NAR's new president is Pat Vredevoogd Combs. Ms. Combs has a blog. She appears to be as much of a shill as David Lereah. On a recent blog posts she writes "The National Association of REALTORS continues to show just how influential the Voice for Real Estate has become – in communities across the United States and around the world. As the news media took special note of NAR’s Metro Home Price Report last week, we managed to send a clear message that the “soft landing” is both expected and sustainable and that 2006 will still be a great year for real estate."
It appears she is learning from David 'Paid Shill' Lereah. She can learn how to decieve, spin, maninpulate facts, and cheerlead the housing market.
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hmmm ... And if through their media communications they help us achieve a "soft landing", how is that a bad thing? Should we be cheerleading a "hard landing"? Me thinks the Bubbleheads are just as much "shills" as those they accuse of being "paid shills" ... and the "payoff" they are hoping for is buying people's home for the large discounts a hard landing would bring them. The pot calling the kettle black?
ReplyDeletecreativemind, "shill"-out! "buying at a discount" in this context means "buying something for less than what it previously has been available for" ... nothing more, nothing less. Why is it that when BHer's can't refute a point, they resort to over-analysing and other-wise "changing the subject"?
ReplyDeletei'm glad they werent "influential" over me.
ReplyDeleteisnt what she said basically: "haha, we're brainwashing the media to brainwash the shills!"
"How did that 20009 zip code do last month lance? I believe YOY is now negative. "
ReplyDeleteNope. Median returned to positive. Sorry.
Anonymous 3:08 said...
ReplyDelete"Nope. Median returned to positive. Sorry."
That's right median for 20009 is UP 2.94% YOY ... Which isn't a big consequence to me either way. I didn't buy to sell for a long time. However, I do think it goes to prove that one can "buy smart" even in a "bad" market ... and even if you don't plan on holding on to your home for longer than you can say "I wanna use this house like an ATM" ... the apparent ultimate BH dream ...
Are those the fudged numbers or the real numbers.
ReplyDeletePrices are tanking!
Yeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaawwwwwwwww
Lance,
ReplyDeleteNo matter how you spin it, twist it and turn it...Real Estate in the United States is free falling. Just about every newspaper, federal report, ect..ect..ect..shows these sharp declines.
About the only group thats reporting that things arent so bad is the NAR. Who does the NAR represent? I don't need to answer my own question, it's clearly visible.
I don't know what Kool Aid your drinking, but it must be mind-bending.
Think real hard about the foolish remarks you make, i'm not saying the comments from some bubbleheads are not foolish too, but C'mon, look outside the box.
anon 12:21,
ReplyDeleteYour definition of "free falling" must be far different than mine. I look around me and see nothing I haven't seen occur at least twice before during my adult years and a couple times before. My dad was a Realtor, and I recall my mom saying it was always "feast of famine" for us as a result. Runups and rundowns are a normal part of the real estate cycle. Also, it's normal that over any 10 year period (sometimes less) the value of one's home will have gone up by more than inflation ... making it the least expensive way of providing housing for yourself and your family. Today's Realtors have tried to convince buyers that real estate is an "investment" ... which of course it can't be ... and they have been so successful at doing so that it's not surprising that individuals like you treat it as such ... and expect it to act as such ... including expecting a bubble as you have known with the dot.coms ... The problem is, it is not an investment and never has been. It is just the most efficient and economical means of getting housing for you and your family over the longrun ... under any economic conditions ... since economic conditions are by definition shortterm ... and housing needs are by definition longterm. Understanding this very basic fact will help you understand why over the longterm, trying to "play the market" with housing prices can be nothing but disasterous if that is your home you are gambling with.
Lance,
ReplyDeleteDid I say that real estate was an investment or imply? No I did not. My definition of free falling is exactly what it implies. You state: "Today's Realtors have tried to convince buyers that real estate is an "investment" ... which of course it can't be ... and they have been so successful at doing so" So, with that being said, how can you use your 10 year value gain theory? Your implying normal market conditions,the run-ups during the last 5 years are not normal, nor are the gains. 20 to 30% gains per year over 5 years is not normal and is something you have never seen in your entire life and nobody else has either, it's never happened. The real estate boom was caused by nothing more than interest rates being held way to low for way to long. Moreover, why can't real estate drop in value 20 to 30 percent per year over several years, you state: "Runups and rundowns are a normal part of the real estate cycle." There will be several years of sharp home value declines before real value is added. I agree a home is not an investment, but that does not mean I want to wait 15 years for values to catch up, while I'm paying an outragous monthly payment.
anon 1:46 said:
ReplyDelete" There will be several years of sharp home value declines before real value is added. I agree a home is not an investment, but that does not mean I want to wait 15 years for values to catch up, while I'm paying an outragous monthly payment."
