Open Houses Being ‘Skunked’
Bloomberg has this report on the ‘housing decline. “Ko Ueno hasn’t found a buyer for his one- bedroom condominium in Cambridge, Massachusetts, even after cutting the price three times since October and offering a $6,000 cash rebate. Ueno, whose apartment near Harvard University went on the market for $329,000 and is now listed at $299,000, is caught in the first U.S. housing decline since 1999.”
“‘The housing market isn’t just cooling, there is a decided chill in the air,’ says economist Chris Rupkey. ‘Market power is shifting from sellers to buyers as unsold inventories continue to rise.’”
“Many sellers are finding they must cut their initial asking prices by 10 percent or more to entice buyers, according to brokers. Real-estate agents sound more like car dealers as they use phrases like ‘cash back,’ ‘buyer rebates’ and ‘must sell.’ They speak of being ’skunked’ at open houses, meaning, no one showed up, even after the sellers made ‘price improvements.’”
“‘I’ve learned to bring a good book with me,’ says agent Christopher Rotondo, as he sits alone at an open house in Newport, Rhode Island.”
“Investors who buy homes to resell at a profit are rushing out of the market, putting more pressure on prices, says David Berson, chief economist at Washington-based Fannie Mae. Such investors bought a record 2.34 million homes last year, according to data from the realtors group.”
“‘Investors can put their money in any asset they want, and with returns slowing, it makes it more likely they will pull out of housing,’ Berson said.”
“Shelley Grandy says investors ‘dumping’ their properties have stalled her efforts to sell her four-bedroom brick townhouse in Sterling, Virginia. Grandy reduced the price of her home to $435,000 this week, after listing it for $455,000 in February. In addition, she’s offering $10,000 for ‘closing cost help.’”
“‘The flippers turned it into a buyers’ market because they’re now desperate to sell,’ Grandy says. As for her townhouse, ‘this is pretty much my bottom price,’ Grandy said. ‘I won’t go any lower than this. I’ll just hold it and rent it, like a lot of people are doing.’”
The Boston Herald. “A new study finds Boston housing remains at its highest risk ever for price declines, with a nearly 60 percent probability that home values will fall during the next two years. Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reported yesterday that the number of unsold properties on the market has reached an all-time high.”
“MAR said sellers had 68,574 houses and condos listed for sale statewide in May, a 5.1 percent jump from a previous record set just one month earlier. All told, unsold inventories have set fresh records in each of the past 15 months.”
Thanks to the readers who sent in these links.
They still have there clam chowder, that’s pretty good right!!
They still have there clam chowder, that’s pretty good right!!
They still have their clam chowder, that’s pretty good right!!
They still have their clam chowder, that’s pretty good right!!
Somebody really likes clam chowder……
‘I won’t go any lower than this. I’ll just hold it and rent it, like a lot of people are doing.’
Good plan. Bleed money with the other sheep.
This quote must forever be enshrined in the FB Hall of Shame, right next to Liar-eah’s “soft landing” and Gary Watts “in the bag” quotes. To be jeered at, puzzled over and to serve as a cautionary tale for future generations.
How about this great oxymoron…
Lending Standards
“Ueno, whose apartment near Harvard University went on the market for $329,000 and is now listed at $299,000″
No, now wait a minute……this can’t be right. It can’t be possible because the Harvard boys, whose home is just down the street, recently came up with a study that plainly concluded no end to the housing boom. Yeah, this can’t possibly be right……..I mean, c’mon…….Harvard economists can’t be wrong, can they?
What a load of crap……
I remember when sellers did the “hold it and rent it” thing in the early 90’s in SoCal. It didn’t work out so well for most of them. They basically just ended up bleeding money until they couldn’t stand it anymore, and then selling for much less (or doing a short sale or foreclosure).
The sellers that try to rent and hang on are thinking things will turn around in a year or two at most. They are destined to learn the hard way that RE busts are long and slow.
Yeah, I gotta raise the bullshit flag on this comment. I give her no more than two years of underwater rental income along with the hassles of being a landlord before this gal hits the panic button. Of course she will be down 50%+ from todays price by then. Good strategy!
Yeah… nice quote you found there… I gotta say I’m with everyone else who LOL’d at that FB’s quote of the day. Paying $3000/mo mortgage for a condo that rents at say $1500/mo? Homeowners fees too? Oh feel the burn baby with that little “investment.”
What might be interesting is the effect these “hold and renters” will have on the rental market. I wonder about this in NYC, with its glut of new condo projects (which likely will get changed to rental housing). I really wonder how far rents can rise under these circumstances.
Could this be the place?:
http://tinyurl.com/lyq2v
It claims its a 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath townhouse. Hard to believe from the picture. Maybe worth $270k tops.
That’s not a brick townhome - that’s a brick-FRONT townhouse, which to me is even uglier than a all vinyl siding townhouse - something really unappealing about half-hearted attempts to look good that show your underlying cheapness. Whoever came up with the idea of brick front houses probably invented the wood siding on cars in the early 80s
LOL. Love your handle. I, too, hate cheap houses. Unfortunately they’re a dime a dozen these days. Builders apparently have no integrity, or taste for that matter…
Wood siding on cars started in WWII with shortages of metals.
