The Weekend Bits Bucket And Craigslist Thread
Please post off topic links, insights and Craigslist finds here. This thread will be forwarded through the weekend and is not intended to discourage off topic posts elsewhere.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Can anyone tell me:
1. What, exactly, is the dollar amount of the “poverty line” in the U.S. If more than one, then what are they?
2. Who/what office is authorized to determine this and is there a written basis?
See this link — it will answer most of your questions:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh05.html
That’s it. Thanks very much. Peter — thanks, too, for your input.
Thank you DuPont guy! Appreciate that info too.
I cannot answer your question directly without some searching, but I know from immigration regulations that the US uses the poverty line for determining if an immigrant has sufficient support from relatives or friends not to become a public burden. You might want to search for poverty guidelines under immigration rules.
KBTC interrupts this blog to bring you the following educational program:
It’s Friday kids, you know what that means!
That’s right, it’s The Bubbles the Clown Show!
Now when Bubbles was driving up through LA a while back trying to make it to the track, there were so many couples clogging the roads looking for houses that Bubbles almost missed the first race! That made Bubbles grumpy. Then Bubbles said to himself as he drove along the beach, ‘Boy who are all these folks who’ve been buying houses in Southern California? And since the prices are so goofy, how were they able to afford it?’ Bubbles doesn’t think it will end well for these bozos so he had to write a song about it! Sing along boys and girls!
“Searchin’ Safari”
Let’s go searchin’ now, everybody’s learnin’ how.
Come on, search for houses with me!
Early in the morning we’ll be startin’ out.
No money will be comin’ along.
Cuz we’re loaded up with credit
Interest Only? We don’t get it.
Not to worry, houses never go wrong!
Come on Baby try it and see.
Yes I’m gonna take you searchin’ with me.
Come on Baby soon you’ll agree
That buying houses is basically free.
Let’s go searchin’ now, everybody’s yearnin’ now
Come on, search for houses with me!
From Huntington to Malibu
our house will appear.
Our income, we will watch as it grows.
We’ll be eating Calamari in Hawaii next year.
We’re so cunning, and it certainly shows.
Come on Baby buy it and see.
Yes I’m gonna take you searchin’ with me.
Come on Baby we hold the key.
We can retire by age thirty-three!
Let’s go searchin’ now, everybody’s earnin’ now!
Come on, search for houses with me!
We’re lookin’ in Laguna, but The Valley will do.
After buying, all our dreams will come true.
Oh the equity we’ll borrow
We will say this time tomorrow,
I feel richer, how about you?
Come on Baby don’t disagree.
Yes I’m gonna take you searchin’ with me.
Come on Baby it’s guaranteed.
It’s California not Tennessee.
Let’s go purchase now, how much will the bank allow?
Come on, in a year you will see!
I don’t know what happened
Our low rate disappeared.
And the value, we got nothing to show.
We’ll be eating Tuna Helper in the Shelter this year.
We’re so stupid, now we certainly know.
Come on Baby how could this be?
Oh why did I take you searchin’ with me?
Come on Baby please talk to me
Oh Dear God we’re so up a tree!
Let’s go searchin’ now, gotta earn a livin’ now
Search for cans and bottles with me.
Searchin’ Safari.
So stupid, I’m sorry.
Searchin’ Safari.
So stupid, I’m sorry.
Yikes!…That doesn’t sound good at all does it?! I think Bubbles would do better betting on the ponies at Santa Anita then these folks will buying houses to make money! Bubbles remembers when people bought houses simply for a place to live. But that was back when Bubbles had money and drove a nice car and was chasin’ after the ladies with “little bubbles” (if you know what I mean). Ahh, the good ‘ol days. It’s hard for Bubbles now that he’s lost all his money in two bitter divorces, reeks of cheap scotch and drives a ’74 Olds Cutlass. Whoa, Bubbles got off on a little tangent there, never mind kids! Just remember: Bubbles the Clown is fun, Housing Bubbles are icky!
