Sacramento Speculators Look For A Greater Fool
The Sacramento Bee has this report on a rush for the exits. “When seven homes on one street are up for sale on a half-mile stretch of Aubergine Way, you get the idea a lot of area sellers want to collect on their investment. On another street nearby are three more homes for sale. Aubergine reflects an astonishing 600 percent growth in homes for sale this past year inside its ZIP code, 95655.”
“‘I think it’s because of the fact that we have so much equity in this community,’ added Tiffany Lunnie, a real estate agent who lives on Aubergine Way. Even as prices have cooled and remain below their late 2005 peaks, Lunnie said many of those selling are people like her.”
“This street, with its views of broad swaths of empty grasslands and air freight carriers landing at Mather Field, also clearly reveals the region’s utterly changed post-boom real estate market: 10,316 existing homes in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties were for sale in March compared with 3,799 a year ago.”
“Buyers have gained power to deal amid one of the largest inventories of existing homes for sale in the four-county Sacramento region in a decade. In all three Mather-area ZIP codes, sidewalk conversations and calls to agents listed on For Sale signs reveal countless stories of investors trying to cash out.”
“Dianne Slutsky, too, is selling a house she bought years ago with a San Ramon couple. ‘It was bought mostly with the intention of long-term appreciation, which we’ve gotten,’ said Slutsky, a real estate agent. So on the market it’s gone, After 50 days Slutsky’s three-bedroom house awaits the right offer.”
“So far, the ‘For Sale’ signs are increasing at a greater rate than the ‘Sold’ signs in a capital region where only a year ago sellers thought ‘waiting a week was forever,’ as Lunnie on Aubergine Way recalled.”
From the article:
‘Lennar and Sacramento-based AKT Development are partners in a 1,015-acre Anatolia community that’s bringing the first 2,100 homes to an area expected to eventually boom to nearly 30,000 homes.’
“Dianne Slutsky, too, is selling a house she bought years ago with a San Ramon couple. ‘It was bought mostly with the intention of long-term appreciation, which we’ve gotten,’ said Slutsky, a real estate agent. So on the market it’s gone, After 50 days Slutsky’s three-bedroom house awaits the right offer.”
With a name like “SLUTsky” how could you be anything else but a realtwhore?
2 years qualifies as “long term appreciation”????
Did they just turn 23? Talk about a lack of perspective!!!
“Dianne Slutsky, too, is selling a house she bought years ago with a San Ramon couple. ‘It was bought mostly with the intention of long-term appreciation, which we’ve gotten,’ said Slutsky, a real estate agent. So on the market it’s gone, After 50 days Slutsky’s three-bedroom house awaits the right offer.”
I suspect that there are a whole lotta RE agents that got caught up in the past few years and have made “investments.” Unless they’re crazy, they should be dumping their units in a hurry, like these two.
The only problem is, when RE insiders start dumping their properties, then that is NOT the time to buy.
Didn’t the NAR release info on how 40% of their membership own second homes? It puts the spin in a whole different light. ‘Because there is so much equity’ indeed. Like they found oil under the place.
Realtors are going to have their reputation destroyed when people find out all about these sleazy things.
Many, many homes for sale in the Reno area are owned (but not occupied) by RE agents.
A case of investing in what you know best. But also you need to diversify and most of all pay attention to valuations. You make more than half of your money buying at a good price.
But if a stock broker pumps stocks he owns, then he is in big doodoo. Not so for realtors it seems. They can invest in RE and talk up the market all they want. Officially, there’s no conflict. There would certainly be conflict if they were talking up their own house or that house’s neighborhood.
In other words, if you’re trying to sell YOUR house, don’t hire a realtor who’s also trying to sell their’s, because guess whose place they’re going to show first and push for harder?
Who do you think have been dumping properties on the market for the past few yr’s. I know quite a few realty insiders who have dumped their flea bitten dogs on the market for a nice and tidy profit. The one’s doing it now are the one’s who have no clue about market conditions and really shouldn’t be in the business.
“‘I think it’s because of the fact that we have so much equity in this community,’ added Tiffany Lunnie, ”
Change the ‘have’ to ‘had,’ past tense.
She’s been smoking too much.
My thought, after reading that sentence, was “Not for long!”
You and the WorldCom and Enron shareholders had so much equity built up too.
Equity? Says who Tiff? You don’t have real equity until you find another fool to hold the bag- unfortunately for you it looks like the greatest fools have been found.
