad bought a house when I was 16!) so it’s not like it’s a given that one must have a house to properly raise their children. I’m not trying to pick a fight with anyone here or lurkers who are thinking or doing that…only to say that it’s not impossible to do, and your children won’t necessarily suffer from it (as some may think). IMO, the order of action should have been..put house on market, look for rental in ATL, land a lease and rent…in the meantime, the house can go through whatever gyrations it needs to to sell. The money they could save on the lower rent cost versus the higher ATL monthly mortgage could have gone towards the RE fees and closing.
Sheesh! How difficult is that to figure out?
BayQT~
My point exactly. But people are unbelieveably spoiled and they want what they want and they want it NOW. So suffer the consequences.
I’m with ya on that, TXchick.
BayQT~
It is so frustrating to me to. I post on a moms’ message board and many are buying homes. I try to warn people to sell first in this market, and they agree, but then they still buy the new house first anyway. Usually they just ‘fall in love’ with a new house before getting around to listing the current one. Arg.
Talk about wearing your heart on your sleeves…no wonder the divorce rates are going up…everyone falls in love too easily…
Yes, America, it’s perfectly normal to have inventory exploding by 400% from where it was last month while actual sales drop by 16-25% and contract defaults jump by 25%. Absolutely. Now go back to your grazing.
… go back to your regularly scheduled TV programs, and enjoy watching them on your home-equity-funded $2000 flat screen TV…
and line up at the mcdonald’s drive-thru to get your 110 grams of saturated fat fix.
“Thomas, of Windermere Rowland Realty, said the real estate market has simply returned to normal, which is good for buyers.”
“We probably have never had a more friendly market for real estate than we now enjoy.”
How is this part of the story anything other than a free advertisement for the RE industry. No critical questioning of its validity, no opposing viewpoint.
“This may sound like a worrying sign for the RE industry, so we asked a prominent realtor for his comments. ‘Now is THE BEST time for everyone to buy RE. Forget about the other times I said were the best times, now is the FOR REALS best time to buy! Buy, buy, BUY! You’d have to have a hole in your head to not buy now, unlike six months ago, when I was just kidding when i said the exact same thing. If you already own a house, buy another! This is the best time to buy!’ said Whoreance T. Silvertongue, a prominent unbiased real estate expert and, coincidentally, a real estate agent.”
that’s a very very good point. It’s frustrating to see the same old crap from sellers thinking their homes should appreciate just because they need the money, that buyers should pay what they ask just because etc…but that’s all to be expected in a way. But why must “journalists” be such unquestioning idiots? Why don’t they challenge ever, why do they quote clearly ridiculous rhetoric from obviously deeply vested interests and not qualify it in the least? This reporter actually allowed the realtor to leave the impression that one should go out and get a 100% down 50 year mortgage, and let that be the last word.
We probably have never had a more friendly market for real estate than we now enjoy.
If ya think it’s friendly now, just wait until next year when potential buyers are offered sexual favors to look through an open house!
Go look at the link to the condo open house in SD where the Babes were lined up and you could see the neighbor Babe across the courtyard with her shades open workingout. If that kind of staging comes to my town, I’ll send the wife to her sister’s in Coarsegold and - - - - - - hehehehehehehe.
If ya think it’s friendly now, just wait until next year when potential buyers are offered sexual favors to look through an open house!
Can’t wait!
“‘The market hasn’t found itself,’ said Katrina Harman, the agent trying to sell the Rosens’ house. ‘It’s frustrating for people. They want to catch appreciating value.’”
It will get a lot worse than frustrating when they discover, to their shock and amazement, that they caught a falling knife instead…
Make sure someone contacts me, “when the market finds itself.” Apparently, the market isn’t looking in the right places. Maybe someone should point the market in the direction of the toilet - it may find itself over there.
The market has decided to go on a long motorcycle trip across the country, just by itself, where it can be free and not get hassled by the Man. Maybe it’ll be back, maybe it’ll go down to Mexico where it can just relax by the sea.
“62 houses went into escrow. Prices aren’t likely to climb much when the number of houses being listed for sale outpaces those being sold by 2-1.”
“Thomas said the real estate market has simply returned to normal,”
that’s 62 more FBs. The RE market will return to normal when prices are again at 2001 levels.
