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This means that more properties are coming on the market, because many foreclosing filings in my area are from homes that were never on the market and have been either rented out or people just live for free without even trying to do a short sale. This might be a local thing, but IMO it makes my offers not go up and IMO the bottom is still not reached.
Short sales/foreclosures in my area remain relatively uncommon. When sold, the listing agent uses an idicator on the sale price so that when used as a comp, everyone knows why it sold for the price it did, when it did.
In most cases these properties have a long listing history where it is apparent that the owner thought they could flip the house at a substantial profit to themselves. It did not work in 2006 and it's certainly not going to work in 2008.
So many of these properties were or are listed with independent brokers and are on combo lock boxes. There is a growing scam in the area whereby criminals pose as agents ( made up names and agent ID's) to obtain the como lock code and then, the rest is history.
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
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Right now, Seattle has about a 7.5 month supply. Anything after 6 months and it's a buyer's paradise.
Too bad the prices are still dropping....so I ain't buying anything....yet.
What people rarely (if ever) mention in those articles is that there was about 1.2ish trillion dollars of bad debt created during this insane run up in prices. We've worked through about 400 billion - or roughly a third of it.
70Ford - I'm not familiar with your market and the outlook for prices, so I'm NOT arguing with your logic...but that said, make sure that you are accounting in changes in the interest rate and the impact on your monthly cashflows before making the "buy now" or "wait" decision.
In MY area as an example, the prices have been dead flat (operating within a band of about 13,000 up and down since January - Median SOLD price in January was $187K, in July it was $194K). The difference in INTEREST rate (5.26% in January / 6.26% last week) however in the same period would mean that a buyer would be paying as much as $150 more per month today (Principal/Interest). Even if the prices had not changed, their monthly payment would still have gone up...
You know your market better than I, all I'm suggesting is that there are more factors at work in terms of pulling the trigger on buying. I wish you the best.
My area is kinda iffy (central Texas). Some neighborhoods have lower values while others (rich neighborhoods) have higher values. Lots of inventory though; prices not coming down but days on market increasing and foreclosures increasing here in Texas as well.
70Ford - I'm not familiar with your market and the outlook for prices, so I'm NOT arguing with your logic...but that said, make sure that you are accounting in changes in the interest rate and the impact on your monthly cashflows before making the "buy now" or "wait" decision.
In MY area as an example, the prices have been dead flat (operating within a band of about 13,000 up and down since January - Median SOLD price in January was $187K, in July it was $194K). The difference in INTEREST rate (5.26% in January / 6.26% last week) however in the same period would mean that a buyer would be paying as much as $150 more per month today (Principal/Interest). Even if the prices had not changed, their monthly payment would still have gone up...
You know your market better than I, all I'm suggesting is that there are more factors at work in terms of pulling the trigger on buying. I wish you the best.
DaveP
I can't speak for 70Ford, but I'm waiting too...and paying cash so the interest rates don't bother me to much
bentlebee...you will have some incredible leverage when you find what you're looking for! Best of luck to you.
* I am not a believer in "timing" the real estate market. I think that (for most people who are buying HOMES - not investment property) that the decision should be about the home itself and how it meets your needs and wants. Markets go up and down - financing goes up and down...make it about the "home" and you'll very likely live there long enough to ride the waves.
You're a realtor. Of course you don't believe in timing the market because that means less sales commissions.
If I had listened to a realtor ... I would have paid $50K more for a property than what it's worth just two months ago. In other words ... the property has dropped by $50K in value in just two months.
Thankfully, I didn't buy it and won't be buying until the number of foreclosures starts dropping instead of increasing. I'm not interested in throwing away money with instant negative equity.
It is to some degree common knowledge (or at least commonly believed) that you shouldn't time your purchase in the stock, bond etc markets. Realtors use this commonly held belief that try to spin it towards real estate. The problem is that it doesn't apply very well to real estate. Both because real estate markets can be more reasonably predicted and because real estate moves much more slowly.
Realtors really have zero incentive to say now is not a good time to buy. Interestingly very few Realtors will tell you this, they all seem to be in good "local markets". It isn't so much that the Realtors are lying, but its a funny feature of human psychology that people will convince themselves of things that are in their best interest.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.""
...Upton Sinclair
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so the interest rates don't bother me to much