See ya next time!
a rainman18production copyright 2006
BTC#6
LOL. Your to much .
I scrolled through rainmans stuff until I saw your post Wizard…I went back and read the post…Rainman is funny…
Here are a couple of great Craigslist posts I came across in the West Palm Beach area. Looks like a builder is going to trash comps for tons of sellers whose eyes were filled with dollar signs.
http://westpalmbeach.craigslist.org/rfs/155419765.html
Brand-new construction three-story (three-bedroom/three-and-a-half bath) townhomes, direct from builder at ~$100,000 below market (based on current resale listings at this exact community) and $65,000-$85,000 under previous builder price.
***Resales of these exact homes are currently listed on MLS at $505,000-$599,000 (for the 1,924 sq-ft floorplan)
and $599,000-$675,000 (2,283 sq-ft floorplan)***
http://westpalmbeach.craigslist.org/rfs/155189737.html
BRAND NEW three-story townhouses available direct through the builder at $100,000 below the market value!! These homes are being listed between $505,000 and $700,000 in the MLS! Buy directly through the builder for $433,000-$475,000!!! This is a great opportunity to buy a BRAND NEW townhouse in Boca Raton only 2 minutes away from the beach at least 20% below market value!!! You must ACT NOW!!! Take advantage of this amazing deal! Call Tony DeFalco TODAY @561-351-6250 for your V.I.P. EXCLUSIVE on this amazing deal!
“call Tony DeFalco” — that name is very familiar.
Nice find, Mike. You’re right — this is an excellent example of wiping out the comps for a neighborhood. Just the beginning. Appraisers could only ignore this at their peril.
You cannot buy a house for “below the market”. The selling price IS the market.
Nobody seems to be discussing all of the HB downgrades today - Why the silence here and in the media?
Holy cow you’re right. I didn’t even see these downgrades until just now. Nice to see that the big boys might be getting out of the way of us shorts for a while.
Fennessey Lofts in Wash, DC is offering much bigger incentives and reductions in “expectations” (read: prices. Credit Maryann Haggarty, WashPost RE editor, for the code word) compared w/ their incentives just one month ago…
March 28th, 2006 email from Fennessy Lofts:
special buyer incentive: $20,000
prices/”expectations”: 1bd starting high 300s, 1bd+den starting high 400s, 2 bd starting mid 600s
April 27th, 2006 email from Fennessy Lofts:
special buyer incentives: $30,000 - $40,000
preferred lender/title incentive: $3,500
prices: 1bd 325k, 1bd+den = 427k, 2bd = 440k.
Wow, 2bd went from starting mid 600s down to 440k in one month. Next month they’ll be converted to affordable housing w/ floor to ceiling windows and granite toilet seats!
phoenix zip friday at noon:
over 44k. - hello -
Hi Ben,
I thought users might be interested in this. Here’s a tip using google where you can search for all the housingbubbleblog stories of which you have posted a comment. For example:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=site%3Athehousingbubbleblog.com+%22getstucco%22
or
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=site%3Athehousingbubbleblog.com+%22ejamie%22
Just replace the name in bold with the desired user name.
Using this in conjunction with the Internet Explorer “Ctrl-F” text search, you can check back on any comments/questions you’ve asked previously.
Oops. Try this:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=site%3Athehousingbubbleblog.com+%22ejamie%22
Thank you ejamie, that was so helpful. I didn’t realize the comments regarding my posts that I’d never read. Wuz fun trip down memory lane!
Great, now I want to look at posts from the old “blogger” days.
While in the library yesterday, I picked up a hardcover book about the twin towers written after 9/11. The foreword was by Mike Wallace. In it he pointed out that the dot.com bubble had just burst when the strikes occurred against our country. Anyone afraid Al Qaeda might be waiting for this bubble to burst for round 2 against our economy? And if so, would we be able to rise from it again? Or are we presenting a real Achilles’ heel?
I don’t believe another 9/11 will be as disruptive to the economy. We’ve been through it and come out OK. Another attack, although possibly more distructive, will not be as “shocking” to the populace or the economy. We have become somewhat more “insulated” from the shock.
