Paper Money updates on what he calls the 'Gangsta Broka' who is "a member of the well known south side Chicago gang the “Gangster Disciples”, ran a mortgage fraud scheme that ripped off "unsophisticated" home buyers for hundreds of thousands of dollars." We knew that significantly more fraud was being commited during the bubble years then during non bubble years. Let's not forget Casey Serin, the poster boy for mortgage fraud who blog about his pastfraud at I Am facing Foreclosure Blog.
Patrick.net Photoshop Extravaganza! Don't Miss It!
Do big cash bonuses sell homes? (NJ Report) There is even a downloadble spreadsheet with cash bonus offers from craigslist. Here is one example: "$20,000 BONUS to SELLING AGENT for full price offer!!!!! $10,000 towards the BUYER’S CLOSING Costs"
Pacific Beach Housing Bubble does a tremendous job writing abotu the local market. How about the deluded flipper who has this property.
Purchase price (03/04): $749,000
Asking price: $1,400,000
Expected appreciation: 87% in 20 months
Ya right will you be able to sell it for that price. Keep drinking the financial kool aide!
From Newsweek: David Leareah says "You'd have to go back to the Great Depression to find a housing period that is this unique." Thanks to one reader who found this gem.
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Loudoun County foreclosures listed under foreclosure.com have gone from 12 during the summer to 50 with 4 in pre-foreclosure.
ReplyDeleteWhat is interesting is that the value of the houses listed has climbed also from a 300-450k average to the first 1 million house showing up.
No. VA. condo building around the metro and in Fairfax City is continuing.
It looks like the big "McMansions" and townhouses of the outer suburbs are not moving. Houses in the "moderate" range 450-650k that are close in are still selling though not as fast and not as many.
We were in Payless shoes last night, the home of cheap sneaks for immigrant workers and it was dead. One person, and he was the employee. Two years ago when we were in there it was packed.
In talking to people I don't think the average person has really got the memo yet about housing prices. My guess is they won't until next summer.
Anon 6:23 said:
ReplyDelete"We were in Payless shoes last night, the home of cheap sneaks for immigrant workers and it was dead. One person, and he was the employee. Two years ago when we were in there it was packed."
Ok ... I'm trying to figure this one out. Are the "immigrant workers" not in Payless because they're too busy out looking for bargain homes to buy? Or are you implying that they're all out of work now cause they were all Realtors or construction workers and have all headed back to whereever they came from? U'm okay with anecdotal "evidence", but please explain what conclusions you are drawing from that evidence when they aren't clearly evident.
Hi Lance,
ReplyDeleteI don't know why their were no people. Perhaps it is less work available but in the area there are a lot of construction jobs still running. Two resturants that had been open for years closed on the same stretch of road. It was just very unusual and perhaps related to the local economy.
Lance, I want to wear black and listen to estoric music, Maybe only eat at ethnic resturants and care about color coordination. Soul! My god! I am so white.
DC is nice. My Grandfathers grandfather marched down these streets.
I even lived in Adams Morgan in the way back time machine days.
I know you Lance!
I live just off Columbia Pike in Arlington CO. A new batch of rowhouses went up at ColPike and G.Mason Drive. 2 months ago, they were all "sold", and now at least 2 of the 18 or so of them are for sale.
ReplyDeleteWho knew?
Originaldcer,
ReplyDeleteWhile going down in "value" from $550K to $487K is substantial ... Did the "value" of these homes really go down that much? Isn't your house's "value" what you get out of living in it? Are these people suddenly short one bathroom ... or worse the entire first floor? No, it's still the same house. And unless they were buying to flip it, the decrease in price makes no difference. Yes, I can see some people being envious that people who bought later paid less, but so did many people who bought earlier. And 12 - 18 months from now when the houses are selling for $650K, who will care that for one short period the paper value of the house will have dipped?
Lance,
ReplyDeleteOne of the major selling points of buying a home is/was "you're also sitting on a pile of money that's liable to be worth more (money) at least in the mid-to-long term." So not only is there an issue of "the next guy paid $100K less" but also "if for some reason I have to move, I'm going to take a bath on this, and probably still have to pay money above the selling price just to get out." Now surely you can realize that's a problem.
Lance: I'll bite!
ReplyDelete"Give me 'People who can afford a $487K house, but not a $650K house for $500, Alex"
lance said: "Isn't your house's "value" what you get out of living in it?"
ReplyDeleteNo. A house's value is the present value of the net cash flows you (a) receive from renting it out to others or (b) avoid in rental payments yourself. Since current prices don't allow for positive cash flows for rental purposes and renting is about half the cost of buying, a house's value is about half of today's prices.