Hey, wood siding on cars is pure character!
Yeah good luck to her at that price. You can go 5 miles down the road to ashburn and buy a brand new brick-front townhouse with a 2-car garage for the 300ks. The builders are already undercutting existing housing on the low end. This is especially true when you look at the incentives and such in the weekly paper that aren’t posted on their websites. http://www.centexhomes.com/Washington-DC/N45779.asp
I love the people that think they are entitled to their crazy prices just because some bozo bought at that price in July of 2005. She might be able to sell for that price in 2012. Her place will rent for around $1400/mo. An agressive value would be 200X rent or about $280k. She isn’t going to unload that one anytime soon.
Thik Baltimore’s got DC fever? Looking at that listing, it’s confirmation of how crazy prices have gotten here. There is a neighborhood about 15 miles north of the city in Baltimore county where they have overbuilt like crazy. New and up to 4 year old brick 2 br/2.5 ba TH’s flipping for upwards of $400K, some with stairways so narrow a crane is necessary to transfer the fridge through a window up to the second floor kitchen, I kid you not. There are at least 15 for sale within a half mile, some for rent for about $1700-$1800/mo. The rest of the building around there is $600K McMansions that have been sitting for a year plus. That market is dead here–this area does not make enough money to support all these huge homes, and with our pending electric rate increase, the cost of heating and cooling those suckers will double, sooner or later.
I doubt it as this link is in VA and the article is talking about Massachusetts.
Whoops! Went back and re-read. Sorry quotes came from VA too.We need a delete dumb post button.
“I won’t go any lower than this.”
Baaa-aaa-aaaa!!!
It’s gonna be danged cold once you have been shorn….
Guss what! If it’s a buyer’s market…it’s also a renter’s market. Bet you don’t make your mortgage payment with your rental income!
She might be able to make the mortgage payment . . . until her ARM adjusts. Then, not.
‘I won’t go any lower than this. I’ll just hold it and rent it, like a lot of people are doing.’”
An angry, bitter, and decidedly defiant attitude fueled by greed which will ultimately cost her even more of those delicious dollars which she so desperately seeks and feels entitled to. She will learn first hand what it means to cut off ones nose to spite ones face.
“I’ll just hold on to my pets.com stock shares until the market comes back…”
I won’t let go of the marbles until I can figure out how to get my hand out of the jar with all the marbles…
This sort of stubborness is part of our evolutionary makeup.
And those who can’t reason their way past their simian tendencies will suffer the same fate as the proverbial monkey.
I love how these people think renting out the unsellable shitbox is a panacea. Then they get the second shock when they find out people won’t pay their overpriced rents either. What’s a FB to do?
Umm…commit suicide with their suicide FB loans?
Won’t be long before the acronym FL becomes common… as in Fukced Lender. They’ll be publicly sceaming enough at BB before you know it.
I’m betting on this shortly. Deciding which banks I want to buy puts on. Too bad I feel like I need to buy really long puts, as they are much more expensive. If I knew they were going to have bad news in a month that would be a much cheaper bet.
Just like a Poor friend of mine, couldn’t sell his house. OK, he had an offer but with contingencies and lower price. He turned them away. Months later, he lowered his price anyway! But by then, no buyers, at least not at his new price.
“So we decided to just keep it. And we’ll rent it out.”
So rather than “lose money” now (meaning he’d make over $100k!) by selling it at market value, they are trying to rent it for their mortgage payment, which is not too high considering he’s over halfway through a 30-year loan.
Still, he can’t even rent it out for that!!! So it’s been empty for months, and the way it’s going, will be for months longer. Ads in the local papers got him only one prospect who said it was nice but priced too too high. Ads in Craigslist got him a pack of weirdos (hopelove2007) wanting to rent space in his house. Students, I guess. Yeah, some good renters there!
Thankfully, he has enough savings to do this for… years and years. Seriously. He is now deciding that this is really just a good retirement plan, sinking nearly $2000 (maintenance on top) every month into that “gator”, and then he’ll have it paid off in 10 or 15 years. Nice plan? I don’t think so. But he refuses to look at spreadsheets or and hard calculations! Oh my.
Seriously. He is now deciding that this is really just a good retirement plan, sinking nearly $2000 (maintenance on top) every month into that “gator”, and then he’ll have it paid off in 10 or 15 years. Nice plan? I don’t think so. But he refuses to look at spreadsheets or and hard calculations!
Please send me your friend’s contact info ASAP! I have some Webvan & Enron stock I’d like to sell him, plus an exquisite collection of beanie babies. I’m sure he’ll agree they have fantastic “investment” potential.
He is a perfect example of why after the initial price shocks, home prices will be flat for a long time. He doesn’t need to sell, but he has irrationally gotten it into his head that his home is worth $x, and he won’t sell unless he gets $x. In the meantime, inflation ticks up, and he pays $2,000 per month, making the real value of his $x less and less and less.
Eventually inflation and wages will catch-up, and he’ll be proud of the fact that he made the same nominal profit that he hoped to get yesterday . . . many, many years later, after paying taxes, and mortgage payments, and maintenance.
“See, I was right, real estate always goes up!”
