A Price That Is At Once Unbelievable And Plausible
A report from the Sierra Sun in California. “While the recent regional housing study shows that more than half of Truckee-Tahoe’s workforce commutes to the region from other locations, real estate sales in the area are on the rise. ‘The majority of the buyers in our area are second homeowners, vacation homeowners, investment buyers,’ Ellen Grace, president of the Tahoe Sierra Board of Realtors and a Realtor with Coldwell Banker in Truckee, said.”
“Grace said that locally, the median home price across all three categories (entry level, midrange and luxury) within the Tahoe Sierra market footprint is $565,000 — an 8 percent increase from last year. The median income for a four-person household this year in Nevada County is $73,500, and in Placer County, it is $76,100, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development. The Regional Housing Study also reports that roughly 65 percent of homes in the North Tahoe-Truckee are vacant most of the year, primarily used for vacation homes.”
“Nick Pullen, owner of Truckee-based Pullen Realty Group, told the Sierra Sun that although his business does mostly vacation property management for second homeowners in the Tahoe area, he thinks more can be done to accommodate the housing needs of locals. ‘I would characterize the Truckee-Tahoe economy as a ‘Master and Servant’ economy, where second homeowners are the masters, and most people in Truckee make their living servicing them,’ said Pullen. ‘Our economy is heavily dependent on all things real estate, where people finance it, appraise it, sell it, design it, engineer it, approve it, build it, rent it, clean it, maintain it.’”
“Pullen said that almost every person he knows is involved in one of these businesses that can be tied to real estate. Still, the real money lies in owning real estate. ‘Without attracting higher-paying jobs and capitalizing new businesses that are outside of the real estate and tourism industries, local incomes will continue to stagnate,’ he said.”
From Chicago Now in Illinois. “I was tempted to say that there is no chance of the Chicago area currently being in a bubble but the fact is that just about anything is possible so I settled for ’slim chance.’ As Robert Shiller (of Case Shiller Home Price Index fame) said in a recent interview ‘There’s always reason to worry [about a coming collapse].’ However, he goes on to say that the difference between now and 2006 is that back then people had crazy expectations of where home prices were going and they don’t feel that way now. As for the Chicago real estate market all the data points to us remaining comfortably out of bubble territory despite all the hand wringing out there.”
“The first piece of evidence is that the Case Shiller home price index for the Chicago area is still showing single family home prices 18.4% below the bubble peak. Condo prices are a bit closer to the peak but still fall short by 12.3%. What kind of bubble would it be if prices hadn’t even reached the level of the last bubble?”
“In addition, according to the 2nd Quarter CoreLogic Equity Report the Chicago area is one of the top 5 metro areas in terms of homes with negative equity. 13.4% of our homes are in a negative equity position with another 4.9% of the homes near negative equity. Again, that is a function of not having fully recovered from the last bubble.”
“UBS also recently published their Global Real Estate Bubble Index of the major financial centers, one of which is Chicago. In the ranking below you can see that not only is Chicago ranked last but they also have it as being a depressed market. Their methodology apparently looks at home prices relative to incomes and rents and indications of excessive lending and construction activity - although I have to say that it sure does look like we have a ton of construction going on here.”
The Coloradoan. “This past spring, I received a marketing postcard from my former real estate agent in Denver. My family and I were still living in Richmond, Virginia. But we were preparing to move back to Colorado and trying to figure out where we were going to live. The difference between the two state capitals is one largely of timing and scale: the Western city offers its Eastern kin a glimpse of a future in which opportunity beckons. But not for all. And always at a price. Nine hundred thousand dollars, in this case.”
“That’s what the postcard says — $900,000 for the 2,000-square-foot brick bungalow on a corner lot on Newton Street around 37th Avenue. It is a price that is at once unbelievable and plausible because every once in a while after we moved, I would go online to check the estimated value of our old house in the same Northside neighborhood. We lived in a 1920s, two-bedroom, one-bath, galley-kitchen red brick bungalow with a little more than 900 square feet upstairs and a smaller basement that was inhabitable if you weren’t picky. When the estimated market value surpassed $440,000 — $440,000! –– almost 40 percent more than our sales price, I stopped looking.”
“I consider myself part of the middle-class, shrinking as it may be, and it’s a jolt to realize that I can no longer afford the neighborhood I left only a few years earlier.”
“In the Resurgence of the City, real estate speculators saw, just as city leaders did, what was coming to these neighborhoods so conveniently close to downtown. But where the public sector plods, the private sprints. Developers, bankers, investors vault the very same walls that they once helped create. And Denver, the study points out, now ranks seventh of the 50 largest U.S. cities in terms of the extent of gentrification.”
