Driven By Things That Weren’t Real
The Herald Tribune reports from Florida. “The number of people preparing to buy a home in November fell sharply in the latest sign that the housing market, which had been rebounding strongly, may be headed for a ‘double-dip’ downturn over the winter. The figures echoed what home builders saw in November and showed how dependent the housing market is on government programs to lower interest rates and lure buyers with tax credits. The drop was far larger than the 2 percent expected from economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters, and analysts were surprised.”
“‘This was bound to happen at some point, although not by this much,’ wrote a startled Jennifer Lee, senior economist with BMO Capital Markets. ‘Gulp,’ she added.”
“Lowered rents and concessions are being made by professional landlords, most often someone with multiple properties in Sarasota and Manatee counties, all in the ‘workforce’ range of monthly rents from $500 to $800. ‘There isn’t the demand that there was a few years ago because we’ve lost our construction workers,’ said Harvey Vengroff, who owns more than 150 single-family homes from Venice to Bradenton. ‘The working class people are not here now.’”
“A typical rental for Vengroff is a three-bedroom home for $700 to $800 per month, enough to cover the taxes and maintenance and still pocket a profit. ‘We certainly have a lot of empty units,’ he said.”
“Caroline Phillips, who rents out 10 single-family homes and duplexes in Manatee and Sarasota counties, also said that unemployment is a key problem in the work force rental market. ‘The foreclosures have nothing to do with it,’ Phillips said. ‘What it is is people are not making enough money to pay the rent and they are leaving in droves.’”
“Phillips said most landlords like her have had to reduce rents by at least a third. That is fine by her to keep a stable tenant in a unit. ‘The last six months we have had to lower our rents to keep our good tenants and we may have to lower them more,’ she said. ‘And this is not because they want to, but because we have to. I’ve had a lot of move outs and one even left me a note of apology. They just didn’t have the money.’”
“Vengroff, a landlord with one of the region’s largest holdings, worries about others in the landlord community in which most know each other. ‘The smaller ones are the ones in trouble,’ he said. ‘They are getting foreclosed upon because they are getting 25 percent less in rent and they have 25 percent vacancy.’”
“Some are hoping to get foreclosed upon because they cannot continue to operate.”
The News Journal. “Communities with lots of workers building big-ticket items have suffered worst in the nation in the past year, according to a report Tuesday from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Palm Coast and Muskegon-Norton Shores, Mich., metro areas recorded the largest jobless rate increases in November from the previous year. The housing bust hit Palm Coast hard, leaving thousands of building tradesmen without work.”
“The Palm Coast metro area covers all of Flagler County, which The Daytona Beach News-Journal previously reported, had the highest unemployment rate among counties in Florida in November at 16.8 percent.”
From TC Palm. “In 2009, foreclosures and short sales seemed to dominate the Treasure Coast’s housing landscape. Curtis Lowe, president of the Realtor Association of St. Lucie County, said that on the Treasure Coast, it wasn’t builders walking away from projects after the boom, it was buyers walking away from builders. ‘There were a lot of vacant spec homes that people just walked away from, even with deposits, and they just didn’t move into the homes,’ Lowe said.”
“‘We have made about 500 sales this year and have not sold one unfinished house,’ said Bonnie Peters, president of the Martin County Realtor Association. ‘I think that’s a very scarce phenomenon here. I’ve heard of people walking away from deposits, but not builders walking away from homes.’”
The St Petersburg Times. “Pulte Homes, the nation’s top home builder, has pulled out of Wiregrass Ranch, Tampa Bay’s largest proposed development. The dissolution of the partnership between the two housing heavyweights shows how little confidence Florida builders have in a short-term business turnaround.”
“Pulte called it quits Dec. 30 by selling its 800-acre stake in the Wesley Chapel development to semiretired Tampa developer Bob Sierra. Pulte paid $12.8 million for the land in 2004. Five years and one historic housing slump later, Sierra took the real estate off Pulte’s hands for $5 million.”
The New Times. “Before ‘04, Chinese businesses like Knauf Tianjin had rarely exported drywall to the States. But then a housing bubble inflated the demand of homes and depleted construction supplies. In South Florida, dozens of new condo towers sprouted along every stretch of beach and bay front, and hundreds of new golf-course-centered suburbs sprouted from Florida City to Jupiter.”