I gotta agree with Rental Watch ^^^ . People will lose their life savings before admitting they made a mistake and pricing their home at market value. If you want to buy at market value in the next couple of years, you are probably looking at a foreclosure.
If you feel lender will begin to tank in a month you could simply short. WM? They have a fat yield but definitely exposed to sub-prime and mortgage market in general. With the twin threats of rising rates & the FED encouraging tightening, could be a caindidate. They are right around an alltime high…
During that eye-opening dump in $BKX during June options week (down 7% or something like that on Mon-Tue, then right back up on Thu-Fri — the standard option-week scam in retrospect), Comerce Bank (CBH) was just about the worst performer. I have my eye on them for autumn.
“Shelley Grandy says investors ‘dumping’ their properties have stalled her efforts to sell her four-bedroom brick townhouse in Sterling, Virginia. Grandy reduced the price of her home to $435,000 this week, after listing it for $455,000 in February. In addition, she’s offering $10,000 for ‘closing cost help.’”
“‘The flippers turned it into a buyers’ market because they’re now desperate to sell,’ Grandy says. As for her townhouse, ‘this is pretty much my bottom price,’ Grandy said. ‘I won’t go any lower than this. I’ll just hold it and rent it, like a lot of people are doing.’”
She’s going to rent it? Where’s she gonna live? Umm, she sure sounds like an investor to me…
Shelley should put that $10K in “closing cost help” toward lower the price. And since she can’t sell at her “bottom price,” she can also call herself a “non-investor” or whatever she like, except, of course, “someone who has sold a home.”
According to my handy dandy Wash Times RE Market summary for May, sales chances in Loudoun County (where Shelley is trying to sell her house) are at 10%, and average DOM is 70. Loudoun is the slowest sub-market in the region. Good luck Shelley!
In related news, I am renting a condo that sold for over $500K for $1900 per month…PITI alone is well over $3K per month…and I am certain that mine is not the best deal out there, I probably could have gotten it for $1800, but had to find a place quickly.
Lucky for my landlord, I’m a good tenant.
Please clarify “PITI”.
What’s the link to the Wahs Times RE Market summery, if you happen to have it.
Thanks
Principal Interest Taxes & Insurance. Very standard jargon.
Thanks!
PITI = Principal + Interest + (property) Taxes + (fire) Insurance.
For condos, also include homeowner association fees!
For Florida condos, also include hurricane insurance (or the expected cost of paying for future hurricane damage, if no insurance is available).
And Mello Roos in California.
What an acryonym… did bloggers come up with that?
You’ve never shopped for a home, have you?
Yes I have, but not once during the time came across that acronym. I’m thinking they should change it, but I’m not sure PIIT, TIPI, or even TIIP would necessarily be any better.
the last decline began in the oil patch in 85
boston 89
jeesh get the dates right
He’ll drop them pants an squeal like a pig
AHHHHH! Deliverence!
Yeah… sleep it off, and after a couple cups of coffee tomorrow morning you can explain to us what that means.
a slowdown in Mass? don’t these people know the Sox are in first place?
dear Bahstin Herald - RE has already gone down=probability =100% !
This reminds me of when it is pouring down rain in record amounts and the F-ing weather channel says 80% chance of rain! We got 10 inches in the last couple days so some F-ed investors just got a big headache with flood damage. Most people in the area don’t have flood insurance.
Yeah, I had to break the bad news about the leaky basement (of the house we’re moving out of in VA) to the landlord. Sadly, he’s too busy working overtime to feed 2 empty alligators here in Northern VA to have time to come out and look. They tried to make *us* (the almost former tenants) meet the basement fixing dude on our busy rainy moving day. FORGET IT.
“A new study finds Boston housing remains at its highest risk ever for price declines, with a nearly 60 percent probability that home values will fall during the next two years.”
Isn’t that kind of like a weatherman telling you about a 60% chance of rain when you’re already soaking wet?
Boston’s already in price declines, and not just lower than last summer’s peak, they’re negative Y-O-Y.
“Ueno, whose apartment near Harvard University went on the market for $329,000 and is now listed at $299,000, is caught in the first U.S. housing decline since 1999.”
No idea if that’s a meaningful price cut or not. For all I know, he could have bought it 6 months ago for 250, and is complaining about prices just because nobody wants to give him his flipper profit.
Condos should cost about what a college grad makes on his first job. That’d be about $45 - $50k. This POS is overpriced by about $270,000+.
It’s a effing apartment for God’s sake. When did people come to think that it’s normal to pay $300k for a damn apartment, I mean armpitment? It’s an APARTMENT! That’s it, just a little sh$tbox. All the materials in it couldn’t possibly even add up to $20k. Having bought a SFH 10 years ago for $93k, it just blows my mind that 10 years later people think it’s normal to pay this kind of cash for dumps.
I so agree. People have lost all perspective. Just like when they couldn’t differentiate a good company from a bad one during the dot com days. Earnings ? I don’t need no stinking earnings !
I agree that condos should be affordable on a college grad salary, but I don’t agree that $45 - $50K is a first job income. IMO those would be high starting salaries for degrees in fields like Engineering or Computer Science. Business majors would be starting in the $30s. If I had to guess an average first job salary for all college grads, I’d ballpark it around $35-$40K. Based on that, and using old-school rules of thumb, I think (non-luxury) condos should be selling in the low $100s. (At least in my area.)