“We have decided to live in Fort Collins. It wasn’t much of decision, actually. Denver is too expensive and my husband is joining the faculty at CSU. Someone tells him that if everyone in the country wants to live in Denver, then everyone in Denver wants to live in Fort Collins. Perhaps that it is true because the house hunt is brutal. As in Denver, homes for sale are getting multiple bids. Multiple as in 8, 9, 10. Would-be buyers are waiving inspections and appraisals. They are paying cash.’
“I joke that I am moving through the stages of house-hunting grief: Disbelief, disappointment, anger, resentment. Full of indignation, we say screw it, and decide to wait for the cooler seasonal markets of late summer and fall. We manage to find an overpriced three-bedroom apartment a mile from the kids’ school.”
“Perhaps this is the predictable lament of one generation watching the reshaping of its legacy by another. Perhaps Denver is being remade in some way that fundamentally alters its identity. The summer housing market cools from a boil to a simmer and we resume our search, finally finding a patio home at a price we can afford. It’s smaller than our home in Richmond with an unfinished basement. But it is lovely, and in the same school zone as our apartment. The mortgage is $500 less a month that what we are paying in rent. We await the bank’s appraisal and count ourselves lucky.”
‘That’s what the postcard says — $900,000 for the 2,000-square-foot brick bungalow…It is a price that is at once unbelievable and plausible because every once in a while after we moved, I would go online to check the estimated value of our old house…When the estimated market value surpassed $440,000 — $440,000! –– almost 40 percent more than our sales price, I stopped looking’
‘a price that is at once unbelievable and plausible’
This is an interesting quote. The number shocks her, but it seems real because she watched it go up over a short time. It reminds me of that shack in Whittier CA someone posted recently. Jim the UHS said it was a bargain at over $600k, and it sold right away. Call me crazy, but $600,000 is lot of money in my book.
Denver is 2banana’s favorite bubble city…
$900,000 crack shacks with literally 1000’s of acres of undeveloped land within 20 minutes.
And an average wage of $40k jobs.
Actually, if you’re willing to buy a house in those “1000’s of acres of undeveloped land within 20 minutes.” (it’s actually farther than that from downtown) you can get a crack shack for a much, much lower price.
20 minutes is not possible in M-F rush hour traffic.
More like a minimum an hour plus each way.
You can’t even get from Broomfield to downtown at non-rush hour in 20 minutes.
If you’re willing to drive east, past Aurora, houses prices go down, fast.
Whose talking downtown?
$700,000 spec homes built as cheap as possible in Highlands Ranch or Castle Rock. I can see hundreds of square miles of undeveloped land from the front porches.
And bought by folks making $50k a year…
7 years of Obama and this is what you get:
“Despite the fact that Colorado and other states saw an increase in income and a decrease in poverty rates between 2014 and 2015, more young adults are living with their parents than at any time in the past 130 years, according to recent national studies.”
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/09/28/colorado-millennials-living-at-home/
Forward
Hope n’ change, Bitchez….
Right, because it’s got nothing to do with forces that have been in place for the last, oh, 30 years.
Cop out
Right, because it’s got nothing to do with forces that have been in place for the last, oh, 30 years.
The same could be said about Obama’s constant reference to the state of the economy when he took office.
People seem to forget a few important items:
1. All powerful Bill Clinton left an economy in full bubble mode with the DotCom bubble raging…Bush had to clean up that mess, but you never heard him bitch and moan about it.
2. Al Qaeda increasingly gained power during Bill Clinton’s presidency, and was planning 9/11 in part during Clinton’s time in office. Yet the attack happened during Bush’s time in office…and so that is what people remember.
3. The housing bubble hit it’s apex during Bush’s time in office, but was helped in large part due to policies put in place during Clinton’s time. Ignoring the repeal of Glass Steagall, there was also the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, which exempted credit-default swaps from regulation, and rewriting the Community Reinvestment Act to push lenders to get more money to low income families.
Those who study economics will tell you that there is a meaningful lag between when policies are put into place, and their ultimate effect. That lag time is measured not in months or decades, but generally measured in several years.
Clinton has the strength of his economy due in part to the policies put into place by Bush #1, and the crash that Bush #2 felt was due in part to policies put into place by Clinton.
Yet the sheep continue to be told (and shockingly, they believe) that the government controls the economy the same way that you and I control a car–input, and instant feedback.
Now it’s bubble 5x larger.
uhhhhh… I remember the 1990’s, and I remember that when the NASDAQ was skyrocketing and everybody was getting paid, all the right wing blowhards were not saying it was a bubble, and they were saying it had nothing to do with Bill Clinton, and it was all terrific because of Ronald Reagan.
