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The good parts of LA are finally starting to crumble...
I'm seeing a lot more short sales and REOs come on the market, though very few are at reasonable asking prices still. But they are down at least 33% to about 45-50% off of peak.
Great new article from Dr. Housing Bubble today...
I'm seeing certain segments of the Los Angeles real estate market drop hard and fast. The best I've seen so far is larger condos(2 or 3 bed, 2.5 or 3 ba, 1400 sq ft+) in the Sherman Oaks and Studio City areas drop down under $350K and as low as $300k. These are legitimately nice places that were listing just a year ago in the $400-500k range.
I really think its all downhill for the next couple years. The lack of buyers due to unemployment, lack of easy to obtain loans, and lack of people with cash for a downpayment is finally catching up with the market. Also factor in that a significant number of FHA loans from the past couple years will fail(no down, liberal lending terms) and that with falling rents investors will want to bail, and you are looking at a continued large inventory of homes which will push prices down further.
I knew things were bad here, but not this bad. What happened to all that talk of prices stabilzing? Not here. I'm just trying to get this house sold in the next month or so to save what little is left of my $90k downpayment. We don't want to stay in this area/ state long term, so it's sell now or wait for years and years as values creep back up (if we are lucky).
My area/price range has somewhat stabilized from what I see. The higher end houses are stagnant and not moving at all, but the lower end/starter price point are selling quickly if priced right and in good shape (ie not stripped by an angry owner during foreclosure).
One of the local production (read: cheap) builders had his best year EVER last year.
I'm in the starter price point range, and bought in 2003 and I figure my house is worth approximately what I paid for it. That's about 30-35% off peak values in 2006. But value has held steady there for a while now, maybe a year.
Higher price ranges are down as much as 50% off peak prices, maybe more. They are selling so slowly, it is hard to compare.
I can't say Boise is on the way back up yet, but at least the way ahead (right now) seems relatively level.
in my area of NC, the lower end is most tolerable for us. median household incomes are $50k or so, so you have barely enough young families who can afford to buy a house in the $150k- $200k range, using with 3% down FHA loans. not enough buyers to support prices at their current levels, IMO, when "old free market lending standards" put starter homes in this area in the $120 - $140k range.
once you get past starter homes, beyond $250k, i have no idea who can afford these $300k, $400k, $500k houses. only 14% of households in this area earn $100k/year or more, so i assume the main buyers are people who have significant existing home equity from other locations.
total dollar sales dropped sharply, and are still falling -
$2.5b in 2005
$2.0b in 2006
$1.7b in 2007
$1.2b in 2008
$1.0b in 2009
2010 is on pace for an annualized rate of $700m.
however, total sales are just about constant. people are selling the same volume of houses, but with less than half of the dollar amount at peak.
during that time period (05-10) the days on market steadily increased from 59 to 136, and still rising.
more new listings in 2010 than 2009, and more in 2009 than 2008. However these numbers pale to the 05-06 numbers.
I knew things were bad here, but not this bad. What happened to all that talk of prices stabilzing? Not here. I'm just trying to get this house sold in the next month or so to save what little is left of my $90k downpayment. We don't want to stay in this area/ state long term, so it's sell now or wait for years and years as values creep back up (if we are lucky).
Where specifically did you find a Case-Shiller index for your particular house? And future values?
I'm looking over their website, and Atlanta is only showing a 4% drop YOY.
Rumor has it B of A is going to put 21,000 homes on the market in the mid-Atlantic in the next 30 - 90 days.
(I got that from a B of A employee I use to work with).
I have a contact at B of A (in the former Countrywide HQ) I spoke with last night who is as much "in the thick of it" when it comes to REOs as you can be, and the mid-Atlantic isn't the only place. Ground zero (SoCal) is about to get flooded with lender backed short sales and REOs.
Because of some structural issues in my area (the government owns 95% of the land south of I-10 where most people want to live; lack of insane levels of spec building north of I-10; expected arrival of several thousand new military families because of BRAC in the next 12-24 months) greater Ft. Walton Beach seems to have bottomed out sooner than the rest of the state. Year to Year prices for existing single family have largely been the same or slightly higher than the previous year for a good six months now, and the number of homes sold continues to be higher.
In my specific development, the nice realtors who send us postcards all the time say that price per square foot for non-bayfront property peaked at $175/sf, fell as low as $125/sq, and are now somewhere in the $130-$135/sf range. (We bought at $75/sf in 2001) And there is essentially no inventory right now for the kind of house we've got- over 1500 sf, at least .25 acre lot, and had been listing for less than $250K, the postcard realtors have starting to put notes on their cards saying 'if you have a house with X, Y, and Z, we've got an active buyer' and the builders are putting spec houses up on the handful of remaining vacant lots in town.
I have a contact at B of A (in the former Countrywide HQ) I spoke with last night who is as much "in the thick of it" when it comes to REOs as you can be, and the mid-Atlantic isn't the only place. Ground zero (SoCal) is about to get flooded with lender backed short sales and REOs.
Then CA will finally be a true buyer's market. All of the offers I have put on in the last 4 months have been outbid!
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