The National Association of Colleges and Employers has some (somewhat flawed, but okay) data on starting salaries for college grads by degree type. You’re spot on with your comments.
National averages for starting salaries don’t mean a whole lot. In expensive metro areas like NY, DC, and Boston grads from good schools will start in the high 40s or 50s. I have no idea about the west coast but I assume its similar in LA and SD. Most the people I know that were college grads 4 years ago are making mid 60s or 70s.
I recruit new college graduates in electrical engineering & CS. We offer graduates with a BS degree about $70-$75K. This is in Silicon Valley.
What I pay for an apartment? How about $600 a month in rent? What’s that work out to for owning the place? Oh yeah, Cambridge isn’t exactly the cheapest place to live in the world.
Related - from this article: http://tinyurl.com/ktfnq
“Here’s a guideline that may change the way you view your seemingly cheap monthly rent. To figure out the price of a home you could buy for approximately the same monthly cost of your current rent, simply do the following calculation:
$________ per month x 200 = $ ______________
Example: $1,000 x 200 = $200,000
See? If you are paying rent of $1,000 per month, you would pay approximately the same amount per month to own a $200,000 home (factoring in tax savings.)
and
Buying a home is a personal choice and it isn’t necessarily the path to fun. In fact, as he and his co-author point out in Home Buying For Dummies, a study by Peter Rossi and Eleanor Weber of the University of Massachusetts found that:
Homeowners are less social, on average, than renters-spending less time with friends, neighbors, and co-workers
Homeowners spend more time on household chores
Perhaps for the preceding reasons, renters have more sex and less marital discord, and cope better with parenting than homeowners do!
200 X monthly rent is a much higher multiple than most of the pros (financial analysts) generally recommend. Usually, it’s 100 X or 120 X. In any case, this is just an oversimplification and rule of thumb, similar to the “don’t spend more than 28-32% of gross income on housing” rule.
But… considering the source (clueless MSM), this is a big improvement over the usual “never goes down/soft landing” Realtwhore hype that passes for real journalism.
“Perhaps for the preceding reasons, renters have more sex and less marital discord, and cope better with parenting than homeowners do!”
LOL. That’s the funniest thing I”ve ever heard on this blog.
“Perhaps for the preceding reasons, renters have more sex”
Well, there you go. My decision to rent has just become permanent.
BTW, how many years do you need to rent before this benefit kicks in?
According to county records, he paid 183K for for this POS in 1999.
Good find! The pricks that publish that newspaper should have done the same due diligence and outed him for the “get rich quick” scumbag this guy really is.
Yes. Not only are the reductions insignificant and ridiculous, compared to the initial buy six years ago, as is the case with this seller, there is still no “real” panic or reality setting in.
One has to wonder, with the mainstream media now on the bubble band wagon, what will things be like when the real reductions start?
We have yet to see the serious panic selling that I hope is imminent. Once these swelling inventories continue, and we get into fall, we’ll see how things will really play out. Unfortunately, a lot of people who are listing their houses right now don’t “have” to sell and are just trying for the home run price. We are hearing a lot of worthless whining and grumbling over six figure profits which are just not large enough for these greedy swine.
“Boston’s already in price declines, and not just lower than last summer’s peak, they’re negative Y-O-Y.”
Just checked a previous link, they’re y-o-y negative 5 months in a row. Can’t wait till that comes to my neighborhood.
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you…!
What?!? Did I just hear the words “FREE FOOD”?!?
It never even crossed my mind that free food would be among the first tangible benefits of a housing decline. I’d be happy to show up for that open house for an $800K 1 br condo 300 ft under landing jets at Lindburgh Field in San Diego so long as I can have a couple microbrews and a little BBQ during the visit.
Remember that one realtor mentioned that no one even came by to use the restroom, recently.
Maybe I’ll do some realtors (TM) a favor and stop by and use the restroom when I’m out running errands this weekend.
He’ll appreciate the company. Leave a floater so he can flush it and tell the owner that he “cleaned up a little”.
^^^glad I wasn’t drinking any milk!! LOL!
I waiting for the sign that says “Free exotic dancers!”
Hey, they are already using actors to make open houses look lived in, why not hire strippers to give your house that bachelor party look!
Free exotic dancers for everyone!
Would it help to park exoctic cars in the area, and stategicly place some mail around the pad with letter envelopes with a return address from some famous actors to give the illusion that the place could bring good luck to someone financial and social situation, kind of like selling rabbit’s feet to the gold minors during the gold rush?
“‘I’ve learned to bring a good book with me,’ says agent Christopher Rotondo, as he sits alone at an open house in Newport, Rhode Island.”
Wow! This guy is a super agent. Well worth the commission!
Yeah, someone give this guy a sign to twirl.
I am seeing properties bought a couple of years ago selling for the same price, or even lower. Examples are:
MLS#:70393291
Bougth on 11/16/2005 for 219,900
For sale now for:….. 214,900
This is a condo in a dead end street in the ghetto part of a small town about 1 hour south of Boston, and 30 minutes north of Providence.