I disagree with you on two counts here. (1) There won't be several years of sharp home value declines assuming that by sharp you mean declines of a much greater magnitude than those that have already occured. All the economists out there are saying that the "sharp" declines we've had thus far are about as deep as they're going to get. I'll give you that it might go down a little further during the winter, but Spring will see a rebound. (2) Typical mortgage payments today are relatively no higher than they were 20 years ago. Prices may seem relatively high, but the extremely low interest rates we have out there easily counterbalance the higher relative prices.
Lance,
ReplyDeleteI feel for you. You bought at a horrible time, and you are about to go upside-down on your purchase. You seem to be hoping you can single-handedly convince the world there is no crisis and housing and thereby keep the market from moving against you: and beyond that, you seem to be trying to convince yourself you didn’t make a mistake. Your denial is going to get more and more stressful as housing prices continue to move against you. At some point you are going to “lose it” when reality overwhelms your denial. Have you ever held a stock position too long? If you have, you know that sinking feeling.
The good news is that if you accept reality now, there is probably still time for you to do something about it. Sell your home and move into a rental until the storm passes. Bankruptcy can still be avoided. The truly sad part is that you probably won’t. You will most likely continue to be fodder for the housing bears on this board and work to maintain your denial. I hope your fantasy of a soft landing materializes, I suspect the possibility of a hard landing is too terrible for you to contemplate.
Lance,
ReplyDeleteThis statement does not make sense.
"Prices may seem relatively high, but the extremely low interest rates we have out there easily counterbalance the higher relative prices."
Look Below???????????
This payment would be for a fixed mortgage over 30 year at 6% with 20% down. Let's not forget to minus the PMI, seeing I'm putting 20% down.
Down Payment: $60,000.00
Amount Financed: $240,000.00
Monthly Payment: $1,438.92
(Principal & Interest ONLY)
Residential (or Property) Taxes are a little harder to figure out... In Massachusetts, the average resedential tax rate seems to be around $14 per year for every $1,000 of your property's assessed value.
Let's say that your property's assessed value is 85% of what you actually paid for it - $255,000.00. This would mean that your yearly residential taxes will be around $3,570.00 This could add $297.50 to your monthly payment.
TOTAL Monthly Payment: $1,736.42
(including residential tax)
Now heres a home that would have sold in 2002 for 140K and now list for 300K.
This is a thirty year fixed at 10% with 20% down. Remember, no PMI.
Down Payment: $28,000.00
Amount Financed: $112,000.00
Monthly Payment: $982.88
(Principal & Interest ONLY)
Residential (or Property) Taxes are a little harder to figure out... In Massachusetts, the average resedential tax rate seems to be around $14 per year for every $1,000 of your property's assessed value.
Let's say that your property's assessed value is 85% of what you actually paid for it - $119,000.00. This would mean that your yearly residential taxes will be around $1,666.00 This could add $138.83 to your monthly payment.
TOTAL Monthly Payment: $1,121.71
(including residential tax)
My dad sold his home is mid 02' for 140K and now the damm thing is listed at 300K. Your logic is all messed up.
Anon 9:17 thank you for your "good" wishes, but you need not worry about me. My home is already worth hundreds of thousands more than I paid for it. In the first year alone after I bought it it went up some 24%+ as did the average rowhouse in DC. (It actually probably went up more being in a desirable area that only got more desireable as marginal areas several blocks away gentrified past the "critical mass" stage.) It also was worth a lot more than I paid for it the day I moved into it as I shopped smartly as I have been advising here on this blog. So, thanks for your concern but I am doing fine. I have already monetarily "gained" more than you will in the next 20 - 30 years of putting aside your "savings" from renting. But the fact of the matter is plain and simple that I didn't buy my house as a way to make money. I didn't buy it to re-sell it in the near or mid-term and I didn't buy it to use as an ATM. So, as long as it is affordable (and it surely is as it is costing me less per month than ANYWHERE I have ever lived ... even in rental), than why should I care in the least what value someone out there in the margins would put on my house to buy it from me? I don't want to sell it.