“The market exploded so quickly that American gypsum mines and drywall makers simply couldn’t keep up. Chinese-based companies like Knauf gladly filled the void, and it sent drywall the company eventually knew was faulty. Developers claim they didn’t know that the imported drywall was flawed when they installed it in as many as 100,000 homes nationwide. But homeowners began reporting problems immediately.”
“No one admits to doing anything wrong. The builders, suppliers, and contractors are hiding behind lawyers. The state is waiting idly by for someone to decide exactly what’s wrong while protecting politically connected developers. And the Chinese manufacturers can rest easy in the knowledge that it’s all but impossible for U.S. homeowners to sue Chinese businesses.”
“By 2006, Wendy Senior and her fiancé had spent more than a year looking at homes around Miami-Dade. Senior found a nearly finished Lennar Corp. subdivision just east of Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport. ‘It had everything,’ Senior says. ‘We decided that this is where we would start our family.’”
“Senior initially liked the neighborhood so much that she talked her mom and her sister into buying townhomes in the same development, right down the street. The couple closed the deal August 25, 2006, for $320,590. They moved in the next day, and Wendy immediately noticed an odd odor — a biting, industrial scent. ‘Our Lennar contact told us it was just a ‘new house smell,’ Senior says. ‘We didn’t think anything else about it. It was just a really happy day for us.’”
“But by the second half of 2007, Senior’s whole extended family was growing exasperated with the same litany of problems. Air conditioners broke every few months. Electrical outlets corroded. Nosebleeds, coughs, and constant allergies swept through the neighborhood.”
“A leading cause of the foreclosure deluge that has swamped Tampa Bay’s housing market is mortgage fraud, so it was welcome news in November when federal prosecutors announced they had nailed some of the culprits. But of the 22 Tampa Bay area cases that were disclosed, none involves the kind of major fraud that helped crash the U.S. economy. They name 29 people who are accused mostly of minor scams.”
“The U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida said he hoped the sweep would send a clear message to the public. ‘Mortgage fraud will not be tolerated,’ said A. Brian Albritton. ‘You don’t indict your way out of what is a regulatory problem in large part,’ said. ‘(The surge) is not in lieu of greater regulation.’”
The Naples News. “In the early morning darkness, Nathaniel Keith hitched his pontoon boat to his white Ford F150 pick-up, got in the truck’s cab and drove out of River Park, leaving his home of 47 years behind. His small, white house in Naples will be sold in a foreclosure sale on Thursday.”
“Keith got a big loan from a sub-prime lender with an adjustable-interest rate and high payments. Six months later, another company promised him a reverse mortgage to pay back the home equity loan in exchange for his house. The reverse mortgage company told him to stop making payments on the home equity loan.”
“Keith went back and forth with the reverse mortgage company for months, but nothing materialized — so he defaulted on the home equity loan. He knows he made a mistake when he trusted the reverse mortgage company and stopped making payments, but that doesn’t make it easier. He’s losing his home and his life in Naples.”
“He’s given up trying to save the house. The stress was taking its toll on his body. ‘I’ve been worrying quite a bit,’ he says. ‘It’s sort of releasing a load off me now, like I was freeing myself up. I’m doing something I don’t really want to do, but I just gotta do it.’”
From WFTV. “Dozens of people were left homeless Tuesday after a massive condo fire in Ocoee forced residents out into the cold. In a strange twist, a man was found shot to death inside. Police think it was a neighbor, whose home may have been in foreclosure, who started the fire and then committed suicide. Officers located a 9-mm handgun.”
“‘It was one person who was unhappy. Now, dozens of people have to figure out what to do,’fire victim Melissa Grady said.”
The News Press. “Tough times are especially tough on Southwest Florida’s condominium and homeowners’ associations, often faced with massive defections from the quarterly dues payments. Some condo boards are playing hardball: hiring lawyers and consultants to make sure they’re paid what they are owed.owners who don’t pay their fees are by far the biggest problem.”
“‘I can tell you it’s across the board,’ said Paul Kaplan, managing partner of Miami-based KW Property Management & Consulting, which provides services for condo and homeowner’s associations. ‘This is our No. 1 largest problem right now, dealing with delinquencies.’”
