Thread: Housing Market

Originally Posted by GGal

He said there are x number thousands of spec houses sitting in GA that aren't going to sell.

Then, he said its not going to be a recession, but a depression.
GGAL

From 1980 to 2000, the number of registered realtors remained fairly stead, but in the last seven years the number has nearly doubled. As Truman famously said, "It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours." The salad days are over - these agents are going to have to do some actual work to make a sale.

My former save grade manager put his house on the market in January. We all told him to put it on the market much sooner. We wanted him to leave earlier that's all. Anywho, he has dropped the price $15,000 three times and is paying mortgage and outrageous taxes each month. And, he is not living in it since January. Ouch!!!

Another very nice home that I have been watching in a very rural setting and a few acres has gone from $187,000 to the auction block with a no sale, to a new listing of $162,000.

I have a friend that works in Cabinets at Home Depot. He said they cut the store weekly hours by 600 hours. He is working three departments and the store is empty. I have seen the price of lumber drop like a rock in this area. Now is the time to build in this area. Cheap materials and contractors will chew a leg off to get you business.

It's certainly a better opportunity today than at the top 2 years ago.

Long Island foreclosures rise, and no one wants the houses

BY ELLEN YAN | ellen.yan@newsday.com
7:46 PM EDT, October 11, 2007

Like house hunters, even some real estate investors have stopped buying foreclosures.

That's what some local experts said Thursday as RealtyTrac, an online market for foreclosed properties, reported a 27.4-percent jump in Nassau's foreclosure-related filings from the second to third quarter while Suffolk's was up 14.4 percent. Those increases cover a variety of filings per house, including monthly default notices, but there's little question that the number of foreclosures has ballooned to create a trickle-down economy -- good for real estate professionals and bad for lenders.

http://www.newsday.com/business/loca...,2049978.story

"The investors are not even buying the foreclosures" at auction, said Mineola real estate attorney Michele Messina, who represents lenders on foreclosed homes. "They're watching and waiting. If they're purchasing something at auction, two or three months down the road, those prices are dropping again."




In the last six weeks, Messina said, she has had two cases of prospective buyers walking away from down payments -- it's the first time in 22 years that anyone has done that in her experience, even when the funds required by lenders range from $5,000 to $10,000.

"They can get another home or another condo or town house for $20,000 or $30,000 less than what they entered into two months ago," she said. "Maybe the next property . . . was even better equipped, updated, newer kitchen, newer this, newer that, for $30,000 under the value that she already was in contract for. She's walking away from 10, but she made 20."

While quarterly numbers rose for Long Island foreclosure-related filings, September numbers actually went down 23 percent from August for Nassau -- 352 compared to 457 -- and it went up for Suffolk by 60 percent -- 638 compared to 398, according to RealtyTrac.

Nationally, September's 223,538 filings, from default notices to auction sale notices, went down 8 percent from the 32-month high in August, RealtyTrac said. But the number is still up 99 percent from the same time last year, its report showed.

With foreclosures increasing in general, some said buyers' wait-and-see approach makes sense in a market that can be unpredictable, especially if property values are going down faster than they can flip a house, said Bruce Bergman, real estate attorney and author of "New York Mortgage Foreclosures," an annually revised, three-tome, 3,000-plus-paged resource.

"In a stable or increasing market, the professionals who buy at foreclosure sales know the value, the upkeep for the period of time for which they'll hold it, they know the cost of renovating," said Bergman, a partner in the Garden City-based law firm of Berkman, Henoch, Peterson and Peddy. "They can make a reasonable decision to preserve their profits.

"If the market is declining, and you can't predict the decline, it's hard to make a reasonable, business decision. If you don't know how to make a profit because you don't know where the value is going, then you don't invest."

This means banks and other lenders who have seized homes, often after a two-year or longer process, are saddled with growing inventories they must pay to maintain while they wait for real estate agents and auctions to find buyers.

For-sale listings of foreclosures for broker Mike Carroll have increased many fold since the market began slowing last year. He now has 40 to 60 foreclosure listings.

"We haven't seen this amount of foreclosures probably since 1993," said Carroll, who has three Re/Max Best offices on Long Island and also works as an auctioneer of foreclosed homes.

In the early '90s, the economy went south, leading to high rates of defaults, foreclosures and short sales, in which lenders agree to be "shorted" in a sale just to get inventory off the rolls.

Carroll has been selling homes for 20 years. The recent spate of foreclosures -- called REO or "real-estate owned" in industry circles -- has changed the landscape of his work in just two years.

"There's a lot of paperwork that's involved with foreclosure properties," the broker said. "I implemented a new computer program to keep up with the flow of properties.

"Two years ago, I was handling all the REO myself with one clerical. Now I've got four clerical, and I've got six agents working on REO, counting me."

http://www.newsday.com/business/loca...,2049978.story

Henry Paulson presses for aid to sub-prime lendersSuzy Jagger in New York

Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, is seeking to persuade the White House to offer financial compensation to American mortgage lenders that try to help troubled homeowners by renegotiating the terms of their loans.

The Times has learnt that Mr Paulson is lobbying President Bush to provide funds so that mortgage lenders can reduce the loss that they would incur from either reducing the rate of an adjustable home loan or extending the life of the mortgage to make it cheaper for the property owner.

It is understood that Mr Paulson’s proposals are meeting significant resistance within Washington, where it is perceived that such a move would be a bank bail-out scheme.

Washington is nervous about being seen to be preventing Wall Street companies from having to face the financial implications of their own lax lending practices and ill-judged investment decisions.