I thought we survived the last one because the Fed flooded our economy w/money. …..could we dig still deeper? Since being on this blog I’ve come to believe they weren’t just going for symbolism when they chose their target.
“Anyone afraid Al Qaeda might be waiting for this bubble to burst for round 2 against our economy? ”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No one was more surprised by 911 than Osama and Al Quaida. It was an inside job, folks.
Be sure to watch this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5137581991288263801
Why did they admit to it then? Why did they have Al-Queda people on the planes? Or is it all trick photography? OBL didn’t really admit to anything. There weren’t really 19 Arabs on those flights, those manifests were fake.
The people in the 9/11 flight who talked to their loved ones via cellphone and said “we’ve been hijacked by arabs”…that’s all a hoax too. The CIA did voice impersonations.
Yeah, the towers were “imploded”. Funny they fell from the top down and there was no “boom, boom, boom” like there is in a regular implosion. Why bother crashing airplanes into them if they were going to be imploded anyway? Why not just say arabs imploded them? Or crash airplanes into them and then you wouldn’t need to implode them?
Guess what? You can’t answer any of that. You’re insane.
I think the timing was purely coincidental. It was years in the planning and I believe it was actually planned for a couple of months earlier and something went wrong so they postponed it.
Oh, thanks cabinbound. I hadn’t heard about the delay before.
The timing is more likely to occur around political events rahter than economic ones.
Was anyone in LA listening to the money hour with Bob McCormick KNX1070 this morning when he made reference to a Ben Johnson and his housing bubble blog?
I thought I heard a blurp, “coming up after the break” right before it went to a commercial and I went into a meeting.
About 9:55ish AM PST
Just curious if I’m hearing things…
I did…it was a couple of sound bytes from Ben. I had hoped he was going to give Ben some serious air-time, but no such luck.
Bob McCormic is a real ARROGANT SOB that never lets his guests speak. He over rides them on every issue and and speaks as if her were the athority on every subject. HE Won’t last but a few years….
I’d love to know what Ben got to say on air. People in LA are for the most part still in serious denial about RE.
I didn’t hear it either. I didn’t know when or if they were going to play that and there isn’t a way via their website, that I could find. But I heard it was brief.
it’s a canned program. lots of predictable, expected comments are made. not the slightest bit provacative.
typical clearchannel sheeple garbage (*yawn*)
Here’s another Craigslist post from the WPB, FL area. Looks like one owner is in a world of trouble. The sad thing is, we’re going to see a heck of a lot more of this type of fallout. Sigh…
http://westpalmbeach.craigslist.org/rfs/155607727.html
MUST SELL, 3/2 POOL HOME, WITH A GOLF AND A LAKE VIEW. CALL ME BEFORE THE PROPERTY GOES DOWN I FORCLOSURE. I HAVE 60 DAYS TO CLOSE. SEE THE PICS THIS IS A NISE PROPERTY
It was probably inevitable that anyone who couldn’t spell big words like “nice” or string together a proper grammatical sentence was destined to be an FB cautionary tale.
That was a “nise” find. LOL
It’s because of these clowns that I can’t afford a home or should I write it like this: Its becuz of theez clouns that I cant a ford a home.
Nice house it’s amazing what you can buy for 450k in other parts of the country. I wonder what you would be able to buy that from a bank for
I spotted this golden nugget on ziprealty this morning, a burnt out shell for the very reasonable price of $425.000
MLS #: 22071391
———————–
Located on quiet cul-de-sac one block s/del mar & e/san gabriel. Lots of potential. Sold as land value. As is where is. Recent fire.
Looks like the worst kind of lightening to me. That is a nice little craftsman or bungalow. Something looks strnage in the last picture, like it was just smoke damage on new sheetrock. It would be a real shame to see that get torn down and a McMansion go up. Sad that they offer it at such a high price. I wonder what the insurance gave them on it. I think I’ll go look it up in Domania. Thanks peggus.