The Star Banner. “2009 was a hideous year for the real estate business. There are 4,475 foreclosed homes in Marion County, and despite a Florida Supreme Court order - announced last week - that future foreclosures would have to go to mediation, many in the industry predict 2010 won’t be much better. ‘I don’t really see it slowing down next year,’ said local real estate lawyer Daniel Hicks.”
“Burt Meadows, former president of the Marion County Association of Realtors, said that currently many banks aren’t working with their borrowers, and he didn’t understand why bankers weren’t more innovative in trying to keep property owners in their homes. ‘If you can see a train wreck coming, why go full speed ahead? It doesn’t make sense,’ Meadows said. ‘I think it’s bureaucracy at the banks. They’re not taking control.’”
From Jacksonville.com. “There won’t likely be any relief from the spate of foreclosures in Jacksonville anytime soon, said Richard Zeisel, a certified distressed property specialist . Foreclosures will continue next year if no legislation slows the interest rate increases coming on adjustable rate mortgages, he said. Additionally, he estimated there’s about 7 months’ worth of ’shadow inventory,’ or homes mired in foreclosure but not yet available. That shadow inventory is about equal to the inventory currently on the market.”
“Some 9 percent of Jacksonville metropolitan area homeowners are 60 days delinquent on their mortgage, meaning they’re three payments behind, said F.J. Guarrera, TransUnion vice president of financial services. That’s up from about 2 percent in 2006 and about 7 percent at the end of 2008 — but less than the statewide delinquency rate, which stands at 13.3 percent, he said.”
“Guarrera said the delinquency rate is expected to get better by mid-year in 2010. Rates are worsening more slowly, but Florida’s is still expected to hit 16.86 percent by the end of 2010. The 2010 projection for Jacksonville wasn’t available, he said. Because mortgage delinquencies are a lagging indicator, they probably won’t return to their normal ranges of between 1.5 and 2 percent until the rest of the economy does, he said.”
“‘We’re seeing historic highs,’ he said. ‘It will take longer to get better than it did to get this bad.’”
From Florida Weekly. “Punta Gorda had a 55 percent increase in sales of existing single-family homes from November 2008 to this November, according to housing data released this month by Florida Realtors. The median sales price increased by 2 percent to $100,000, the data indicates. Inventory is moving because many sellers have become realistic about property values. The inflated sales prices are history, although Don Atwell, Realtor at RE/MAX Anchor Realty, said some customers struggle with a concession. ‘It really wasn’t worth that,’ he said about the inflated price points of a few years ago. ‘It was driven by things that weren’t , real weren’t natural.’”
“People who paid for newer homes can’t expect values to approach the purchase price. A North Port customer paid $180,000 for a home in 2006, Realtor Kim Platzer said, but a comparable home in square footage hasn’t sold for $131,000 since Oct. 1.”
“Because it’s a buyer’s market, nonlocals are discovering they have a lot of competition as they bid for properties. Debra Dees, Realtor…in Punta Gorda, mentioned an Ohio couple who were surprised at the rapid pace of the market. ‘Of the 20 homes they selected on the Internet to see, by Monday 10 were gone,’ she said. ‘They were shocked.’”
“A Kentucky couple four years from retirement purchased a vacant lot to build a home here. ‘Vacant lots are still vacant,’ Mr. Atwell said. ‘To get rid of it now, you have to give it away.’”
“In the early morning darkness, Nathaniel Keith hitched his pontoon boat to his white Ford F150 pick-up, got in the truck’s cab and drove out of River Park, leaving his home of 47 years behind. His small, white house in Naples will be sold in a foreclosure sale on Thursday.”
47 years. Home not paid off? And had so much negative equity that he walked away? You’ve got to be kidding me! How long was this house a piggy bank for this guy. How much money did he “liberate” from the house over the years? It’s outrageous that the reporters don’t dig into this a bit more!
I don’t know about the fiscal responsibility of this guy, but I can see the appeal of walking away. That’s what we had to do. Not what we wanted to do, but what we had to do. Declining income, declining home value, declining neighborhood.
Looks like he just sorta did his own reverse mortgage. Not a bad business decision,really, especially if you want to move, downsize, rent at over-55 place.
Hell why not.
The only smart thing to do. Walk!
These boots are made for walking.