What I’m saying is simply that government policy has a delayed impact on the economy (some policies have more delay than others).
So, you generally can’t attribute current economic conditions to the current administration (unless that administration has been at the helm for a while and/or enacted policies that generally have more rapid impact).
Bush #1 was tossed out of office after 1 term, and candidly, based on the first part of Clinton’s term, I think he probably did a pretty good job.
Bush #2 had to recover from the dotcom bust, and did nothing to slow the housing bubble. However the bubble was blown because of policies put into place over a long period of time (including during Clinton’s reign).
Claims that Bush “drove the economy into the ditch” are nice to say, and great press, but if Gore was president, the same bubble would have emerged.
OC maybe. But DENVER?!??!
The crash will be epic there.
I’m really happy I moved here near the trough of the recession and had my pick of the litter in finding an apartment. $300 security and first month’s rent moved me in, and I didn’t even have a job then, LOLZ.
I was in Missoula earlier this year, and read an article in the local independent paper which observed caustically that the town was becoming a place where Californians bought houses and rented them to locals. The median home price is almost six times the median local income.
I don’t think our economic leaders have any clue whatsoever that their policies are causing social change. They’ll never see those adversely affected anyway.
A poster here long ago said the bubble was a way to get a couple hundred thousand into the pocket of average Joe’s. Notice the central bank talks about a wealth effect. It’s not wealth, just the feeling of it. Let’s take a hypothetical country. The government mandates everyone must buy their shelter, with government provided, zero down loans. The government mandates prices of this housing will automatically increase some arbitrary amount each calendar year, say 5 or 10%. Would such a scheme eliminate poverty, make everyone rich? Of course not. It would break down on several levels. But this is just about as logical as thinking houses provide wealth.
I often reflect on certain “truths” we’ve discussed, especially in the years after the bust. One was that buying and selling each other houses is no basis for an economy. Almost everyone has forgotten that.
Stop peddling fiction, Mr. Jones. Our wise and all-knowing Keynesian central planners, graduates of the most prestigous ivy league universities and alums of Goldman Sachs, are steering us on a course to bring prosperity to the masses.
/sarc
“thinking houses provide wealth”
How about the debt associated with the houses?
It could look like a wealth provider if you are on the skim end of the arrangement. Wealth is taken from the people and is delivered to you!
Policies that skim off of (fleece) the people, and are made the government are not in any way “government of the people, by the people, for the people” as Lincoln would say.
Why. Can’t. They. Just. Rent?
Suzanne’s research indicated they should buy.
They need to have a Superbowl party.
90 years of Democrat maladministration leaves a city in dire fiscal straits.
http://wolfstreet.com/2016/09/28/sinkhole-city-chicago-in-worse-fiscal-shape-than-detroit/
death by public sector unions
even FDR warned about them
They will expect a federal bailout.
Fair is fair.
It is for the children.
2banana’s Rules:
Long term democrat rule plus public unions plus free sh*t army = misery, bankruptcy and ruin.
Conservatives are more than happy to live under the same laws and taxes they want for everyone else.
Liberals expect to be exempted from the same laws and taxes they want for everyone else.
“They will expect a federal bailout.”
The Community Reinvestment Act dealt their demise.
‘Our economy is heavily dependent on all things real estate, where people finance it, appraise it, sell it, design it, engineer it, approve it, build it, rent it, clean it, maintain it.’
‘Pullen said that almost every person he knows is involved in one of these businesses that can be tied to real estate. Still, the real money lies in owning real estate.’
This is the way Sedona AZ was when I moved there in 2003. Tahoe got smacked and so did Sedona.
That’s a piss poor local economy if thats the case.
In 2004 the Sedona paper ran a cartoon showing all the roads leading into town ending at a UHS office. Little did they know how true that was. I first moved there in 2003 and went back to stay year round in 2004. In 2003 Sedona was booming. By 2004 even little mobile home bergs in the area were skyrocketing. A guy told me, “my house is going up $10,000 a month!” I had felt there was a housing bubble in 1998, when I moved to Austin. This sudden change to widespread euphoria prompted me to start this blog in late 2004. It reminded me of Texas in the early 80’s, and gave me a sense of dread. Just a few years later, many people I knew in Sedona were gone, looking for work. When I first started in the foreclosure biz, much of the work was in and around Sedona. The luxury market was the first to go, kinda like now.
‘I would characterize the Truckee-Tahoe economy as a ‘Master and Servant’ economy, where second homeowners are the masters, and most people in Truckee make their living servicing them,’ said Pullen.