It does look like it used to be a nice house, but you can find non burnt down properties for 425k in that area.
Ironstone condos at Stroh Ranch in Parker, CO has overbuilt, exhausted demand long ago. Builder is now desperately trying to dump excess inventory. A few weeks ago came mailers offering no closing costs, no HOA for one year. Now comes another flier–no money down, $10,000+ in incentives, still no closing costs or HOA for the first year. Wow, too bad they’re just tacky, overpriced condos. I’d sure feel like a dolt if I bought there six months ago.
“What’s better than an over-leveraged homebuyer srambling to make readjusted ARM payments?”
—”An overzealous builder forced to sell below cost, and still no takers.”
Thanks for the local Parker, CO info. I have a friend looking for a 2BR condo that is anxious to buy. We drove through another new development near E-470 & Jordan yesterday. Even I was surprised at the number of “For Sale” signs in the windows while they are still building. I think she is starting to realize that renting for a while will be to her benefit. (Too bad she has a condo in TX to sell or rent…..)
Here’s someone in Queen Creek that’s stuck:
Trying to Sell in Queen Creek
Stuck and about to get screwed too.
No doubt
Interesting stat on the Los Angeles Craig’s List.
In August 2005 I was tracking daily listings on the Los Angeles Craigs List, “Real Estate for Sale” at about 50-75 listings per day. This week, up through Friday, April 29, 2006, the listings have been hovering at around 500 per day.
That is a jump in number of daily listing of somewhere around 1900%.
Los Angeles Friends In Deed
LA Friends In Deed yahoogroup
Must be the spring rally we’ve been waiting for…
The house across the street from me which has been on the market since Thanksgiving was just relisted with a new realtor and a $20K price drop (from 259K to 239K). Still no lookers. This is a well established area with huge half to one acre lots and 1950s ranch houses of 1800 - 3000 square feet roughly 5 miles from downtown. The house has been remodeled and updated. I am certain it’s a flipper since it has never been lived in since the remodeling was done. It’s also staged which fools no one. The house next door to it sold last spring for 300K.
I thought Dallas was a booming market! I just have to laugh at this.
I just sent a donation. I don’t know why I never saw the link before… Maybe cause I keep the font VERY big, and it screwws everything up. Had to change it for sec & forgot to switch back, and saw the little PP link. OH just remembered. My ENTIRE apartment building was “worth” the price of (1) 1500 sq ft condo currently being built the next street over. There are 16 units in my building. My apt bldg is the crummiest on the block though…
WHOOPS. I was wrong. My 14 unit apt bldg was $346k in ‘97, & $489K in ‘04. Still, seems kind of funny that $375k will get you a 1500 sq ft condo within spitting distance.
Hello all, I own a 4100 sq foot “mcmansion” in Texas, bought back in ‘03. There are about 90 one acre lots in the gated community. The housing mania started here in late ‘05. Prices have risen from $75-80/sq to $120-150/sq. 40% of the houses have for sale signs and it keeps increasing. More and more houses are empty, and many are showing signs of neglect such as unmowed lawns and fences in disrepair. SUVs are sitting in driveways with for-sale signs. The neg-eq ARM is popular here.
Although I paid cash for my home and own it in full, with no mortgage or HELOC, I am concerned. What will happen to this neighborhood once this bubble pops? I’m not in a particularly frothy market, but the signs of financial distress amongst my neighbors is growing.
Frisco, Plano, McKinney, Southlake or Keller? I’ll bet it’s one of them.
Welcome to foreclosure hell. If you’re in the Eastern District of Texas, that’s bankruptcy heaven and has been for years, in good times and bad. People out there live beyond their means, no matter what the economic condition.
Your neighbors will cost you money. There’s no way around it. Once the foreclosures start . . . . sorry to hear about your predicament. YOu should have bought in the Park Cities.
Actually I’m in Ovilla. I read in another of your posts that you used to live in Cedar Hill.