That’s just what they’ll do
One of these days
these boots are going to walk away from youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Thank you, thank you very much, (done in my best imitation of Nancy then Elvis)
Anybody remember those home equity loan ads from 2007 that basically said, “Home prices are going down! Liberate your equity while you still can!”?
I didn’t know until just now that you decided to walk away. Good for you. Sometimes that’s the right decision. You will regroup for another day.
Can you imagine what a “small white house” in Naples cost in 1963? Circa 2000, they could easily be picked up for less than $90K, so I’m guessing, oh…$10,000.
Obviously this guy had a big ol’ “ka-CHING!” payday before he loped off into the sunset. Yet they write about him like he’s some sort of maligned folk hero.
..but he had a pontoon boat.
The article actually goes a bit further into the details: he certainly wasn’t totally clean (2/3s of his home equity loan went into paying a previous home equity loan), but he was also significantly screwed by a system that took advantage of a 70+-year-old.
“‘This was bound to happen at some point, although not by this much,’ wrote a startled Jennifer Lee, senior economist with BMO Capital Markets. ‘Gulp,’ she added.”
It looks to me like it was bound to happen by ‘more than expected,’ unless you are talking about the expectations of HBBers.
Right on, Prof. B. I’d say that, as a group, our expectations have been right on the money.
Round up the usual knife-catchers!
“That’s up from about 2 percent in 2006 and about 7 percent at the end of 2008 — but less than the statewide delinquency rate, which stands at 13.3 percent, he said.
Guarrera said the delinquency rate is expected to get better by mid-year in 2010. Rates are worsening more slowly, but Florida’s is still expected to hit 16.86 percent by the end of 2010. The 2010 projection for Jacksonville wasn’t available, he said.”
Wait - it’s 13.3 now, going to be 16.86 by the end of the year, but Guarrera says it will be better by mid-2010? Pretty sure that 16.86 is worse than 13.3. Hey Guarrera, this aint golf.
Or maybe everyone will now speak 2nd derivative.
Maybe he is using a bunch of mulligans. ha ha
Another example of NEA, teachers unions, and the failed liberal public education systems !
“Senior found a nearly finished Lennar Corp. subdivision just east of Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport.”
Which also happens to be right on the flight path for runways 09L and 09R.
Which makes me wonder if they’re marketing this community to pilots.
Here in Southern Arizona, there are several communities where you can leave your house, walk over to the hangar, then taxi out to the runway for takeoff. They’re quite popular with airline pilots and other flying junkies.
Matter of fact, I once did a water harvesting project with a very wealthy local developer. He lived out at the Cholla Airpark, and found it very much to his liking. All he had to do was just head out the door and fly off to wherever he was doing a project.
Guy was a real crusty old character, but he gradually became a favorite of everyone else working on the project. In addition to being quite knowledgeable about plumbing, which is useful when doing water harvesting cistern setup, he was an expert on anything having to do with property restoration.
If you’re familiar with Downtown Tucson, this is the guy who did the renovation of the Sahara Motel. He turned it into a student apartment complex, and, get this, the neighbors love it. Why? Because the Sahara has a “no party” policy that serious students (and their parents) really appreciate. You throw a party, and you’re outta there.
‘The working class people are not here now.’
Oh they’re there. They just don’t realize they’re working class yet. Perhaps when they don’t get to live for free in their current residence any more?
Always did wonder — exactly how do you define a middle class?
“exactly how do you define a middle class?”
You can pay for glasses for your kid, but they’re a generic brand.
Somebody who has disposable income remaining after paying for food, shelter, transportation, health insurance, and utilities, just not enough to matter.
If Fed Missed This Bubble, Will It See a New One?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/34725632
Published: Wednesday, 6 Jan 2010 | 10:24 AM ET
By: David Leonhardt
The New York Times
If only we’d had more power, we could have kept the financial crisis from getting so bad.
That has been the position of Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, and other regulators. It explains why Mr. Bernanke and the Obama administration are pushing Congress to give the Fed more authority over financial firms.
So let’s consider what an empowered Fed might have done during the housing bubble, based on the words of the people who were running it.
In 2004, Alan Greenspan, then the chairman, said the rise in home values was “not enough in our judgment to raise major concerns.” In 2005, Mr. Bernanke — then a Bush administration official — said a housing bubble was “a pretty unlikely possibility.” As late as May 2007, he said that Fed officials “do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy.”