As a former resident of Visalia, I am glad I sold late last year when I did. I was down in the area a couple of weeks ago and it is amazing how many homes were on the market, and how dramatically prices are falling…the central and southern San Joaquin valley is probably in more trouble than any other market in California. The sellers simply can’t compete with McMillin and Centex who are slashing their new home prices by $50-100K in order to attempt to lure in buyers (and, of course, are still building). Many homes that were on the market in October are still on the market, with speculators now bailing out by the block. I can’t help but think prices will soon return to $100K-150K for a new, entry-level home (as was the case as recently as 2002) within a few years. After all, the area from Sacramento to Bakersfield is the “other” California that no one wants any part of…dangerously high air pollution, arsenic in the water (among with dozens of other chemicals the farmers spray at will), chronic illegal immigration, failing schools, low paying jobs, hot, dusty summers and foggy, cold winters, and “Valley fever,” a spore in the dust, when airborne, can lead to hospitalization or death. Sounds like a place that should justify $400K entry level homes, doesn’t it? Funny that the CAR was just saying in November that appreciation in the Valley should only be 8-15% in 2006…they have already LOST this much since this prediction was released!!! With the 10 year now above 5%, those buying above their means (almost everyone in the Central Valley) will be toast soon as their ARMS reset. New houses for everyone!
A friend of a friend works for Centex in the area and admits that the company is still making lots of money while slashing prices. The same person is also completely baffled by the demographics he works with of the people that have been buying there, as most of them have been from the Bay Area or LA, looking to grab some price appreciation. Inventory is heading way up, and the 110 degree summer hasn’t even started yet.
“With the 10 year now above 5%, those buying above their means (almost everyone in the Central Valley) will be toast soon as their ARMS reset. New houses for everyone!”
I know a couple of people determined to buy houses there that will pick up the keys to their newly built houses soon and instantly owe substantially more than the house is worth. But hey, it’s all about the low monthly payment for the first two years, right?
What’s scarier to me is all the equity that has been tapped and the rates continuing to adjust upward in a place where the median income is $35K with high unemployment and most jobs are $7/hr.
Over the weekend, I was talking with a couple of friends who live up there. The subject of HELOCing yourself into trouble came up and I was stunned to hear some of the anecdotal stories they had to tell of people we knew. They could hardly come up with anyone who hadn’t tapped their paper equity in a big way. The Central Valley isn’t exactly a land of prosperity, and many people have been keeping up appearances with the home ATM. This doesn’t surprise me a bit.
Some highlights. One guy has been trying for months to sell a 30 yr. old pos house for 530K with no equity left in it. He’s already purchased another house for even more with a suicide loan before selling the first one and discovering house #2 to be an even bigger pos. (As the first poster stated, there is no way a private homeowner can sell for nearly as much as the new housing inventory there is being sold and slashed for.) Another guy HELOC’d all his equity to the tune of $500K and is being forced to sell to his son who is graciously letting Dad live in a small trailer he’s putting behind the house. Another got into a house on an ARM and took out a substantial amount of equity to keep up his lifestyle. Both are now adjusting and he’s looking at marriage counselling, bankruptcy, and a second job.
The Central Valley is heading for a crash landing, no softness about it.
Jeez Anthony-If you ever wrote up an appraisal neighborhood analysis, like that, the local brokers and mortgage L/O’s would be at your door with a split rail and a bucket of tar and a bag ‘o duck feathers….LMAO…
Man, those rackeetering idiots just hate the MF truth!!!!!!!!!!!
“We have a large inventory of new and resale houses, we have a mortgage infrastructure which is literally pouring money into the market with offers of 90% and 100% loans, 40- and 50-year loans, interest-only loans and more things every day,’ he said.”
Sounds to me like there are a record number of different ways to get stucco…
The Rosens bought less than a year ago and then were job transferred. You can’t tell me they did not know that this was a possibility. So they moved to Atlanta and the very first thing they did was buy a house. Now they have 2 houses bought at the peak. Where does this “must own house immediately no matter what” attitude come from? They probably went for the teaser rate on the Atlanta house so they could manage the “temporary” cash flow of 2 mortgages. Now they will ride the Fresno house all the way down to the $200K it is worth, while the Atlanta house resets.
Exactly. That kind of hubris removes any sympathy I would have had for them. Too damn bad. You chose to lever yourself in like that. What, are they afraid that their kids will get a disease if they rent for awhile?
yeah, the Rosens will bite the big one! 2 mortgages prob totalling around $1 mil…love it!