I would never live in Southlake, Plano, Frisco, Mckinney, Keller. Too much traffic and concrete. It takes one of my employees that lives in Frisco longer to get to our office in downtown Dallas then it takes me [about 35 minutes, including the time it takes to jaunt across the evil 664]
Where are you? I am in the Willow Bend area of Plano and I cannot tell if there is a bubble or not — several houses near mine have been for sale for what seems like forever and are asking what I consider to be 100k+ too much, but obviously potential buyers agree because they are not selling.
I used to live in a condo in Uptown and it does seem like there is a risk of overbuilding in the condo market there. Since I moved there in 98, the number of high rise condos at least doubled and it looks to increase by about a third since I left in 2004.
The Dallas Morning News has an article on that very subject:
Are there enough affluent buyers to fill the luxury condos arising near downtown?
Million-dollar question
Longtime Dallas chef Stephan Pyles has no qualms about banking on downtown’s renaissance. His new namesake restaurant occupies a high-profile portion of street front in the city’s newly forming arts district.
“I’ve seen the ebb and flow, and something is different now,” he said. “There’s such an excitement here. I’ve not felt it since the early ’80s. We’ve finally become the city that we hoped and thought it was going to be in the ’80s.”
I think this is very wishfull thinking…
Thanks for the link. No way are investors going to make any money on these; there are too many for appreciation purposes and taxes and condo fees make it impossible to rent them out at anything close to break even.
I really enjoyed living there before we had kids. I walked to work every day and we were close to everything. It was very convenient; the valets would park the car and bring up the groceries, etc. The problem is that almost all of the units are fungible so when everybody sells at once the prices collapse.
Do it yourself desperate homeowner search.
1. go to craigslist.com/your town
2. click on real estate
3. search for any of the following words or phrases
….desperate…must sell….below my cost…loss…foreclosure…
here in Denver its pages and pages of listings; the MLS metro listings are closing in on 30,000..highest since the late 80s crash, and growing by about 75-100 listings per day
As always, just great comments from everyone.
Many of the discussions revolve around “what areas” and “how quickly” — which areas will unravel first and how long will it take for them to unravel. There seems to be a general concensus that on the east coast, Florida is unraveling now and moving reasonably quickly and that in the western US Phoenix and Central Califormia are on the glidepath to landing (soft, hard, or other).
There also seems to be a concensus that NYC, LA, and SF will be slower to unravel (if at all).
However, my question to readers is this — since we hear about “CA investors” in PHX, Sacramento, Tucson, Boise, etc, etc — investors in the most speculative areas — is there a strong probability of a domino effect from a crash in these areas? In other words, if the PHX, et al speculators have HELOC’d their CA home to make the investment, if the investment goes bad, will it have an inpact on the supposedly “safe” areas?
Thoughts?
Once the dominos start falling, no one can predict what will happen.
The Bay Area is far from safe. It lost a tremendous amount of jobs the last go-round (and is poised for more cuts soon from the likes of Intel, Oracle, and Sun), and replaced some of the lost jobs with construction jobs. It is now even more wildly overpriced, and my guess is that a permanent loss of talent will ensue. Maybe one more economic revival, but look to Rochester, Buffalo, and Detroit for what the future holds. Once the good jobs and good people leave, you can wait a long time for a revival. Oakland used to be much nicer than it is now. I think San Jose is past its zenith, and who knows what will become of SF. Lots of people still find it uniquely desirable, but if the remaining tech and manufacturing base gets displaced, I don’t think it will come back in my lifetime.
LA does not have close to the salary level of the Bay Area, and its prices are getting close to those here. Even in these areas of California, NAHB’s HOI and Realtor’s HAI indices will revert to their mean within the next half-decade. If it’s because wages explode, then these areas are “safe”. I doubt it.
Boston is unravelling from what I read in the press. In the NYC area there is some serious anxiety. In CT, I’m watching sellers happy to go to contract with 10% reduction from listing price.
One thing to keep in mind when searching Craigslist for words.