The fact that Mr. Bernanke and other regulators still have not explained why they failed to recognize the last bubble is the weakest link in the Fed’s push for more power. It raises the question: Why should Congress, or anyone else, have faith that future Fed officials will recognize the next bubble?
….
Good article. I printed it out and added it to the Evening Reading pile.
“If Fed Missed This Bubble, Will It See a New One?”
Absolutely not, which is a great reason to expand their power along with their capacity to propagandize disinformation.
In 1997 (Clinton era) there was an obscure bureaucrat in an obscure part of the Fed. Her name was Berkley Born. She recognised that there was a bunch of CDOs and other financial stuff floating around and no-one, even Rubin,Summers, Greenspan, and Bernanke knew what they were or how to control them. Arthur Levett, head of the SEC went along with the rest ‘of the guys’ and they did nothing. Berkley was overruled and we got LTC and then the subprime blow up later. Summers and Bernanke are now advising Obama. When will we learn ?
The white men of power didn’t want to listen to the lady of wisdom.
Simple as that.
>>>‘Vacant lots are still vacant,’ Mr. Atwell said. ‘To get rid of it now, you have to give it away.’”
If sellers were really willing to give these away, are there any takers?Or are these like some time shares I see on Craiglist where the owners don’t even want any purchase price consideration — just someone to take over the yearly payments?
‘What it is is people are not making enough money to pay the rent and they are leaving in droves.’”
Florida is starting to look more and more like Texas after the last bust. The next problem for RE prices isn’t interest rates or foreclosures; it’s having the population to fill empty houses. Speculators hoping to cash in on Florida’s bust are in for a rude awakening.
Just look at how Florida was after the 1926 real estate bust in Florida .
Do the Powers that be think they can inflate something that was fake to begin with and had nothing to do with the ability of the borrowers to afford the payments ,or collect rents that would debt service the costs ?
I kinda feel sorry for people who bought in at high prices because they wanted a home and thought that it was their only opportunity to
get in before the prices skyrocketed more .This sort is a fear buyer rather than a flipper or greed buyer . The REIC really pushed peoples button by selling greed or fear of being left out .
“The REIC really pushed peoples button by selling greed or fear of being left out .”
You mean to say they’ve stopped???
‘What it is is people are not making enough money to pay the rent and they are leaving in droves.’”
Since I started looking for another place to rent I have been shocked at how high the asking price for rents has stayed in the Jupiter Fl. area. But I guess it makes sense since the development I live in has about 35 out of 160 houses in forclosure and only 2 show up on the radar.
Unless Congress/Senate addresses the fact that Wall Street created the mortgage markets with their leverage games with toxic loans and low down payments with no underwriting ,which caused the regulated lenders to compete and sell to Wall Street, than the elephant still stays in the room .
Why is it that the Powers are acting like the Wall Street lenders ,who bought a lot of regulated lenders loan papers ,while their leverage was up to 40x’s wasn’t the main problem . Add to that ,the credit default swaps
in the Wall Street secondary unregulated markets that didn’t have the money to back their bets and you get a mixing of regulated Banks with the unregulated world of Wall Street under the SEC.
People wonder why they can’t reform this mess . So…are the Feds going to be in charge of Wall Street money changers now also ? This is a joke because the problem is not defined properly . How can you separate
the unregulated secondary market from the regulated lenders
if they overlap their activities with each other . Getting rid of Glass-Steagall was a major regulation that kept Wall Street from making their own loan products and creating the type of absurd leverage they did .
Wall Street was the Market Makers of the fake boom ,in part due to the mis-rating of their junk paper .
For God sakes ,the set up of Wall Street and the regulated Lenders bought about the biggest financial crisis we have ever seen and they can only say they didn’t see it coming and the system remains in tack without meaningful reform .
I remember that in 2005 it was reported that 40% of the purchases were
investor based in Florida . Combining investor activity from the normal of 10% with the fact that the prices of real estate exceeded average incomes ability to pay would tell you that the amount of activity on real estate was fake …a bubble ..a fraud . Oh, borrowers qualified on 1.50 % teaser rates and qualified based on something that only lasted 3 months in effective interest rate? This is only something that Wall Street could of created to keep the party going .