They had to buy now or they could be locked out forever, and probably all the places they looked at “already had offers”.
‘We probably have never had a more friendly market for real estate than we now enjoy. We have a large inventory of new and resale houses, we have a mortgage infrastructure which is literally pouring money into the market with offers of 90% and 100% loans, 40- and 50-year loans, interest-only loans and more things every day, like the new “Sell Your Child” (SYC) loan where you give your oldest child to the back in exchange for a home loan. You see there is always a way to get into this friendly market. You just have to be creative, said Thomas
It’s not a buyer’s market, as anyone who buys now will see the price continues to fall for many years to come. Many homes in FL never reached the inflation-adjusted pre-GD highs until 2004 or 2005. Can those owners wait for another 80 years?
This is how the ad for the perfect home whose owener got transfered to Atlanta reads:
PRICE DROPPED!! YOUR CHANCE TO BARGAIN! SELLER TRANSFERRED-HIGHLY MOTIVATED! PUT AN OFFER ON THE TABLE & LET’S TALK REAL ESTATE!
Anyone have the mls # for the listing so we can track it and see what happens?
I looked at the housing bubble picture show, I can’t believe the for-sale signs, the cranes and the buildings being constructed. I don’t live in a bubble area so it’s an eye-opener.
That inventory-to-sales ratio of 3000/692 = 4.2 months or so isn’t even at the six-month level that I believe is the rule of thumb for a “balanced” market. For all the wailing and rending of garments implied in this article, I have to wonder if the DOM is exceptionally high or if at 692 sales number was artificially high that month somehow or what.
I bet you the Rosens are in their 40’s or 50’s.
Why? I would have guessed they were in their early 30s at the very oldest. People in their 40s and 50s usually have more sense than this.
We really can’t lock them into any particular age group because there are fools of ALL ages.
BayQT~
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/local/14347809.htm
great article, miami.
That’s a classic. Cry me a river.
“What we all can agree on is that buyers are clearly enjoying their buying power these days. But they should also be careful that their behavior on this side of the transaction doesn’t come back to haunt them when it’s their turn to sell.”
Amen. This is why I offer some very simple advice: DON’T BUY!!!
‘The effect is wearying for sellers, who often wonder if buyers realize that the house whose bones they are inspecting is a flesh-and-blood home as well — a place where tears were shed and dreams were hatched, where holidays were celebrated and babies brought straight from the hospital. This does not mean buyers are required to pay the asking price. But they should pay some respect.
The first rule of real estate is, “Location, location, location.”
The second rule of real estate is less well known: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”‘
I never heard of that second “rule of real estate”, but I can suggest a few others which could prove invaluable for would-be buyers:
1) “What is good for the goose is good for the gander.”
Make the seller state in the contract that they will come back weekly to feed the squirrels before you sign.
2) “Good things come to those who wait.”
What is the hurry to buy when prices are falling and rents are only 2/3 or less the monthly ownership costs?
3) “Don’t catch a falling knife.”
Buying now, at what may be the all-time high price of US real estate, could possibly not merely destroy your household balance sheet, but your personal life, marriage, career, and family life as well. Being a worried and overworked debt slave is no fun, but it is easily avoided if you are willing to put up with the relatively mild inconvenience of renting.
the house whose bones they are inspecting is a flesh-and-blood home
Perhaps they naturally assumed it was just an investment vehicle and sometimes an ATM machine, and treated it accordingly.
“One of the few consolations of this unfortunate episode was the support I found from other sellers in the same situation, who have been equally appalled at how many people will walk into an open house just to use the toilet or to see if there’s something good in the fridge.”
Awesome! I think I’ve just hit on my new open-house strategy.
Seriously, Minnesota already has the highest number of rehab facilities per capita in the nation. Sad to say, that’ll be a HUGE growth industry in the coming bust.
From the Twin Cities article: “The long-predicted real estate bubble hasn’t proved out, but you can tell by the number of “For Sale” signs on your block that the tide has definitely turned.”
Just a handful of months following the peak, the writer is already making the assumption that the “bubble” hasn’t “proved out.”
I guess she is looking for a crash, like the stock market. Since home prices haven’t plunged yet, she assumes the “bubble” was bunk. Doesn’t happen that way, as we all know.