You should be careful in distinguishing between price and value. Prices have dropped, not values. But prices are still far above values.
lance also said: "And 12 - 18 months from now when the houses are selling for $650K"
Care to support your assertion that a home currently selling for $487k will sell for $650k in just 12 to 18 months from now? That's an increase of 33%. When you make zany claims like that, people can't help but wonder whether you are a shill for the REIC.
Halleluia!
ReplyDeleteLance is begining to figure things out! He isn't there yet... but he has taken a big step today. He has finally realized that the "value" one derives from owning a house is what really matters.
"While going down in "value" from $550K to $487K is substantial ... Did the "value" of these homes really go down that much? Isn't your house's "value" what you get out of living in it? Are these people suddenly short one bathroom ... or worse the entire first floor? No, it's still the same house." -Lance
The next step for Lance is to realize that "value" and "price" are not the same thing. The "price" of houses in this area have more than doubled in recent years while their "value" remained the same.(To turn around Lance's analogy... no, those houses didn't all suddenly grow twice as large, just twice as expensive) Now... the "price" of the houses in the area is falling while their "value" continues to remain nearly constant.
The third and final step for Lance will be to realize that "price" ultimately derives from "value" and that while the two are rarely identical... ultimately it is "price" that conforms to "value," not the other way around.
-leroy
Lance said...
ReplyDelete“While going down in "value" from $550K to $487K is substantial ... Did the "value" of these homes really go down that much?”
Yep. The builder just undercut previous buyers; they are instantaneously underwater on their homes to the tune of at least $63k(i.e. they owe more than what their home is worth). Can previous buyers place their home on the market for $600K? Nope. Can they put it on the market for the $550K they paid for it? Not when a potential buyer can have a new home for $487K.
Furthermore, for those that waited, they can now buy a new home and will have saved at least $63K.
“And 12 - 18 months from now when the houses are selling for $650K, who will care that for one short period the paper value of the house will have dipped?”
So, at current market value of $487k to a ~34% increase to $650k in 12-18 months? Lance, again I must ask, what market indicators do you follow? After all, if we can’t justify a 30% decrease in home prices, how can you justify a 30%+ increase in 12 months?
"Yes, I can see some people being envious that people who bought later paid less, but so did many people who bought earlier."
ReplyDeleteThis is about more than "envy." Like it or not houses ARE an investment. As we already established above... the value one derives from owning a house is not the same thing as that houses's price. That is exactly what the people on this blog have always been saying. Waiting to buy the same house or a virtually identical house for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars less is a wise decision.
"And 12 - 18 months from now when the houses are selling for $650K, who will care that for one short period the paper value of the house will have dipped? "
Two things... first, the person with the higher mortgage payment will certainly care. A 10+% drop is going to be noticable and newsflash... the market is not done dropping.
Second, 12-18 months isn't NEARLY long enough for things to shake out. First you claim to be an expert on real estate by virtue of having bought a house... then you say things like this that demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that you don't have a clue.
Real estate cycles are long. They are years long. This particular cycle is unusual because of different lending/borrowing practices but like all boom/bust cycles in RE it is going to take several years to run its course.
Next year will probably be the year showing the biggest year over year % drops. (don't forget, as you were so happy to point out last year while it was happening... prices didn't begin to drop right away last year, at first it was just the rate of sales that fell through the floor. The real price drops didn't come until relatively recently)
2008 and 2009 will probably be the low end of this cycle. It is hard to say exactly where the bottom will fall, but anyone buying in fall 2007 or later will probably have missed the most dramatic drops.
Someday prices will begin to rise again and everything will repeat itself. There will even be another raft of Lances who think they discovered something new and will convince themselves they are RE experts because they had the dumb luck to buy a condo just before a mania sent prices through the roof.
-Leroy
Lance,
ReplyDeleteYou really think prices will rise that much in a year or two?
I hope not as I want to buy then.
We have a house now but it is too small but after owning it for 17 years we have a fair amount of equity.
Even after all I read about ARM's sometimes I think they make sense. Pay less until the last kid is done with college and then be ok for the rise in payment.
thx
Stc
Lance said: "While going down in "value" from $550K to $487K is substantial ... Did the "value" of these homes really go down that much? Isn't your house's "value" what you get out of living in it?"
ReplyDeleteThat may be part of it. The other is what you can sell it for.
Robert asked:"
ReplyDeleteSo, at current market value of $487k to a ~34% increase to $650k in 12-18 months? Lance, again I must ask, what market indicators do you follow? After all, if we can’t justify a 30% decrease in home prices, how can you justify a 30%+ increase in 12 months?"