And how are the Feds going to control Wall Streets casino games ? This is a joke . And do you really think that regulated Banks could of competed
with Wall Streets junk loans . It’s just like when you flood the market with crap cheap products from overseas ,you create a situation that everyone has to follow suite in order to survive.
Its just like in 1929 when Wall Street provided stupid high margin loans to buy stocks just because they wanted to sell stocks to every Tom ,Dick and Harry in America that drove that fake stock market at the time . They did it again ….they did it again . Put Wall Street back in the box it belongs in .
Right on Wiz
As someone who lived the entire time in Florida, the artificiality of the situation during the bubble could not have been more obvious. Reality was treated like green eggs and ham, and we still don’t want to address it. I am extremely pessimistic about any kind of meaningful regulation being placed on the financial services industry during this or any administration.
15% down payment required on every FHA/Fannie/Freddie loan. Bam, problem solved. Of course, the market absolutely collapses, but it will recover when asking prices fall within reason.
Ironhorse Country Club files for Chapter 11 help
By Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 12:42 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010
WEST PALM BEACH — The Ironhorse Country Club started the new year in bankruptcy court after losing a battle to charge mandatory fees to residents and suffering a membership drop caused by the failing economy.
Ironhorse, which is located near Beeline Highway and Jog Road, voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 reorganization Monday. The club will continue operating, including honoring all booked events, through the reorganization, said Brigette Muglai, membership and catering director.
Court documents show there is an offer from a private buyer for $2.4 million. The amount owed creditors, including Wachovia Bank, is listed as $3.6 million.
Bob Naples, president of the member-owned club, confirmed Tuesday the offer to purchase the club is from Thomas O’Malley, chairman of Switzerland-based refinery Petroplus. O’Malley owns a Worth Avenue condo in Palm Beach and recently bought two Palm City golf courses.
The Chapter 11 reorganization could allow him to purchase the club’s assets without all the debt.
The 2006 club appraisal value was $9 million, according to court records. The Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office currently lists the market appraised value at $5.8 million.
O’Malley could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
“It’s not uncommon across the country for clubs, especially of our size in a small community, to have a difficult time because there are just not enough members to support it,” Naples said. “You’re probably going to see a lot more go in the direction we’ve gone.”
The Ironhorse community has about 320 homes ranging in price between an estimated $300,000 and $1 million.
Naples said the club currently has 200 golf memberships, but needs at least 20 more golf members and 50 “social memberships” to make the club viable.
Social memberships, which had been mandatory until a recent appeals court ruling, allow residents access to club services, but not the golf course.
In December, a 4th District Court of Appeal judge backed a 2008 circuit court ruling that said Ironhorse’s developer couldn’t unilaterally change homeowner documents forcing residents to pay the fee, which was $2,900 in 2009.
Naples said a new voluntary social membership fee will be $2,200-a-year. People who do not live in the Ironhorse community may purchase golf and social memberships.
The country club spent about $3.5 million renovating its Arthur Hills-designed golf course in 2006.
But then the recession hit, memberships tanked, and money-making events such as weddings were cancelled.
“In my personal opinion there were a lot of good intentions and there are a lot of people who got hurt by a bad economy,” said Peter Bernhardt, who has been an Ironhorse club member and homeowner for more than 12 years. “I’m deeply saddened that the club is at this state.”
Bernhardt said he’d like to see the club remain member-owned.
Under the reorganization, it will be up to the court to decide if O’Malley or another bidder can purchase the club.
“He believes that in due time the club will have good value,” Naples said about O’Malley.
“It’s not uncommon across the country for clubs, especially of our size in a small community, to have a difficult time because there are just not enough members to support it,” Naples said. “You’re probably going to see a lot more go in the direction we’ve gone.”
Well, thank you, Captain Obvious!
Without enough people to support it, anything goes under. Doesn’t matter if it’s a country club or your corner store.
FWIW: Someone somewhat familiar with the business once told me that it takes a population of approx. 50,000 people to support a golf club.
“FWIW: Someone somewhat familiar with the business once told me that it takes a population of approx. 50,000 people to support a golf club”
…or ONE very angry little Swedish wife !!
ha ha
With a great swing!!