Investors know what words to use to get your attention.
Just because they might say ‘desperate’ doesn’t mean they’re desperate.
It’s the price that tells the story, not the words.
Even listings labeled ‘reduced’ may not actually be reduced.
New sales tactics emerge based on what people WANT to hear.
Don’t get duped.
We’ve come a long way. One year ago people were still asserting that house prices have never gone down.
Sorry if this was already posted and I missed it, but just in case…
“Wrong move by Fed could explode bonds, real estate rates
Mortgage market commentary
Friday, April 21, 2006
By Lou Barnes
Inman News
Mortgage rates are still holding between 6.5 percent and 6.75 percent for the low-fee deals, but the financial world moved this week into a realm of uncertainty, inflation risk and volatility that we have not seen in a long time.
…
The oil shocks of 1973-1980 taught the Fed (I hope) that it cannot tolerate a little inflation; all it will get is more, and once “more” moves from prices to wages it is hell on earth to squeeze out of the economy.
The Fed’s May 10 meeting is now a setup for the return of the true, up-and-down volatility common in the bond market before the artificial stability induced by the Fed during 2003-2006. This will be the first meeting in years at which the governors will have to exercise judgment, the mechanical reversal of emergency easing now a pleasant memory. A rookie Chairman accustomed to academic debate will have to decide on action and build a consensus.
Pause at 5 percent, waiting to be bailed out by a hoped-for slowdown? Wait almost two months until the next meeting to announce a pause, before or after 5.25 percent? Take out some pre-emptive insurance by sounding tough with a new inflation warning in the post-meeting lingo? This uncertainty is a prescription for some considerable back-and-forth in a bond market that has in the last 60 days gone from grudgingly conforming to the Fed’s overnight cost of money to leading it.
If the Fed guesses wrong on the easy side, bond yields will explode.”
Actually, given the state of the “Unions” and the offshoring of American jobs, I don’t think wage inflation is a key concern. But watch those commodity prices and long-term-bond yields, not to mention the $US-anything exchange rate…
http://www.nicolatorealty.com/News?ID=51121
Kenneth Harney offers some free advice on long-term investing in the housing market (but you get what you pay for!). Now that we are at the all-time record high price level for housing in the USA, and looking downhill from the top of the roller coaster, there has never been a better time for buy-and-hold real estate investing!
The article linked in below regurgitates the oft-repeated conventional wisdom that you probably will not be hurt by purchasing real estate provided you hang on for ten years. But there are serious flaws in this reasoning:
1) The moron who conducted the research (PMI’s “chief risk officer” Mark Milner) only used US data back to 1986 for his sample — not very representative of Black Swans which can bankrupt your household. If you leave out the USA during the 1930s, or Japan during the 1990s, then you miss the important examples of how much a badly-timed real estate purchase can hurt. Milner’s data lacks external validity.
2) Even if one narrows the focus to the USA since 1986, there are cases where buying a home at the wrong time (like Milner himself did in LA in 1989) would have left one holding a non-performing asset (negative return over 10 years after expenses) at best, and having to sell for a loss at worst.
‘NATION’S HOUSING KENNETH HARNEY
Long-term investment can trump bad timing in the housing market
April 30, 2006
WASHINGTON – Anybody thinking about buying or selling a house this spring probably is asking the same questions: In terms of historical real estate cycles, is this a smart time for me to be in the market?
…
The research examined price data on 50 metropolitan housing markets from 1986 through 2005. During that period, price appreciation rates in some parts of the country – California, Texas, New England among others – went through boom and bust cycles of differing magnitudes. In other areas, especially the Midwest, real estate appreciation was steady and moderate with virtually no declines.
The study was conducted by Mark Milner, the chief risk officer for PMI Mortgage Insurance Co., a major loan underwriter that stands to lose large amounts of money whenever property values decline in any region of the country. The research used quarterly price data provided by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), which tracks home real estate values in over 300 metropolitan areas.