When you take into account transaction costs, mortgage fees, HOA, and taxes, this guy is down at least 30K after 6 months of “ownership”. What makes it even worse is that out of 13 units, 5 brand new ones are still for sale at the same price!
Did anyone else see this? Oh my god. Cry me a river and then wipe away my tears of laughter and irony. Realty Times, or at least this lady, relaly believes there is a MSM secret plot to ouster realtors and replace them with….the MSM!
http://tinyurl.com/hrayq
I was away last week, so I hope I’m not repeating, but I read this article from Realty times and wanted to punch a wall, then I went into true disbelief. Does this lady have any idea that one can take the exact same arguments she whines and apply them to Liar-eah and the rest of the NAR jerks who predict and opine on their “opinions” of market conditions? Seriously, here is a clip.
“So, let’s turn the tables. Who’s interested in using the biggest newspapers in the nation to slam the real estate industry? And why did each paper go along? Why did the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and dozens of others do the exact same story in the exact same way without giving any attention or voice to the other side?
That should make a good journalist wonder: Do the newspapers have something to gain, too? Are newspapers part of the “Replace-Realtors-With-Us Cartel”? Let’s find out.
(By the way, we don’t have to prove there’s a cartel. All we have to do is suggest that one exists, just as the research institutions and newspapers have done. Let’s see if we can smear the “Replace-Realtors-With-Us” Cartel with as few facts as they used to smear the real estate industry.)
What we have is two venerable research institutions slamming real estate commissions on exactly the same day using the biggest name newspapers in the country. Coincidence? No. Planned attack. Yes. So who are the generals in the war room? ”
Excuse me while I change my shorts.
The author of the above article…
Blanche Evans is the award-winning editor of Realty Times, the Internet’s largest independent real estate news service, where she oversees the nation’s leading real estate writers and columnists.
Known for her keen insight on real estate industry issues and for her ability to make complex subjects easy to understand, Blanche is the author of two best-selling real estate books: The Hottest e-Careers In Real Estate, an Internet marketing primer for real estate professionals, and Homesurfing.net: The Insider’s Guide To Buying And Selling Your Home Using The Internet, a comprehensive homebuying and selling guide.
In 2006, Blanche will have three new consumer books published, including:
Housing Bubbles, Booms and Busts, McGraw-Hill
National Association of REALTORS® Guide to Selling A Home, Wiley & Sons
National Association of REALTORS® Guide To Buying a Home, Wiley & Sons
In addition to authoring books and her duties at Realty Times, Blanche is sought out for her expert opinions by the nation’s premier print and broadcast news organizations, including: CNN, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press. She’s also in demand by real estate organizations — from MLSs to real estate brokerage companies to large franchises — who hire Blanche to address their groups and provide up-to-the-minute analysis of real estate industry happenings.
Remember the books of the dot com bust ? Dow 30,000 or whatever it was ? How to play Internet Stocks. The New Information Revolution… remember those ? (I got the titles wrong, but you remember, right ?)
How come people are so stupid ? Their house and their investments are the biggest thing they own and they seem hell bent to gamble them away every time a fad comes along.
Is it something in the water ?
The simple answer is no lessons were learned because Greensperm bailed out the dot con speculators with negative interest rates and free flowing spigots of money. People should have been nursing their wounds and contemplating their stupidity in the 1996-1999 bubble. Instead, Greensperm extended the game to housing.
I would love to be able to log roll myself! I’m only going to be able to do that with my obituary. What a great read that’s gonna be! Go ahead and call me a liar. I’ll be dead!
The trouble with this argument is newspapers are declining in revenues and a cartel needs to be enriching itself at the public’s expense for people to care. The public knows darn well who’s been enriching themselves at the public’s expense through anti-competitive practices, it’s not newspapers.
And newspapers make much of their $ off RE & bank advertising. If anything, they have been rah rah all along - now they finally start reporting the obvious, eight months after the bust started, and it’s wha wha wha, they’re out to get us.
I think the real estate industry is not necesary for everyone.
And for those that don’t have the time or interest, or confidence in being able to handle selling real estate, businesses will crop up to fill the need, just like they have done for people selling cars, jewelry, etc, through consignment shops, or more recenlty through eBay service centers. Of which, CompUSA is opening up their own eBay service center in which people can bring their used stuff, and CompUSA will take car of everything for you, for a fee. “You just sit back and wait for the check to come in”, according to the ad.
There will probably continue to be self service real estate sales agencies to assist people selling their homes, probably for a flat fee, or for a al a carte menu of services.
I think alot of people are very upset about the gouging that real estate industry has been taking out on sellers and buyers.
And it is in fact a different world than it was 50 years ago, people can do much more of their purchase selling process online.
What a real estate agent might be helpfull for is to baby sit the house during open houses. But really, that probably does not require a real estate licence to do, just a responsible, honest person to open up the house, hand out informational flyers, pershaps show visitors around, take names, numbers, messages of interested parties, and lock the place up. And an out of work actor might make a better choice than a real estate agent. And you could even give the actor a deal that if they get someone to to buy the house, they can get a little bonus of a couple hundred bucks on top of paying them for their time, baby sitting the house.
