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Well, we've shed 1800 SFR listings this quarter (we're at 18,619 as of this morning) and pending sales are up 12.2% just this month, so those are good signs.
Sales this month are already over 700 - we'll have over 100 on the 31st, plus another 50 or 75 December sales will be entered in the MLS after the holidays, so a final tally of 850 - 875 isn't an unreasonable expectation.
January and February will be ugly, but if we keep running at a 1% price decline each week during those two months, we should see monthly sales get back between 1000 - 1250 in the Spring. Still sick, but the priest doesn't have to stay near the bedside.
Well, we've shed 1800 SFR listings this quarter (we're at 18,619 as of this morning) and pending sales are up 12.2% just this month, so those are good signs.
Sales this month are already over 700 - we'll have over 100 on the 31st, plus another 50 or 75 December sales will be entered in the MLS after the holidays, so a final tally of 850 - 875 isn't an unreasonable expectation.
January and February will be ugly, but if we keep running at a 1% price decline each week during those two months, we should see monthly sales get back between 1000 - 1250 in the Spring. Still sick, but the priest doesn't have to stay near the bedside.
I pass on the inventory. I think that is almost all seasonal and will be back by March.
I hope you are correct on the sales. It depends I think on whether Monday is the end of the month or whether this Thursday and Friday were. But lets hope.
I don't like the fact that the volume is not moving with the present substantial drop in price. The buyers are scared and waiting for lower...and that can go on for a long time.
I've got over 300 posts here. Please direct me to one in which I state "there is no housing problem."
The reason I even started posting here was because I was told others were debating an article about me in LV BusinessPress in which I argued that housing was worse than the media was reporting...
To which, by the way, OleCapt's response was that my assessment as published in the paper was "untrue":
Thanks for the kind words everyone. They are truly appreciated.
I was prepared for someone to come in and bash me. But as I said, I made the mistakes, I take the responsibility. I'm not looking for anyone to bail me out or rescue me.
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Originally Posted by gulfer
Could you possible answer a couple of questions that may help us all out?
I shall do my best.
Quote:
a. Why the ARM vice a fixed interest rate? Could you have gotten a fixed at possible a little higher rate, but would have locked in your payment?
Yes, but with my self-employed stated income situation, the fixed rate was a full 2 points higher. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but IIRC, it would have made the payment about $500/mo higher. That was more then I could comfortably swing.
At that point, I should have scaled down to a smaller house. But there just wasn't time....
1) My wife's job in Reno had been eliminated and moved to Henderson. We had 6 weeks to sell our house in Reno and move if she wanted to keep her job. I wanted to rent here, because it just wasn't enough time to find a house to buy.
She wanted to buy instead of rent. She won. Never again.
2) My self-employment income paid slightly more the what I could make at a full-time job with my skills, but it was unstable. The 3 year ARM appealed to me because I was sure that in three years I would either be (a) making a lot more money, or (b) back to working a full time job.
In other words, I expected to either succeed big, or fail big, and I was prepared for either scenario.
Option (a) would have allowed me to re-finance into a fixed-rate loan and I could have absorbed the higher payments.
Option (b) would have allowed me to re-finance into a fixed rate loan at a much lower rate since the job would be considered more stable.
What happened instead was Option (c), which I didn't plan for because I never expected it to happen.
Option (c) turned out to be that my income has stayed steady the past three years - more then I could make in a 9-5 job, but not enough to overwhelm the financial tidal wave that was coming.
It became a no-win situation before I could do anything to change it.
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b. What was the level of interest while your home was on the market? I know I personally search the MLS, Ziprealty, home builders, etc... I am looking for anywhere from 2400-3000 square feet, but never look over about 330K.
Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. As I mentioned, it took 17 months for me to get my first offer. I believe that in the 19 months its been on the market, it's been shown to about 20-25 people, or just over one per month.
After years of seeing people fight for houses, it was sure strange to have my Realtor host an Open House, and not have one single person show up.
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c. Did you purchase your home thru the builders finance or did you get your own?
The house was four years old when I bought it, so I went through Countrywide on my own.
Hope this helps. If anyone has other questions, just let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. Hopefully someone out there can learn from my mistakes.
Where to now? Well it appears clear it is going to come down a good bit more. We are now eating into the 1Q2004 runup. So we may well see 2003 pricing before this ends.
At this point I would buy nothing other than a very low priced repo. Too much of a loss risk in anythig else. Note that these are competitive. Many are going well over asking price. So we are figthing over the dregs of the market.
Interesting. Very interesting indeed -- and I might add, a dose of common sense on this forum.
I have never claimed to be an expert on housing matters, I just listen to what others more knowledgeable than I say, put 2 and 2 together, and come to my own conclusions based on my own brand of common sense (i.e. you can't get something for nothing, not for long anyway). I've been following a cracker-jack financial blog for about a year now and here's what he predicts for housing nationwide:
"S&P’s "Case-Schiller" housing numbers for October (released on December 26th) showed a record 6.7% year-over-year decline in price, with a 1.4% decline on the month. Those who tell you that the housing crisis is “bottoming”, or that the market is “now turning”, are simply wrong. There is absolutely nothing, given the history of these market cycles, to suggest that we will see the “bottom” before 2009/2010 at the earliest. The impact of declining home prices, given that consumers are typically “levered” at least 5:1 (assuming they put down 20% at purchase), is immediate, severe and extreme. Since the “average” homeowner moves every 6-7 years, this means that more than half of all homeowners will be forced to sell into this market decline, taking huge capital losses. This is the bug-a-boo that is being roundly ignored by nearly all of the media, and it WILL impact consumer spending behavior."