This is the first spring since the peak. No doubt some will wade in figuring the worst is behind us. Absurd. These things take time, often many years. Articles written by naive reporters do a huge disservice.
that article is *sooo* fake! She’s playing games, as realtors are soo want to do. If she turns that bizarre masturbatory indulgence into a ‘cathartic novel’ and makes it onto Oprah, I suspect she’d need to pull a jim frey and cry us all a million little Realtears…
yeah, right, buyers complaining that the coffee table isn’t in the right place. oh, indeed…”indecisive” jerks abusing their new powers to think thrice before plunking down too much money..
if she’s really trying to make us feel bad about the poor moms needing to hide their kittylitter stench and sweep up the frootloops, then she needs to *get* that the reason why buyers aren’t buying…and why inventory is so mysteriously high I’d venture…is that hoardes of the frootloop-busters and their flippin’ friends and siblings are hoping to cash out quick before the house-of-cards comes tumbling down, and those who haven’t anted up for the enormous game have seriously cold feet about getting in right now, and surely don’t want to plunk down a large debt on something they’d not like to live in for a while. If a house took a year to sell then either mom bought her kids’ cereal with HELOC credit and couldn’t do the one thing that would likely sell her house–lower the price!– or wanted to hold out for their college fund cash. Scenario one is sad but not any buyers’ fault…
oh wait, I’m sorry…she said “cathartic *novel*”, not an supposed true story about her life in real estate! cancel the jim frey…
it’s got good imagery, her story…the toddlers banished to the neighbors while seller crosses her fingers.
This reminds me of how I actually had a showing at a house once (it was a couple years ago now..) where the owner was hiding in the basement while I was there! I made an appointment to see it, I forget if the realtor said the owner was hanging about somewhere, and I was down in the basement and had a question about the furnace or something and a disembodied voice gave an answer! I was told that she was just embarassed to show her face because she hadn’t made up her face that day, and later the realtor told me it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. She stayed hidden, I was never quite sure where… How surreal….I had forgotten about that (to preserve my sanity and prevent nightmares I think…).
Shel said:
that article is *sooo* fake! She’s playing games, as realtors are soo want to do
Is she a realtor? I thought she was just a reporter who recently sold HER house… correct me if I’m wrong.
An odd article, trying to blame buyers for not buying things they can’t afford. I guess it’s a huge shock to people after these last 5 years of having to buy everything with no contingencies…
From the ground here in Mpls: All of a sudden, 4 properties in my neighborhood have sold very recently. What does this mean? A coincidence/anomaly? I can’t believe we’re going to return to bubble times here.
That said, the ones that sold were all the nicest houses… the crap is still just sitting.
Clouseau
“Is she a realtor? I thought she was just a reporter who recently sold HER house… correct me if I’m wrong.”
She’s not a realtor. She’s a columnist for the St. Paul newspaper.
“An odd article, trying to blame buyers for not buying things they can’t afford. I guess it’s a huge shock to people after these last 5 years of having to buy everything with no contingencies…”
Back when our housing bubble took off, about 6-8 years ago, this same woman wrote several columns bemoaning the hot market and how hard it was for buyers to get in. She recounted her attempts time and again to look at homes, only to have them snapped up before she and her new hubby could make up their minds. She said they feared being priced out forever. So finally, they put a big offer down on a home they’d barely seen, just in hopes of finally getting a home for themselves. They got it, and it turned out to be a POS/homeowner’s nightmare, of course. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the home she’d recently sold.
So, she’s written about this market both from the perspective of a potential buyer desperate to get a home, and now from a seller moaning about how it isn’t so easy to sell a home anymore. In other words, her spectacularly bad timing cost her on both ends of the deal.
thanks for that interesting info on the writer!
At first I thought she was a realtor, then I realized she wasn’t but decided my comments could still stand, though I acknowledge they’re unclear (if we had an edit feature I would have gone back to fix!)…I think she can still be counted as having had, by this new info on her, an interesting RE experience…writing columns about how she was afraid she’d be priced out forever, and now about how awful those buyers are when a market’s declining. I forget from the link if she “interviewed” realtors to get her accounts of fastfood wrappers being left by buyers, about buyers inventorying the furnishings and critiquing the staging efforts..or if she just heard these bits from her fellow sellers. They just sound so…so…made up!
I wonder how well or not she made out from her little adventure, but I guess I’ll have to wait for the book..
cheers!
If I was buying, I would demand a 10K reduction from my lowball offer for each and every fruitloop I found in that POS. It’s time for greedy sellers to start feeding squirrels.