With that said, I think it still may be very valuable for buyers and sellers to have the knowledge of an appraiser to be able to make purchase and selling decisions.
I think it’s hilarious… thanks for posting that link. Every purveyor of a crooked game hates it when they’re clean busted, and the Real Estate Cartel thing puts it all in very plain terms, as have other articles in traditional media (now that they’ve woken up to the state of the market). Poor Blanche; at least her new pic on the webpage no longer looks like a 1970’s schoolteacher photo.
As for her assertion that pulling real estate ads from print media will somehow get a point across, she must be blind to the proliferation of Craigslist and other free, convenient, non-cartel means of buyer-seller connection. Pardon the pun, but Blanche, we’re living in ‘Century 21′ now, babe, better get used to a whole buttload of change in the way you and your peeps make money.
I saw a sign for an open house yesterday in La Costa (San Diego)…no joke here… it had a little sign above it that said “Free Ice Cream Sodas” and the sign on the next block (for the same house) said “Free Gift Drawing”……I sooooooooo wanted to go but I was doing errands for work…
This is starting to get interesting…I’m holding out for free Padres or Chargers tickets.
Go Bolts! Our D is going to rock this year.
In Seattle, they were giving out free Starbuck’s gift cards as incentive to go to open houses.
These open houses are becoming a real cornucopia!
“‘The flippers turned it into a buyers’ market because they’re now desperate to sell,’ Grandy says. As for her townhouse, ‘this is pretty much my bottom price,’ Grandy said. ‘I won’t go any lower than this. I’ll just hold it and rent it, like a lot of people are doing.’”
and then the rental market was loosened by the release of inventory formerly held up by floppers…
OT, but thought y’all might be interested:
SIA Retirement Study Shows Americans are ‘Dissaving’; Finds Grim Situation Worsening
Wealth Effect from Housing Appreciation A Key Contributor to Recent Savings Deterioration
“Americans are not saving enough for retirement,” said SIA President Marc Lackritz. “The SIA study more than confirms our worry – in fact, it points to reasons for growing concern that the housing boom is turning into a retirement bust.”
http://www.sia.com/press/2006_press_releases/27926553.html
Ugh.
If the Boomers are not ready for retirement after by my count three huge opportunities including the eighties stock market boom, the nineties technology boom, and the recent real estate boom (bust)–TFB.
Perhaps the same securities industry is now rethinking its commitment to vastly increasing corporate profits and executive compensation while depressing middle-class incomes?
Naaah.
Test
“‘The flippers turned it into a buyers’ market because they’re now desperate to sell,’ Grandy says. As for her townhouse, ‘this is pretty much my bottom price,’ Grandy said. ‘I won’t go any lower than this. I’ll just hold it and rent it, like a lot of people are doing.’”
Another ridiculous quote. The flippers F**ked the market. I wonder if she would be selling her townhouse if the price was where it should be at in the pre flipper days??
My thoughts exactly.
Now it is the flippers fault, just eat your clam chowder and shut the hell up.
‘this is pretty much my bottom price,’ Grandy said. ‘I won’t go any lower than this. I’ll just hold it and rent it, like a lot of people are doing.’”
- The key words in that sentence are “pretty much”. Would be fun to put in lowball bids on her townhouze and see her grovel for the money. Then, instead of a higher counter-offer, you sink the bid even lower.
Yeah, just “hold it and rent it” for 1/2 your mortgage payment. And thats if you’re lucky. Good luck “grandy”.
I’ve been wondering: Has anybody tried this strategy?
Lowball. Then, when the seller counter-offers, counter with an even lower offer.
That’ll put the fear in them. Has anyone tried this?
I haven’t tried it, but I swear I will when the market tanks here in Vancouver.
I actually did this about a year ago. I was looking at a 3BR ranch that was listed at $120K… but it was in pretty crappy condition so I made an offer of $95K, which was at least in line with the tax appraisal. They countered with a hilarious $115K and added a bunch of new clauses to the contract.
I responded with an offer $94,999. It didn’t work, but the reaction I got from the realty company in question was worth the paperwork.
I’ve seen this strategy in a business deal and it worked because one side was over a barrel. I’ve also read in books on psychology and negotiation that this is a powerful technique. I use it in a different way: I have a friend give a ridiculous lowball number to soften the seller up, then I come in with the normal lowball offer
Knock out!
Has anyone tried having your friend bid an extremly lowball offer like 60% off the asking price, then you bid a lowball offer slightly higer.
They still have there claim chowder, that’s pretty good right!!
Dammit David… you’re making me hungry!
David - You’re boring and stupid. Go away.
Brenda van der Merwe, the broker quoted in the overpriced Cambridge closet also has listing near where I live in Newton. When I read the article, the name immediately rang a bell. I drive by her Newton’s listing everyday.
MLS # MLS # 70409816 asking $989,000.
Here’s the recent sale history on this property.
06/30/2005: $802,500
05/19/2003: $720,000
04/30/1999: $440,000
The seller paid 802K for it a year ago and from what I can tell no upgrades have been made. And now they are asking 187K more. This is not even in a good part of Newton. The house is on a very busy street. This is absolute insanity.
Isn’t that down by the Marriot? Not the bestest of locations, I’d agree, especially not at that price. That 1920s colonial style house is pretty common in Newton; for a million bucks you could certainly do better.