Hopefully the general public learns something from this: 1) Housing prices need to be pinned to fundamentals such as rents and income; 2) Sure, where you live is “different” but so is every other place; 3) Don’t be caught up in a herd mentality that involves a get rich quick scheme that have little to no bars to entry- you might think you’re a real estate genius but there are a helluva of people out there doing the same thing evidence by 28% of houses being bought by flippers; 4) Generally speaking, if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.
Good point; they only need to look in the mirror to see the GF.
Great points.
People never seem to learn: There has never been and never will be an easy way to get rich for everybody. It’s impossible. For every person who gets something for nothing (i.e. no new value was produced), there need to be multiple bagholders. The “equity” is just the redistribution of someone’s earned income, be it present or future.
Tulips, Ponzi schemes, stock bubbles, housing bubbles, beanie babies … it’s always the same game: no-one wants to believe that they will be the loser. Just as 80% of drivers polled believe they are “better than average”.
If this bubble were simply about people pissing away their “play money”, not their life savings, I could just laugh at it all. However, this story is going to have a really sad ending for a lot of people. It troubles me. I’ve tried to warn some people of the downside risks of housing, but no-one has listened yet. I guess that’s why manias are manias — rationality goes out the window.
the only way for everyone to get rich is to save money.
If this bubble were simply about people pissing away their “play money”, not their life savings, I could just laugh at it all. However, this story is going to have a really sad ending for a lot of people. It troubles me. I’ve tried to warn some people of the downside risks of housing, but no-one has listened yet. I guess that’s why manias are manias — rationality goes out the window.
Well said.
More first-time buyers have come to begin the cycle anew. On Aubergine Way is Stephanie Lewis, who arrived last fall with her husband and two children. The family paid $375,000 at the top of the market and is now hoping it rebounds.
Nice timing Steph, you probably wiped out your families savings.
Nah, most certainly financed with a zero down ARM.
That part, wiping out the family’s savings, scares me every time I think about it. We cashed out. The profit we made that was due, in our judgment, to the “hot” market and above the long-term mean, was a couple hundred thousand. I think regularly now about how long it would have taken me to save that much money, after tax and even with reasonable compounding. The shock of knowing that just happened, in reverse, will scar a lot of sellers, who sell in the next few years, forever — probably just about as much as it did the people who lost their properties in the Great Depression.
Even though I feel sorry for the FBs who were not flippers, when I buy back in, I’ll take the low-ball express.
OT:
Kind of interesting and a bit related.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-divorce8may08,0,46400.story?coll=la-home-headlines
98% of Chinese villagers getting divorced to increase compensation through RE.
Read about DJ US Housing Slowdown Appears To Be Spreading Nationwide .
“Preliminary reports from builders Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. (HOV) and Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL), whose quarters ended April 30, indicate demand is falling faster and more sharply than previously thought, and that the pullback is no longer confined to hot markets that had seen sharp home price run-ups in the past few years. “
“DJ US Housing Slowdown” sounds like a name for some shtty rapper- like DJ Anthrax or MC Death
I kind of like the name ‘DJ Bubble’. Hummmm ‘DJ Bubblicious’ or even ‘JD Bubble-Trouble’!
MC Mortgage Calculator in the hoouuse
I bet Dianne Slutsky has big bolt-ons and would probably do anything ANYTHING to close a deal… make her an offer I’m thinkin… Grrrrr…
All those who have “equity” need to find buyers to give them that “equity”. Good luck to them. He who panics first, panics best….
If you are a realtor and are just now getting the idea to sell you better check for bolts on the side of your neck.
Why are all the realtors also real estate investors? Of couse the question is retorical, however it really seems like they have all their eggs in one basket. If things really crash not only do they lose their job but their investment too.
I think it makes perfect sense. For example, imagine I was a salesman for classic cars that routinely sold to rich car enthusiasts for $100K+. Now, since I’m scouting out what offers are out there for clients and since I’m directing clients to buyers, I can make a helluva lot more money if I buy the ’steals’ (rather than pointing them out to clientele) and then try to get clientele to buy my holdings rather than others’.
I would wager that a lot of real estate investors who were also realtors did something along this line.
Blog on the Sac RE market.
http://sacramentolanding.blogspot.com/
I’m from Sacramento and I can recommend Sacramento Landing as a good blog spot too. Lander does a good job of reporting the local and Central Valley scene.