“Driven By Things That Weren’t Real”
Do Fed MBS purchases fall in the ‘real’ or the ‘pretend’ category?
And what does the Fed MBS purchase program have to do with high unemployment? I would think artificially inflated housing prices and high unemployment rates would be the perfect ingredients for an ongoing dearth of home sales transactions, but perhaps I am missing their logic.
FOREX-Dollar falls vs euro after Fed minutes; yen down
Wed Jan 6, 2010 4:29pm EST
* Fed minutes show worry about end of MBS buying
By Wanfeng Zhou
NEW YORK, Jan 6 (Reuters) - The dollar fell against the euro on Wednesday after minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting suggested the possibility of more stimulus measures for the economy.
The dollar also pared gains versus the yen, although it remained higher on the day. The yen has been pressured by uncertainty surrounding the resignation of Japan’s finance minister.
Over the past month, the dollar had risen on expectations an improving economy would prompt the Fed to hike interest rates sooner rather than later. Analysts said the minutes are likely to dampen speculation the central bank would tighten any time soon.
In the minutes, Fed officials expressed concern the winding down of the central bank’s massive purchases of mortgage securities could hurt the housing market. Some said persistently high unemployment might make it desirable at some point to expand or extend asset purchases.
“The Fed headline discussing the possibility of more stimulus for the U.S. economy was surprising and has caused the dollar to weaken especially against the euro,” said Amelia Bourdeau, senior currency strategist at UBS in Stamford, Connecticut. “What that suggests is that the U.S. economy is not out of the woods yet.”
…
FWIW, the three rentals we looked at suck (and are absurdly priced) — the two houses I wanted to see are under contract.
Sorry about your renter’s travails. Perhaps this article offers some hints, or at least cause to hold out hope:
* The Wall Street Journal
* JANUARY 7, 2010
U.S. Now a Renters’ Market
With Apartment-Vacancy Rate at 30-Year High, Landlords Cut Prices 3% in 2009
By NICK TIMIRAOS
Apartment vacancies hit a 30-year high in the fourth quarter, and rents fell as landlords scrambled to retain existing tenants and attract new ones.
The vacancy rate ended the year at 8%, the highest level since Reis Inc., a New York research firm that tracks vacancies and rents in the top 79 U.S. markets, began its tally in 1980.
Rents fell 3% last year, according to Reis, led by declines in San Jose, Calif., Seattle, San Francisco and other cities that had brisk growth until the recession.
In New York City, the vacancy rate improved by 0.1 percentage point for the second straight quarter, but around 60% of rental buildings dropped their rents in the fourth quarter from the previous quarter. Effective rents — which include concessions such as one month of free rent — fell 5.6% in New York last year, the worst since Reis began tracking the data in 1990.
Landlords now must entice tenants to renew leases. “We’ll shampoo their carpets. We’ll paint accent walls. We’ll add Starbucks cards,” said Richard Campo, chief executive of Camden Property Trust, a Houston-based real-estate investment trust that owns 63,000 units. He said the first half of 2010 should be “pretty ugly,” but was optimistic the sector would pick up later in the year.
Few markets have been spared. During the fourth quarter, vacancies increased in 52 markets, while they improved in 17 and stayed flat in 10. Vacancies increased most sharply for the year in Tucson, Ariz.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Lexington, Ky.
Vacancies are tied to unemployment, because many would-be renters move in with family members or double up during a downturn. Apartments have been squeezed because younger workers, who are more likely to rent, have experienced the brunt of job losses during the downturn.
Landlords were also hit last year by competition from a wave of new supply that hit the market. The 120,000 units that came onto the market last year, including some busted condo projects that had to be converted to rentals, represented the most new construction since 2003, according to Reis.
…
Tampa is surprisingly difficult — we looked for some time before finally finding a rental house both of us liked with a landlord we could trust. When we finally found something, we had to commit right then and there, which I hate doing.
We had the same problem. If you’re looking for a nice SFH in So. Tampa, it’s an effort. We had to move when our landlords decided to put our rental house up for sale (where it remains 5 months later). We had a little time to look, got lucky and actually moved up for comparable rent - but, on any given day, choices are very limited. Quality SFHs in good neighborhoods and solid landlords are hard to find.