It’s on Chestnut Street near Route 9.
Actually, I think this has to be the worst listing I’ve seen in the Boston area in while: MLS #70411712. It’s in Dorchester. It’s a “house” built into what appears to at one time have been a garage (note the date in concrete over the door). F’ing flipper bought it a month ago for $120K, listing it for $250. And he didn’t even clean it up; for making 100% profit he couldn’t even be bothered to buy a bottle of Spic ‘n Span.
OMG! Somebody should print out the past sale price and paste it on the front. Not that anyone who would buy this utter POS is likely to be able to read.
You may have not heard about the upgrades that HAVE been made to this house, many 10s of thousands of upgrades. You may not also be aware that the home is in the Angier School district, in Waban. Waban is the most desirable part of Newton. The market analysis of recent home sales in the immediate vacinity supports the price. It has only been on the market a little over a week, and there has been serious interest. If you were a buyer, you would be out looking at competing properties and you would find that this house has 5 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a 2-car garage, and many other wonderful details that place it in serious competition with other properties active on the market today in that range.
The article you read in the International Herald Tribune failed to mention that I have only had this listing personally for 3 months, and in that time I’ve lowered the price once from $313,000 to $299,000. The seller has also installed a brand-new gorgeous kitchen. The property was not listed by me originally, and that is a fact.
Flipper Alert SD!
I still see quite a few recent specuvestors in 92117 a zip I follow in San Diego. I feel sorry for the folks looking to buy, until these folks can no longer make a profit the market won’t seen any steep drop in prices. Even stucco (he really should leave out the “get”) said he was surprised how gradual the drop is. Still this is one small microcosm, one zip out of thousands. The flips are very easy to spot, usually well overpriced so they can come down 60-80K and still make a health profit. I would like to hear from an appraiser on how new granite, cabinets, and hardwood translates into +120K?
3/2 1156sf 3/06-465K 06/06 598K
3/2 1032sf 12/05-442K 05/06 600-650K
3/2 1313 5/05-515K 05/06 629K
3/2 1200 2/06-480K 06/06 589-619K
2/1 1200 3/05-509K 05/06 620K
Summary: bad news for buyers, flippers were out buying properties yesterday and their scouting for properties to buy tomorrow. Maybe in 6 months things will be different.
“(he really should leave out the “get””
His reference is to the Marx Bros. movie “Cocoanuts” and the gag therein refers to the Florida real estate bust in the 1920s.
92117 is one of my favorite places to do some flipper watching too. Craigslist especially. The $120K above purchase price seems very common there for the semi-rehab flip. Some of the houses I have seen ‘rehabbed’ just make me laugh at how hopelessly bad they are. Yeah, the kitchen looks better, but most of these places are still in the scarier neighborhoods and are sitting on the market.
I’d also like to hear how granite, IKEA cabinets and hardwood or tile equates into $135K.
http://sandiego.craigslist.org/rfs/175018511.html
A whopping 1032sq ft and price reduced again.
In a “quiet, safe, family neighborhood.”
(I think the SD Police crime maps tell a different story for the area.)
And the County Assessor’s Office says:
This little flipper paid $442,500 in December ‘05.
We’ll see if he catches his greater fool or if he is the one who has been caught.
Thanks for posting that link SD_Suntaxed. Yeah I like that area but I’m somewhat biased. That house you posted was one of the ones I listed above. When I pulled the data on 6/14 the price was 609-649500K. Now two weeks later on Craig’s its 576995-599995 and still overpriced? Sounds like someone’s starting to sweat a little. What will it be two week’s from now? The floorplan is kind of strange with the fireplace placement in the middle, that should have been ripped out and opened up. I get a kick out of the pricing, 500, 995, why not leave the superfluous digits off! I did actually walk through the 598K property when it was listed as a fixer-fixer. It was one of the worst fixers I had ever seen, the guy did everything he could to it, probably put 50-60K into it he did a good job and will make something on it since he got it for such a low price. I’ll post an update in a month, we’ll see how they fare. These re-habers are professionals, that is their line of work.
Horrible fireplace location, floorplan, use of tile, etc… Appears cheap and pedestrian.
‘I won’t go any lower than this. I’ll just hold it and rent it, like a lot of people are doing.’
I know this area well. A lot of it was swamp land. I have seen some unpleasent surprises as it settled also. Sidewalks raising at 45 degree angles. Townhouse walls pulling a way enough so you get water damage.
It is also an area where the Sherriffs are overwhelmed. To many people, too soon, and the county services did not keep up. The roads are maxed out. It also an area where recent arrivals to the US have flocked to.
The amount of of townhouses on the market in that area are amazing. If No. VA. has a bubble area that is it.
Stcamp
“investors bought a record 2.34 million homes last year, according to data from the realtors group.”
————————————————–
Umm, there’s about 4 million homes for sale right now. Maybe flippers were 1/2 or more of the market last year?
How many homes sold last year? We could back out the % flippers last year, and quickly explain where all the buyers went this spring.
DAVID - LOL!
Hope that her bottom line price becomes 10 cents on the dollar
I love it! Boycott Open Houses and bids!
http://www.boycotthousing.com
This is silly.