Milner concedes that his own personal experience on timing home purchases hasn’t been without setbacks. “I’m one of the unlucky ones,” he says. “In 1989, I bought a home in Los Angeles – right before the bottom fell out of the market. When I got a job in another city and sold seven years later, I lost my down payment and everything I’d put in since, and I even wrote a check to the bank for a little bit extra.”
Ouch! Many homes in the Los Angeles area lost 25 percent to 30 percent of their resale value during the early 1990s, but leveled off and began appreciating again by the mid-1990s.
“But here’s the thing,” Milner continues, “I went on and bought another house, and then still another after that. Despite a loss during the first seven years, in 17 years of homeownership, I’ve recouped that initial loss and a lot more – enough to make sending two kids to college a lot less daunting.”
Milner’s study assumed a 20 percent down payment on the median-priced home in each of the 50 metropolitan markets. Then it tracked the quarter-by-quarter appreciation performance of the median priced home, and came up with a statistical “proxy” for returns on investment in each market area.’
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060430/news_1h30harney.html
Should Uncle Rico have been a Realtor?
http://louminatti.blogspot.com/2006/04/uncle-rico-realtor.html
“DON’T WAIT TO BUY REAL ESTATE…BUY REAL ESTATE AND WAIT!”
and wait and wait and wait
and wait and wait and wait
and wait and wait and wait
and wait and wait and wait
and wait and wait and wait
and . . .
We spent the day in Napa yesterday. While driving down the highway into town I saw a huge sign for “$70,000 off” in a new subdivision. Wow, $70,000 off. Imagine if you had just bought one of these homes at full price.
Sorry for OT (I’ll BitBucket it as well), but the LA Times today is showing a majority of Santa Barbara zip codes with Year Over Year DECLINES:
(City, zip, sfh sold, median sales price, YOY median change, $K sq. ft.)
Santa Barbara 93101 9 $822 -0.8% $741
Santa Barbara 93103 5 $775 -33.9% $911
Santa Barbara 93105 20 $1,181 18.9% $808
Santa Barbara 93108 20 $2,433 -17.2% $1,165
Santa Barbara 93109 7 $1,065 -7.2% $986
Santa Barbara 93110 2 $938 -37.3% $681
Santa Barbara 93111 7 $915 -3.4% $600
http://tinyurl.com/no5xm
Why no big story by the big media boys?
The southern California housing bubble, circa 1888:
“For a brief interval, there really was a free lunch. If you followed one of the many organized parades out to one or another of the newly platted “cities,” you could count on getting a meal as well as a sales pitch.
Of course once you arrived, as has been the case ever since more or less, Southern California required a certain amount of imagination to fully appreciate. The difference between a prosperous new city and a dusty orange grove was a lineup of white survey stakes.
Lots that had sold for $150 in mid-1886 fetched $8,000 a year later. The greater region mushroomed to a population of 50,000, some said 80,000 or even 100,000. Assessments reportedly soared from $3 million to $103 million.
[...]
The dim, the foolish and the unlucky never imagined an end to the westward flow of newcomers hungry for a piece of the action.
The bust came with hardly a sound. Just the splat of raindrops that brought floods and dampened the promotional imagery of endless sunshine, not to mention interrupting rail service. Perhaps if you listened carefully, you might have also heard the sobbing of families who were rich beyond their dreams one day and destitute a month later.
By spring 1888, it was over”
History truly does repeat itself.
Only this time, people are leaving California…
toll brothers = robs the troll
appleton-young = a penal guy on top
(sorry, a little bored this afternoon)
sacramento = ornate scam
a.r.m.’s at once
Bill Gross of Pimco publishes a monthly commentary. Pimco is one of the largest fixed income (bond) investors in the world.
Mr. Gross’ May commentary is on the Pimco website http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Late+Breaking+Commentary/IO/2006/IO+May+2006.htm
Bill Gross is a smart man. This month’s commentary compares General Motor’s current situation as a template of what’s to come for the broader U.S. economy.
Excellent link. Thanks, Ol’ Bubba!
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