____________________________/
There are quite a few places where that is the case. Perhaps we should create an equivalent to the House of Lords here.
Almost as soon as former nanny Enone Rosas won $4.163 million in the Lotto 6/49 on Jan. 6, 2007, her friend, Isabel Toca, was at her side asking for a loan to help her buy a house. Within four days Rosas had given Toca a bank draft for $630,000, of which $30,000 was to be a gift and the rest an interest-free loan that the two agreed would be repaid within a year.
Toca used most of the money to buy a house at 4625 Dumfries for $700,000. Every year until 2013 she promised Rosas she would repay the loan “next year,” but she never did.
http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/lottery-winner-loaned-friend-600000-court-rules-she-cant-collect
Remain calm. All is well.
http://www.businessinsider.com/deutsche-bank-worries-stock-reaction-2016-9
All is not well with Deutsche and Wells Fargo. Might be a double header, lol.
And then there’s the Sauds, whose noses are a tad out of joint today. They may have some stuff to sell.
The whole Arab world may have some US equities to sell.
http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-arab-responses-to-911-bill-point-to-us-interventions-abroad-2016-9
They have bigger problems right now, like $40 oil. If they sell those bonds, it’s because they need the cash to pay their bills.
Back in 1999 oil at $40 would have been quite profitable. Maybe they need to adjust their spending habits?
How do you figure $40 a barrel oil is a problem?
Someone tells him that if everyone in the country wants to live in Denver, then everyone in Denver wants to live in Fort Collins.
And those who can’t afford to live in the Fort, they live in Loveland, Windsor or (gulp) Greeley.
I’m working a jobsite now in Aurora with someone who commutes there from Greeley every day.
That sounds horrible, almost as bad as commuting from the Springs.
Could Trump possibly be right about there being a bubble or even several bubbles on the brink of bursting?
What should you do if Trump is right about a bond bubble?
Published: Sept 29, 2016 1:10 p.m. ET
By Nigam Arora
In the first presidential debate, Donald Trump said, “Now, look, we have the worst revival of an economy since the Great Depression. And believe me: We’re in a bubble right now. And the only thing that looks good is the stock market, but if you raise interest rates even a little bit, that’s going to come crashing down.
“We are in a big, fat, ugly bubble. And we better be awfully careful. And we have a Fed that’s doing political things. This Janet Yellen of the Fed. The Fed is doing political — by keeping the interest rates at this level. And believe me: The day Obama goes off, and he leaves, and goes out to the golf course for the rest of his life to play golf, when they raise interest rates, you’re going to see some very bad things happen, because the Fed is not doing their job. The Fed is being more political than Secretary Clinton.”
Is Trump right?
Trump is not exactly right, he’s pretty close.
…
‘Housing party’ in the U.S. may be coming to an end
Published: Sept 29, 2016 12:32 p.m. ET
By Thomas H. Kee Jr.
The focus has been less on housing but more on inflation data in FOMC circles recently, but on Thursday, we received very weak pending-home-sales data that puts housing front and center again. Housing was humming along, so to speak, with interest and mortgage rates still low, but in August something very interesting happened.
Pending home sales fell by 2.5% in August, suggesting that potential buyers were apprehensive. What might make buyers apprehensive in a housing market that has been driven by extremely low mortgage rates? We could easily point the finger to the risk of higher rates, but that usually has a spurring influence on the purchasing decision, so we need to look at that in another way.
Interestingly, in the face of an FOMC meeting that actually had a high probability of resulting in higher rates, mortgage rates fell. Even after the decision, and as the chance of a December hike increases beyond 60%, mortgage rates are falling.
What would make mortgage rates fall in the face of potentially higher rates?
The answer is demand. If demand levels are weak, mortgage companies will offer better rates, so the weak demand numbers from August seem to be the reason rates have fallen ahead of and after an FOMC meeting that was centered around prospects for rate hikes.
Because potential rate hikes usually spur buyers to lock in lower rates, and this time that did not happen, something else must be at play. It is very possible that the value proposition has diminished significantly for prospective buyers, and although individual buyers looking for a home may still find it difficult to find something good, real-estate investors appear to be seeing the inverse relationship between price and interest rates as a put to their decision-making process.
…
The housing party ended in 2007.
That’s when it started for me…..I guess it depends on how much you read this Blog!
Oink
Hillary have never had thigh gap.
Do the oligarchs who are building lavish bunkers to ride out the apocalypse really think the proles are going to forget all about them if things go Mad Max?