Speaking of very local scene. I walk my dogs around my neighborhood in Natomas so, as a bubble watcher, I keep a good eye on For Sale signs. There were already 1-2 for just about every other block but since May 1st there’s been more like 2-4 per every other block.
I think alot of people were waiting for May 1st to list their house in Sacramento. I’ll be interested to look at May stats to see if there really was a big bump up.
I know some friends or friends of a friend who have 2 to 5 houses each in Sac. with most of them in Natomas. I told my friend to sell them last year but they thought it would keep going up. At least they still have some equity as they bought over 2 years back. Need to sell ASAP IMHO.
Lots of SF bay area money invested in Sac RE the last 3 years.
That is why there is the big drop in sales in new homes in Sac as the prices flatten, the investors stopped buying. They were probably buying up to 50% of the new homes in Sac.
“When 7 homes on one street are up for sale…”
Took a walk around a Bellingham WA neighborhood yesterday. For a year, there’s been one house for sale (still not sold). Yesterday, 7 houses AND a brand new 4 story condo complex in ONE block. All of them terribly over-priced.
Walked through a neighborhood of 130 buildable lots this weekend… 38 total lots/houses currently for sale…
Almost 30%… wow!!!
The last time I saw this many “for Sale ” signs was at the very beginning of the run-up back in the late 90’s. People were throwing their houses on the market in my Seattle neighborhood so they could “double their money”. (Little did they know they could have quadrupled or more if they’d hung on a few more years).
It’s interesting to see the same thing happening in reverse - trying to get out all at once so they don’t have to “halve their money”- or worse!
Just walked down that street in B’ham again. Update: another house on the market and the newly completed (last month) condo bldg has several
“For Sale” and “For Rent” signs in the windows. Looks like flippers who are in line to get burned. Especially since most of the apts. are for sale by the builder still.
Ran into the mailman on the route and we joked that it looked like perhaps one day soon, she’ll be knocking that street off her route (once everybody just bails).
It’s a freaking rummage sale out there.
Yeah, I loved the article about Diane Slutsky! “We bought it for long term capital appreciation, which we’ve gotten”. Uh, not so fast Diane right now you’ve got about jookie. That “appreciation” doesn’t become tangible until you cash that check after the closing! She hasn’t rec’d the “right” offer. How about this? You haven’t rec’d ANY offers, can we try that? Notice how she claims that this was done “a long time ago”? I’m not out to cheap shot CA’s b/c just about everywhere you go today anything that skirts cap. gains is considered long term? How hard can it be to show an “investment” home as your personal home? A couple of utility bills w/your name on them?
Today, in a neighborhood where they had 1 or 2, sjddenly had 7 in a week.
simmsays…
http://www.americaninventorspot.com
At the rate this is going, they’re going to have to change the street name from Aubergine Way to “Lemon Lane”
Don’t you mean ‘Lemming Lane’
“If you look around and can’t find the sucker - beware - because it’s probably you.”
Hey txchick, did you look up the word “Aubergine” in the dictionary…..it means ‘Eggplant’……a plant of the nightshade family…..ah yes, the dark shade will be falling on this street with the buyerless summer….
Yes, hence the reference to another member of the fruit & vegetable family.
in 2000, you could find nice housing in Sac for $100K and up. Some under a $100K. No sympathy for these greedy A$$ floppers. So many houses there built in the flood plains. Arnold will be too late to save their A$$es when the Sacramento and American rivers shoot over the levees and flood out the McMansions built in the floodplains. There was a reason that property had not been developed until now. LOL = Guess there will be more FEMA trailers there. And there should NOT be any gov’t bailout, and the FBers should be on the hook for their $500K and up loans.
There are 3 pre-foreclosures on top of the 7 for sale on this street. Apparently the reporter was so busy interviewing Realtors he forgot to do a little digging.
http://www.foreclosure.com/search.html?st=CA&cno=067&z=95655
This shows 8 pre foreclosures that I saw on that street!!! I emailed jwasserman@sacbee.com. maybe everyone should.
jayman, not having access to foreclosure.com, I’m not sure if these 8 entries are from 8 separate properties. At least from Realty Trac, often times there will be 2 entries per property due to multiple loans on that property. Were you able to varify each of them individually?
ocrenter……I did not verify,but looking and counting again I see that there are 10 listings on this street.I got a response from the SacBee. It was “Wow thanks I will look into it” I wonder if the realtor in this story is in pre foreclosure!!