America is suffering its worst housing recession for 16 years. Mortgage arrears and foreclosures have soared as homeowners have struggled to keep up with their mortgage repayments.

A number of those homeowners — who typically have low incomes and poor credit histories — took out sub-prime mortgages that begin with a low introductory interest rate but which increase in their cost throughout the life of the loan.

Sub-prime borrowers bet that by the time the interest rate rises, the value of their home will have appreciated sufficiently to allow them to remortgage. Unfortunately, the housing slowdown has seen some states suffer house price falls of 40 per cent.

In the summer, President Bush sought to avert a deepening mortgage crisis and reduce the number of Americans who faced losing their homes. He urged mortgage lenders to contact borrowers and try to renegotiate the terms of their mortgages.

Earlier this week, Countrywide, America’s biggest mortgage lender, said it would begin contacting borrowers and modify $16 billion (£7.8 billion) worth of home loans whose interest rate will reset by the end of 2008.

David Sambol, Countrywide president and chief operating officer, said: “We are determined to assist borrowers who have the willingness and wherewithal to remain in their homes but need a little help to do it.”

It is expected that other mortgage lenders will follow suit, even though the cost of negotiating the terms of sub-prime mortgages will eat into their profits.

It is understood that Mr Paulson wants to offer the lenders compensation to offset these losses.

Chris Whalen, of Institutional Risk Analytics, said: “Paulson can’t go there. Paulson wouldn’t just be trying to help the banks, he would be trying to help the dealers, Wall Street as a whole. Ultimately, it’s the investors who take the hit.”

Mr Whalen added: “It is wrong for the Government to try to mandate loan modification. It sounds brutal, but a lot of these families should not have got mortgages in the first place. They couldn’t afford them. Modifying the loan in a number of cases won’t work. Historically, 30 to 40 per cent of borrowers whose loans are modified default again.”

The US Treasury and Countrywide failed to return calls yesterday

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle2741522.ece

An extensive article in Sunday's paper tells about the foreclosures of certain houses, & interviews with the former owners. The folks who were foreclosed on are resettled in most cases, tho not all in safe places. What - to me - was painful reading the article, is that some are sitting empty, deteriorating; either the mortgage holders or the investment buyers could not find buyers, so now we have empty houses. What is the purpose of that?? How about the banks- whomever- having to find a buyer before people are put on the streets? This is adding to the severely weighty problem we are having at the HandOut places - being able to get everyone helped. It is amazing how many folks are requesting pop-top canned foods because they don't have a can-opener where they are living in the woods - (my area has woods & campers even within the city limits.)
I am not a Socialist, very far from it, in fact - it just happens today was my Volunteer Day - and we were greatly understaffed!

The speculators are what turned the housing market into what it is today. Damn shame. Housing should be a core holding in ones portfolio. A healthy holding with steady appreciation.

I do not want the Government to bail out people who are in over their heads. The lendors that financed people for upto 5x their annual incomes should absorb their losses. The Speculators should as well.

This unfortunately has to be uniform accross the board without exception. They wanted to trade housing like a stock investment. For some it worked out, for others it did not. When you make a bad investment, it is not the Governments fault to bail the investors fault. That is what created this anomaly....PURE GREED.

Now let them correct accordingly. Its too bad some families are going to get thrown out on the streets. Assistance should be in place for them ONLY.

I bought my first house when I was 22 years old in the early 90's when housing was struggling. I saved enough money to put 20% down to avoid PMI payments. It was a tough thing to do at the time. I made alot of sacrifices. I worked 2 jobs and finished up getting my degree. My mortgage payment was 2.2x my annual gross income and I thought I was pushing it and I had no car note. Just a used beater. I had no parents to educate me, no mentors. I simply bought a book to guide me and understand the housing process. Now its 14 years later. My GS grade is up 8 notches, I live in my 2nd home, which I mortgaged for 1x myself and my wifes annual income, we have 2 kids. Not to toot my own horn but That is the way it should be done IMO.

I am kind of glad things are correcting. I feel my house and others around it should (and probably will correct 25% downward).

IMO, It will allow for a healthy market in which housing will be purely family oriented. Speculation should NEVER HAVE A PART IN HOUSING.

Now another family can live the American dream when things sort itself out in time.

I am truely sorry for those with good intensions that bought at the top.

I just got a call from the Survey Service. They call me periodically with questionaires and at times I'm rewarded righteously for my time. Tonight they asked me a few general questions regarding my home loan and then asked if I planned on refinancing any time in the next year.

Apparently I fit the age parameters but not the refinancing one. They were looking for folks currently in over their heads on a mortgage that's going to reset soon and were looking to refinance. A poll perhaps that would have been useful right about 2006. They should be walking down the road less travelled in search of people within my age group who have a financial safety net in order. Useless, useless.

I just shake my head when I see shows such as, "Flip This House", etc. I was watching a few nights ago and these two referred to themselves as, 'First Time Flippers'. Talk about late to the party. This episode they actually took a loss on, but ended up selling the place before they got hit on the loan default. Too bad. Wonder if they learned their lesson.

I see Cramer had to go as low as getting Donald Trump on his show last week. Misery loves company. I just read online that Cramer wants another .50 rate cut. Unbelievable. Thank God I quit watching his show.

I blame Bush and HGTV for this mess. DYI should also take some of the blame

Originally Posted by JOVARN

I blame Bush and HGTV for this mess. DYI should also take some of the blame

ROFLMAO!!!

My Wife Wants Me To Build A Concrete Counter Top. I Wonder Where She Saw That