If they were going to boycott housing they would not rent either, right?
I understand the sentiment, but it should be called boycott mortgages.
Kind of a moot point, his website is a hoot.
Check out the “House of the Week” feature.
It was already clear here in Silicon Valley last September when I put my house up for sale that the jig was up. I was able to be at the house all day every day doing final fix-ups here and there so I told my agent to keep the Open House placard on the main sign 24/7 and I’d deal with weekday folks.
I think I got as much traffic during the week as we did during the weekends, so if you can manage to find the time, do it.
With affordability at all-time lows and the speculators leaving the market, who is continuing to buy houses? First-time homebuyers, or the trade-up buyer? Are people still buying new homes before selling their old homes?
With the recent increases in interest rates making even ARM loans more expensive, I just don’t see how the number of units sold can still be so high. The current sales levels would have been historical highs just a few years ago.
Are there really that many stupid people out there?
Most people voted for Kerry or Bush in the last election. The better question would be how many people are out there who don’t act stupid? I don’t think the problem is the intelligence of the people, but rather the quality of the information they are acting on. I have observed that the more TV people watch the more likely they are to behave in a manner that makes them look stupid.
In a tech-and-social web forum that I frequent regularly, a number of the participants are talking about looking, shopping and buying. I think a lot of people just don’t realize what’s going on. The whole “market cycle” thing just hasn’t occurred to them. I also see a good amount of denial when the topic turns explicitly to whether there is in fact a housing bubble. A lot of people just don’t think hard and critically about these things.
I guess I’m having a hard time coming to grips with the idea that so many people are willing to take on such enormous debt loads without examining the fundamentals of the real estate market. Especially with more and more stories showing up in the MSM about the slow-down in the housing market.
We did when we bought our house. (Luckily it was near the bottom of the last cycle in 1994, but the mortgage was a lot of $$$ for us at the time.) We had been married a year and a half and it just seemed like time to buy a house, so we went looking, found one we loved, scraped the down-payment together, made an offer, and bought the thing. I’m amazed now at how clueless we were then, but I suspect a lot of people buy houses that way, because it’s just something you do at a certain stage of life, like having kids. Think about all the people who have kids without giving it much thought - and that’s a much bigger commitment.
And that accounts for a lot of the bitterness, too. “I thought it would be different.”
I know that I used to be bitter at being able to afford a house. I thought I was doing something wrong. Then I read a bunch of sites that explained the math— and the problematic math of the ARM and I/O crowd— and I stopped feeling bitter.
I still want a house. I want one VERY MUCH. But now I can accept the fact that it will be years before that’s an option.
Now I just have to get over the mental block I have about having kids before I own a house. Something tells me I don’t want to wait until I have to have medical assistance in starting.
they are offering cash drawings at open houses in santa rosa now gone by several in the last month,and very little traffic despite the pretty balloons.these were places that would have been snapped up a year ago.
Cash drawings??!!! That is WAY better than a Starbuck’s gift card.
So how much are they paying you to attend those open houses in Santa Rosa?
Hi everyone. I’m back, after moving for the past two weeks to Venice. Jeez, it is really, really nice here. Even if the bubble does pop, I don’t think prices will come down much here. If they do, this will probably be the last chip to fall.
Two weeks to move ? who did you hire ? The three Stooges ?
I’ll be living out of boxes for at least the next 6 months, the way the move is going.
Last to fall? Maybe. LA will lag SD by 6 months… but once the jig is up… Who can afford to buy in LA? Every time homes have gone > 8X income they drop to 6X income. We’re at 11X income… I predict we’re going to go slightly below 6X income.
If I’m wrong, I’ll be living out of state in a few years.
Neil
Yeah, it really is different in Venice Beach. Nothing like Santa Barbra, Santa Monica, Newport, La Jolla, Laguana Beach, Laguana Nigel, Huntington Harbor, Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Dana Point. Totally different there, I hear the ocean is less salty and the sun sets at a different time to make it convenient for commuters.
Hi everyone. I’m back, after moving for the past two weeks to Venice. Jeez, it is really, really nice here. Even if the bubble does pop, I don’t think prices will come down much here. If they do, this will probably be the last chip to fall.
Then it might be a good idea to buy up a lot more property in Venice, CA right now, eh? With prices only dropping a little (if at all), you should consider it a buying opportunity for the next run-up in prices. Right? How much Venice RE will you be buying in the near term?
I’ve been to Venice many times, mostly for the “quirkiness” of the boardwalk area…great if you need to buy a bong or an “instant-boob-job-on-a-t-shirt”. But it’s NOT the next Manhattan/San Francisco/Microsoft/Google.
Remember, Tokyo *was* “the next Tokyo”…and look what happened to prices there.
“‘Investors can put their money in any asset they want, and with returns slowing, it makes it more likely they will pull out of housing,’ Berson said.”
And with investors pulling out of housing, it makes it more likely the market will land with a hard “thud.”
Yes, they do indeed have their clam chowder!
I ate clam chowder in a bread bowl in San Francisco. It was very good.
I’m sure the other patrons at the gay bar enjoyed it as much as you did. Now kindly spare us such inane and irrelevant posts.