Interesting. Very interesting indeed -- and I might add, a dose of common sense on this forum.
I have never claimed to be an expert on housing matters, I just listen to what others more knowledgeable than I say, put 2 and 2 together, and come to my own conclusions based on my own brand of common sense (i.e. you can't get something for nothing, not for long anyway). I've been following a cracker-jack financial blog for about a year now and here's what he predicts for housing nationwide:
"S&P’s "Case-Schiller" housing numbers for October (released on December 26th) showed a record 6.7% year-over-year decline in price, with a 1.4% decline on the month. Those who tell you that the housing crisis is “bottoming”, or that the market is “now turning”, are simply wrong. There is absolutely nothing, given the history of these market cycles, to suggest that we will see the “bottom” before 2009/2010 at the earliest. The impact of declining home prices, given that consumers are typically “levered” at least 5:1 (assuming they put down 20% at purchase), is immediate, severe and extreme. Since the “average” homeowner moves every 6-7 years, this means that more than half of all homeowners will be forced to sell into this market decline, taking huge capital losses. This is the bug-a-boo that is being roundly ignored by nearly all of the media, and it WILL impact consumer spending behavior."
There are simply a set of doom jerks on here who just can't listen. The break that has occurred is driven by the Banks almost exclusively and is very limited in scope. It is also huge in size and is not sustainable.
The local break is, for instance, much greater than that reported to the Case Schlller methodology. At the moment the local median is diving at almost a percent a week. CS shows nothing similar.
The outcome is that those unfortunates who bought in the late 2004 to mid 2006 range have been screwed. Virtually all should simply abandon the property involved and go rent for a while...until their credit recovers enough to do something else. If the banks and investment trusts owning these acounts were wise they would simply make an accomodation to mostly restore these people. Better to take a small loss and regularize the situation than to allow it to gallop off fully...which will maiximize the loss of the banks and investors.
In control theory in engineering there is a thing called feedback that is used to stabilize systems. What the banks have created at the moment is positive feedback. Positive feedback builds without limits at least until all available resource is used up. That is where we are...the banks have chosen to break the price line heavily...which will inturn cause vastly more failures and lower prices which will force the banks lower to maintain their inventory dumping wihich will drive the cycle further.
Most people will simply wait it out. But those unfortunate enough to buy in the bad time will get destroyed financially...as will the banks and related investors.
All sounds kind of stupid to me. And with the accelerating rates it will all be over by summer.
There are simply a set of doom jerks on here who just can't listen. The break that has occurred is driven by the Banks almost exclusively and is very limited in scope. It is also huge in size and is not sustainable.
The local break is, for instance, much greater than that reported to the Case Schlller methodology. At the moment the local median is diving at almost a percent a week. CS shows nothing similar.
The outcome is that those unfortunates who bought in the late 2004 to mid 2006 range have been screwed. Virtually all should simply abandon the property involved and go rent for a while...until their credit recovers enough to do something else. If the banks and investment trusts owning these acounts were wise they would simply make an accomodation to mostly restore these people. Better to take a small loss and regularize the situation than to allow it to gallop off fully...which will maiximize the loss of the banks and investors.
In control theory in engineering there is a thing called feedback that is used to stabilize systems. What the banks have created at the moment is positive feedback. Positive feedback builds without limits at least until all available resource is used up. That is where we are...the banks have chosen to break the price line heavily...which will inturn cause vastly more failures and lower prices which will force the banks lower to maintain their inventory dumping wihich will drive the cycle further.
Most people will simply wait it out. But those unfortunate enough to buy in the bad time will get destroyed financially...as will the banks and related investors.
All sounds kind of stupid to me. And with the accelerating rates it will all be over by summer.
Count me as one of the "doom jerks." Although I don't know, or pretend to know when this will "bottom," I can't see it leveling out anytime soon. There are housing tracts everywhere that are half-completed, or full of vacant, or for-sale homes. I can't imagine a scenario where these suddenly get bought-up and everything turns around. Too much supply to see a turn around anytime soon.
On a similar note, I just came back from Oregon, and the same thing is happening there too. A few of the areas surrounding Portland were full of for sale signs, price reduced, new price, and half completed developments. So if the "only state in the country that was not experiencing declines" is also loaded with inventory, what now? Too many over-priced homes all across the country.
Well I live in the Desert Shores area (renting a house). My wife and I drove around the neighborhood last week to see everyone's Christmas lights, but our trip soon turned into "Count the For Sale Signs". I couldn't believe how many homes are on the market just in our little area! We would drive down a single block and count 6 or 7 houses up for sale, turn the corner, and boom there's another 4 or 5. It's quite dramatic seeing the headlines made real like this, knowing all these people are competing for the same limited buyers and probably dragging everyone else's home values down in the process. It's like someone flipped a switch, and suddenly everyone is running for the door trying to sell.
I'm wondering though -- does anyone see rental prices increasing or decreasing? Seems to me the number of available rental units must be up quite a bit in Vegas, what with all the empty condos and investors stuck with houses they can't unload. Good time to ask for a lower monthly rent when my lease is up?
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Thanks...and some answers to questions asked.