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bunker-builders-anticipate-lucrative-trumpocalypse-932748
What good is it if you can never come out, or there is nothing left worth to come out? Won’t you go stir crazy after a while?
They’re obviously for weathering a storm, not long term survival. They can burn their money on whatever they want, seems likely to not work out well if needed.
My post-apocalypse survival strategy is to find an anorexic and have her answer the door if a hungry mob shows up.
Tribes.
https://straightlinelogic.com/2016/09/29/tribes-by-robert-gore/
It occurs to me that anyone who credibly suggests monetary policy is not as all-powerful as it’s been made out to be, that merely printing, borrowing or buying may not be the path to prosperity, is heavily undermining the power of central banks.
That’s not going to be taking lightly by central bankers.
That they were completely asleep at the switch leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, and yet came out of it with yet more power, is a testament to their political ability.
There is a reason Democrats fight tooth and nail against laws that would combat voter fraud.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-29/arcan-investigation
I keep hearing how “mad” people are, but in 2008 and 2012, 95% of the electorate meekly bent over and grabbed their ankles for the status quo with their votes for Obama, McCain, and Romney. While I did some galactically stupid things in my younger days, I’ve never actually been a functional retard like those 95% - so if you are one of them, perhaps you could enlighten me with regard to your foolish habit of voting against your own interests.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-29/people-are-mad-dave-collum-warns-existential-change-air
So many indebted people are highly-dependent on their meaningless cubicle job or social welfare benefits and not in a position to rabble-rouse.
Yellen the Felon is getting ready to take the Fed’s crony capitalism to a whole new level.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-29/despite-japanese-failure-janet-yellen-suggests-buying-stocks-help-increase-spending
http://www.greaterfool.ca/2016/09/29/the-inevitable-2/#comments
This film clip’s got everything: naivete, intrigue, cunning, deceit and most of all - moral hazard!
From Las Vegas Real Estate News:
Url of clip alone: https://goo.gl/2C3rpD
Over 6 Million Loans Start Adjusting 10.1.16
Should I Sell My Home Now or Next Year?
Where Is This Buyer Surge Coming From?
What’s the Current Market Condition?
Transcript of clip starting at 30 seconds:
Male agent:
(Talks about best season to sell)…there’s three more factors that you can throw in the mix - whether I should put my house on the market right now or wait -
Number one: October 1st, 850,000 HELOCs adjust. And in 2017, 2.5 million more. So in the next 18 to 20 months there will be about three million HELOCs adjusting. California has the most, Las Vegas has the highest per capita.
(Anecdote about someone’s payment tripling. Apparently the people didn’t understand the terms
)
Number two: you have three million loan modifications that start adjusting in 2017, from the big first wave of 2012.
And then the third thing we have is, a lot of people got principle reductions, where now is the three years that they’ve made their payments on time, now they can reap the benefit of that principle reduction with their bank, so they’re starting to put their houses on the market.
And we’re also seeing a huge buyer surge right now because a lot of these homeowners see that their payments are adjusting and they don’t think they’re going to be able to afford it and they don’t want to chance the bank, so what they’re doing is they’re going to buy new homes or they’re looking for a resale and then they’re either going to sell their home or rent it out or try to work out a short sale with the bank, so we have six million loans that are adjusting in the next 18 months.
Let’s just say 10% of those people do a “buy and bail” - that’s 600,000 people. And it’s also 600,000 people that the new homes are looking to buy their houses for. That’s one reason why we’re seeing a surge of out here in Vegas right now in new home sales.
New home sales are going through the roof right now…in fact, I just had a client who is buying a new home and they’re going to rent out their house, almost half a million dollars, because the loan is adjusting.
Woman agent:
Wow. And what about supply and demand and towards (?) the end of the year…
Male agent:
Right now, supply is shortening because we had that buyer surge of the homeowners…they want to not take a chance and try and renegotiate their loan with the bank and they’re going to buy a new home or they’re buying a resale, so we’re seeing a huge buyer surge right now, and then we’re going to see an increase in supply because a lot of these homes, um, the homeowners are not going to be able to…58% of them are upside down, so the homeowners are either going to rent them out or try and short sell them or try to work something out with the bank. So we’ll probably see a bigger supply next year.
“Anecdote about someone’s payment tripling. Apparently the people didn’t understand the terms”
It’s difficult to believe anyone signing a loan document without fully understanding the repayments terms. If there’s any confusion I’d blame that on the commission junkies feeding at the closing table. It’s also embarrassing to listen to this guy citing statistical values that are well beyond his comprehension.
I can’t believe that either. OTOH, people are so shrewd they’re “buying and bailing”.
All in a day’s work.