Sheesh! This realtor needs to get Real! A house is an even bigger purchase than a used car! The buyers get to ask whatever they want to ask and demand whatever they want to demand! (Doesn’t mean they’ll get it, but they do have the right to ask.)
When you sell a secondhand wedding dress, you never find buyers who are willing to pay more for it just because it holds good memories for the seller. In fact, most buyers will just point out the stains and ask for more of a discount…
“I recently sold a house that was on the market almost a year, the scarring details of which I will save for a therapist’s couch, a cathartic novel and, one hopes, a personal invitation from Oprah. One of the few consolations of this unfortunate episode was the support I found from other sellers in the same situation, who have been equally appalled at how many people will walk into an open house just to use the toilet or to see if there’s something good in the fridge.”
I say visit those open houses in order to sample the great guacomole dip which is being used all over as an incentive to buy…
I won’t go to a ‘Realtor’s’ Open House unless they are doing a barbeque and a drawing. I always leave a card for the seller with a price (Now $100-150k) below asking and say call me when you get to this number. I hide the card so that the agent can’t throw it away. Real estate trueism # ? after the fourth Location Location Location, they aren’t making any more, and Calif RE always goes up. ‘Reverse bubble price appreciation is here and now’.
pismo, what is the public school system that serves the 5 cities?
I’ll catch that one, PB…cereal, it’s “Lucia Mar”.
I may start attending open houses wearing a “Mr. Housing Bubble” T-shirt…
“Thomas, of Windermere Rowland Realty, said the real estate market has simply returned to normal, which is good for buyers.
“We probably have never had a more friendly market for real estate than we now enjoy. We have a large inventory of new and resale houses, we have a lot of first-time home buyers who want to move up, we have an economy which is growing, we have the lowest unemployment rate in memory, we have a mortgage infrastructure which is literally pouring money into the market with offers of 90% and 100% loans, 40- and 50-year loans, interest-only loans and more things every day,” he said.
“There is no market in which everyone is going to be happy,” he added. ”
Oh the spin… this is making me dizzy.
“We probably have never had a more friendly market for real estate than we now enjoy. (Plenty of bored realtors, motivated mortgage brokers and empty tract homes. Step right up!)
We have a large inventory of new and resale houses. ($400K starter homes to fit your $30K income!)
We have a lot of first-time home buyers who want to move up.
(Won’t you find it in your heart to please buy now and offer generously to help these poor stuck people move into bigger homes?)
We have an economy which is growing, we have the lowest unemployment rate in memory.
(13% unemployment is a thing of the past with all the new minimum wage retail jobs and off the books construction positions of the past 3 years. Good times are here to stay this time!)
We have a mortgage infrastructure which is literally pouring money into the market with offers of 90% and 100% loans, 40- and 50-year loans, interest-only loans and more things every day,” he said.
(What’s a little creative indentured servitude or ARM adjustments compared to the prospect of owning your own hovel?)
So many options, so little real value…
We have a large inventory of new and resale houses, we have a mortgage infrastructure which is literally pouring money into the market with offers of 90% and 100% loans, 40- and 50-year loans, interest-only loans and more things every day,’ he said.”
No f*ckin’ shame with these hucksters. Talk about flushin’ the proverbial American Dream down the moneychanger shitter.
“We have a lot of first-time home buyers who want to move up.” Wait a minute. Does “move up” not imply trading one home for a bigger home? How does a first time home buyer do that exactly?
My heart goes out to all the sellers who have to deal with such rude buyers. But this is just a “correction” or a “soft landing”. Imagine the buyers’ attitudes in a full blown landslide. I can’t wait to lowball and demand insane concessions! “yes… I want the exercising cellphone girl AND the lockbox bench thrown in..”
” Imagine the buyers’ attitudes in a full blown landslide. ”
The sellers are still in total denial stage. Perhaps panic will set in after the summer?
Simmsays…
http://www.AmericanInventorSpot.com
AmericanInventorSpot.com
On the flip side…having just sold our Oceanside coastal house in late Feb ‘06 I totally understand the nervousness of selling a house this late (so very late) in the game. I imagined I saw a mushroom cloud representing the SD housing market in the rear-view mirror of the U-Haul as we headed north to our rental house in Sacramento.
Everybody say p-a-r-t-y!
Even in a real “balanced” market you should never buy a house if you plan on living there less than 5 years. (preferrably longer)