Robert, it isn't a 30%+ increase. It is a return to normal price. The dip we are seeing right now is not normal, and meerly reflects the over-reaction one experiences anytime there is a shift in direction of anything including prices. It is like the backward lunge you do in your car when you come to a sudden stop. It is a temporary "reverse-direction". Price will within 12 to 18 months revert to where they would have been if normal price appreciation had instead just kicked in instead when the boom ended. That is why you've had myself and Va_Investor telling you that BH will miss timing the market. They don't understand this backwards, temporary lunge ... which is their opportunity to by a property for far less than it is worth. Va_Investor understands this ... she's out there looking now.
I spoke with a friend last night who is a Realtor in Northern Virginia. He surprised me by saying that Realtors by and large are doing fine. He said his sales are off 25% from last year, but considering that last year was exceptional, he is still making lots of money in the business. He also said something else which surprised me but which the more I think about the more I have to agree with him. He said "in most markets it's the buyer who sets the price, in real estate it's the seller who set it." I asked him to explain and he said, I'll give you an example, I had a house listed that wasn't selling for what it was listed for. I asked the seller to lower the price and he said that if he couldn't get that price now, he'd rather just take the house off the market and wait till he could. In the meantime he could live in the house or rent it out. And as BHs have pointed out many times, most landlords ... like this potential landlord ... didn't buy their house yesterday and don't need a large rent to cover a large mortgage. Just like you had homes coming on the market from every nook and cranny during the boom, you'll have homes leaving the market to return to their "nooks and crannies" as prices remain below what sellers want. My friend is right. Sellers DO set the price of real estate.
ReplyDeleteLance said...
ReplyDelete“Robert, it isn't a 30%+ increase.”
So, from $487k to $650k is not an increase. Thanks for clearing that up Lance.
Let me rephrase my question:
What market indicators do you follow? After all, you are calling for a 30% change in price in 12 months.
You are not entirely correct Lance. It no one buys the property, it is not a selling price. It takes both the buyer and the seller to determine the selling price in both declining and increasing housing markets. The reality is that there will be some sellers that lower their price in declining markets to get the property off their hands because they have to sell and this will affect the amount buyers are willing to pay for all properties in the area. Anyone that wants to sell for 2005 peak prices may find themselves stuck with the property for many years.
ReplyDeleteLance said...
ReplyDelete"Sellers DO set the price of real estate."
Lance, please give me some contact info for this realtor! I have about 60 acres of land, and I’d like to sell it to him for $2.5 Trillion per acre.
Thanks,
Robert
And Robert, since I know you like to dissect people’s words and take them out of context, I want to clarify that when I used the term “not normal” in my posting early today to refer to the dip we are experiencing, I didn’t mean “not to be expected” … but rather “not part of the regular LONG TERM trend”. Yes, the dip we are experiencing IS normal. It is the downward part of the cycle. But it is also to be relatively shortlived (12 – 18 months) because information moves quickly nowadays and it will correct itself quicker than in the past. The hysteria will end sooner and a return to normal price and traditional trend will return.
ReplyDeleteHey, thanks for the feedback on my blog. I appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteFor Lance,
Real estate is a market like any other. If you owned 1000 shares of Microsoft, and you couldn't sell them right now, you could very well hang onto them for another 10 years and sell then. It's likely that the stock would be worth more then. In the mean time, you could do the equivalent of renting it by selling high ball calls and collect a passive 5-10% on top of any dividend that you might receive. Like any other market, it falls under the rules of supply and demand. Real estate is not immune to that, and the seller is not fully in control of the "value" of his home any more than a stockholder in Microsoft can control the value of his stock. If everyone suddenly wanted a certain stock, or a Playstation 3, and the supply could not keep up with demand, the seller could continue to increase or "set" his prices higher. This all comes down to the concept of "value" where any item (including a deed to a plot of land) is simply worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Obviously if a seller doesn't feel like selling now, that's fine, there is always going to be someone else who does.
The one big difference in real estate is that housing is not on any kind of public exchange where the price could move very fluidly. If that was the case, volume would stay mostly consistent, and price would move dynamically. Real estate is the opposite. Volume changes very dramatically (down almost 40% from last year, that's huge), and price changes momentum very slowly.
"Have fun losing another 12% off of your home value this coming year. Notice, I said another, cause you lost 12% this year alreayd in the DC proper area. I am just waiting for you to either admit you were wrong or provide some evidence to the contrary for the housing bubble. Any data? Any facts? Anything credible?"
ReplyDeleteHe's in 20009. Where's your "credible" "data" and "facts" to support a price decline (let alone a 12% decline) in 20009? We're waiting.