I got my rent lowered just a tad over 200 and just spoke with a girlfriend who got hers lowered 300 and the owner/landlord asked her to stay indefinitely…
With HBB it just takes doing your homework 1st, do some CL shopping, get yourself psychologically prepped for packing and voila…! ball is in our court for once.
Sorry, wrong thread.. these are in CA, but still.. I think lowered rents are out there, especially if you are already in place, sorry Muggy-you haven’t found anything yet.
Good luck!
CL = ?
Cl = craigslist.
(sorry for not posting much…I’m finally working again.)
FINANCIAL TSUNAMI WARNING!
* The Wall Street Journal
* JANUARY 7, 2010
Wave of Bankruptcies Hits States Hammered by Housing Bust
By SARA MURRAY
Personal bankruptcies soared last year in Western states hit hardest by the real-estate bust.
In states such as California, Arizona and Nevada, where housing prices soared and then collapsed during the past decade, consumer bankruptcy filings rose roughly twice as much as the national average increase of 32%. Homeowners fell behind on mortgages and could no longer tap into their home equity to pay down other debts.
“There’s a close relationship between high levels of household debt, including mortgage debt, and bankruptcy filings,” said Samuel J. Gerdano, executive director of the American Bankruptcy Institute, a research organization made up of attorneys, accountants and other bankruptcy professionals. “That…has been exacerbated by the bursting of the housing bubble.”
In Arizona and Nevada, where bankruptcies increased most, filings skyrocketed by 79.6% and 59.5%, respectively. Nearly 6.2% of mortgages in Arizona and 9.4% of mortgages in Nevada were in foreclosure by the end of the third quarter of 2009, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
California saw personal bankruptcy filings rise 58.8% last year. At the end of the third quarter, some 5.8% of loans were in foreclosure there.
…
Can California similarly stiff Wall Street as Iceland is the British banksters who knocked it up with an unrepayable debt burden and are now engaged in a futile effort to collect? It’s worth considering…
* The Wall Street Journal
* OPINION EUROPE
* JANUARY 6, 2010, 3:50 P.M. ET
Why Iceland Does Not Want to Pay
The British first contributed to Reykjavik’s banking collapse and now demand half of the island’s GDP to pay for the damage.
By HANNES H. GISSURARSON
Reykjavik, Iceland
Tuesday’s refusal by President of Iceland Olafur Ragnar Grimsson to sign into law the recent deal on bank deposits between Iceland, on the one hand, and the British and the Dutch governments, on the other hand, is only the latest in a series of dramatic events befalling the once prosperous and peaceful island in the North Atlantic.
According to the deal, Iceland undertakes to reimburse the British and the Dutch governments for their payments to depositors with the Icelandic Landsbanki in so-called Icesave accounts. The deal was forced on the Icelandic government mainly by the British, who, during the first months of the international financial crisis of the autumn of 2008, used London’s position as one of the financial centers of the world to hinder money transfers to and from Iceland, so as to slowly strangle its small economy.
The U.K. government even briefly put Iceland’s central bank and the Icelandic ministry of finance on an official Internet list of terrorist organizations, notwithstanding the fact that Iceland—which does not have an army—has been an ally of the United Kingdom in NATO for 60 years .
The British also turned the IMF on the Icelanders, as if it was a bounty collector. Despite strenuous denials by the IMF, it is clear that its financial assistance to the small island nation was on condition that it would reimburse the British and the Dutch for their payments to depositors.
…
Wow, it’s like that “Piranha Brothers” Monty Python skit.
“You’ve got a nice little island ‘ere, guvnah, be a shame if we had to smash it up…”
ok for some reason Orlando doesn’t seem to get it - on the news they said the problem in selling some homes were the appraisals are coming in too low and are based on foreclosures and short sales - they said home sales are difficult because of the appraisals - so it seems no one gets that the problem is the same and has not gone away - wall street is still getting bonuses and wrapping things up into junk and people are still bidding up prices and nothing has changed much from last year - when are prices going to match 2 and half times normal salaries which means homes should be selling for under 100,000 and be good but the only thing in those price ranges are junk
The median income in Orlando is $52706 and the median price of home is currently 164,000. So you are looking at 3.111 X the median income of 52,706, you are almost there.
I thought there were some very cute homes listed for under 99,999 when I did a realtor.com search.