ReplyDeleteNow on to your problem ... Is it just pure jealousy? ... or is there an element of projection? You know, you can't deal with a problem you are facing ... so you like to pretend that others (and not you) are the ones facing it. My good wishes for you? Go see a shrink ... you'll be a lot happier in the end. And who knows, maybe even a little bit more financially secure!
Anon 10:39 ... You left out one very critical factor in your calculations. People earn a lot lot more now than they did back then. As an example, college grads 20 years ago came out earning anywhere from $18,000 to $25,000 (for the business guys who at the time were the better paid.) Today, you are looking more at somewhere at least over $40,000 and probably approaching or surpassing $70,000 for the engineering types (today's better paid guys.) Take the higher end people like law grads and while I don't know what they made back then, I do know they've been on here saying that they start off in the high $100s ($175k?)plus bonuses ... much higher than before. Granted, I fully understand that a whole segment of the population has been left behind ... and isn't earning that much more than 20 years ago. But as I've discussed here before, we can thank globalization for that and the fact that lesser-skilled workers in this country no longer have anything ensuring that they should be paid anything more than the lower-skilled workers across the globe with whom they are now directly competing for work. And like I've been trying to get across to Robert ... Just because houses have now become unaffordable to some doesn't mean that prices will need to drop to "let them have a house". There's no law or economic rule out there saying that everyone MUST own their own home. So, to recap, YES, homes are just as affordable today to most of us as they were 20 years ago. And yes, not as many of us can afford homes today as we could 20 years ago. And no, these are contradictory statements. Read them again if you think they are.
ReplyDeleteAnon 10:39 ... You left out one very critical factor in your calculations. People earn a lot lot more now than they did back then. As an example, college grads 20 years ago came out earning anywhere from $18,000 to $25,000 (for the business guys who at the time were the better paid.) Today, you are looking more at somewhere at least over $40,000 and probably approaching or surpassing $70,000 for the engineering types (today's better paid guys.) Take the higher end people like law grads and while I don't know what they made back then, I do know they've been on here saying that they start off in the high $100s ($175k?)plus bonuses ... much higher than before. Granted, I fully understand that a whole segment of the population has been left behind ... and isn't earning that much more than 20 years ago. But as I've discussed here before, we can thank globalization for that and the fact that lesser-skilled workers in this country no longer have anything ensuring that they should be paid anything more than the lower-skilled workers across the globe with whom they are now directly competing for work. And like I've been trying to get across to Robert ... Just because houses have now become unaffordable to some doesn't mean that prices will need to drop to "let them have a house". There's no law or economic rule out there saying that everyone MUST own their own home. So, to recap, YES, homes are just as affordable today to most of us as they were 20 years ago. And yes, not as many of us can afford homes today as we could 20 years ago. And no, these are contradictory statements. Read them again if you think they are.
ReplyDeleteLance said...
ReplyDelete“My home is already worth hundreds of thousands more than I paid for it. In the first year alone after I bought it it went up some 24%+ as did the average rowhouse in DC”
“I have already monetarily "gained" more than you will in the next 20 - 30 years of putting aside your "savings" from renting.”
So Lance, when you sold this DC row house, what did you do with those gains?
I don't think it's fair to characterize the market as being in free fall except for a few localized cases yet - so far it's just slowed down. I also don't think it's fair to villify the realtors. I wouldn't trust them but I don't blame them for doing their job. It's caveat emptor in a capitalist society, it can be cruel but the alternative is much worse. When it comes down to it, we all have a primary interest in supporting ourselves and families above altruistically serving the needs of our customers, even for those of us in science and engineering. Buying a house is more of a lifestyle choice than an investment anyway, I can afford my house that I bought 3 years ago even it was slightly overpriced. I personally couldn't stand the prospect of having a landlord. But if I were in my 20s it would be stupid to be tied down to a house even if it was a good investment.
ReplyDelete