Real Bob,
ReplyDeleteYou're not looking at the stats for 20009. Median value went up some 20% in the 12 months after I contracted for it in Feb 2005 ... since then gains have been more modest ... but even the last year on year doesn't show a loss for zip 20009. That said, if you keep bringing it up then you are still missing my point that I really don't care if it goes up or goes down in the short and medium term because I didn't buy it to sell it. I bought it to live in. And in the longterm nearly all properties go up in value. So where the market is heading ... or where it isn't heading ... didn't play into my decision once I knew I could afford the house under the terms I was able to negotiate. I.e., my concern was "can I afford this monthly expense? ... nothing more, nothing less. But BHs will never understand this concept because they are looking to use their homes as an investment and just don't get it that only exceptionally should you expect your home to make you money (as happened for most of us in the last 10 years.) In the normal course of things, a home costs you money ... and your objective has to be on how to minimize the monthly and longterm costs of owning and maintaining that home. If you can do that by renting, then by all means rent ... and invest your money in anything other than a home which you intend to occupy. The two don't mix.
Using median values for one zipcode for a 1 month period is TOO small of sample size to be meaningful.
ReplyDeleteSo, real bob, just for the record - the answer is no, you don't have any facts to back up your bald assertion that lance lost money this year. I didn't think so.
ReplyDeleteYou're the David Lereah of Bubbleheads.
the real bob said:
ReplyDelete"Or maybe you are just as worried as the rest of the housing heads and are in a state of panic."
ha! projecting, are you? We're warm and cozy in our homes ... immune from anything that may happen in regards to price or supply in the future. We're set. You're not. We have no reason to panic. YOU do though ... Who knows what could happen in regards to price and supply by the time you convince yourself it's the right time to buy? Yes, I can see why you'd have reason to panic ... and project that on to others.
real bob,
ReplyDeleteI asked you to defend your assertion that Lance had lost 12 percent (or any money at all) on his property in 20009 in the last year. The fact is - get ready - 20009 did not experience any decline over the last 12 months. That is the fact you asked for, and that is the fact that you were asked to respond to. You didn't.
You failed to respond with any relevant information. At all.
I'm just pointing that out, Fraud Bob.
Lance said...
ReplyDelete“We're warm and cozy in our homes ... immune from anything that may happen in regards to price or supply in the future”
How’s that Lance? Using MRIS data for zip 20009, I show…..oh, never mind, you’re immune. So you expect to sell (if you had to) for exactly what you paid. What’s that, no?
You make it pretty clear that supply and “price” are of no factor to the island of 20009. What market factors will drive (up or down) the price of your home in the future?
http://www.mris.com/reports/stats/route.cfm
ReplyDeleteyou lose, Fraud Bob.
"OH, and try and post something from a more credible source.
ReplyDelete"MRIS is owned by 25 Shareholder REALTOR® Associations "
Its like watching election coverage on cnn, you will never get the unbiased truth."
LOL, don't be such a sore loser, Fraud Bob.
By the way, Fraud Bob, the horrible biased data comes from the link in david's post right here:
ReplyDeletehttp://bubblemeter.blogspot.com/2006/11/october-2006-mris-numbers.html
Sorry to have to humiliate you like this, but you don't know when to give up.
From your link above anon:
ReplyDeleteMedian Sales Price YoY: -11.76%
"From your link above anon:
ReplyDeleteMedian Sales Price YoY: -11.76%"
Not in 20009. Try to follow along.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete“By the way, Fraud Bob, the horrible biased data comes from the link in david's post right here:
http://bubblemeter.blogspot.com/2006/11/october-2006-mris-numbers.html”
“Try to follow along.”
Uh, OK, so don’t follow the link you posted?
Or, follow the link but disregard it?
Or, follow the link, regard it, but don’t post data from it?
Please anon, come up with a name for yourself so we’ll know what not to follow.
robert, you seem to having trouble following the conversation.
ReplyDeleteAnon, you seem to have trouble with the link you posted. So, I guess that’s a “don’t follow” and “disregard” the link?
ReplyDelete"Anon, you seem to have trouble with the link you posted. So, I guess that’s a “don’t follow” and “disregard” the link?
ReplyDelete"
What does this even mean? Either you're not following the conversation or you are reading the date wrong. According to that link, 20009 is flat year over year. Stop embarrasing yourself.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDelete“What does this even mean?”
It means that if you don’t want people to follow a link and post information contained in that link, then don’t post the link.
You posted:
http://bubblemeter.blogspot.com/2006/11/october-2006-mris-numbers.html
I followed the link you posted, then posted information contained therein and somehow you’re under the impression that I shouldn’t have done so. Either state such things that will offended you in the future (i.e. I’m posting this link, but no one follow it, nor make any comments about what may be contained in the link least I’d be offended). Or, don’t post the link.