Why is he blaming investors?

[bentlebee]

That is B.S. Bucfan. The builders were so happy when the investors bought their homes. The builders made a lot of money so did the smart investor. Than the builders decided that what a flipper could do, they could do better and didn't allow investors to come and earn a lot of money. Later the builders realized that all of a sudden they couldn't sell their homes and started to blame investors. By the way as mentioned before, a lot of investors are realtors or working for builders. I know more realtors/sales ass from builders, who are investors than just a neighbor down the street.

[spainbrit]

It is extremely hard to prove fraud, or that realtors had the knowledge that things were going to crash. My experience of many people who work in this business - including developers and builders - is that they don't see past the end of their (currently stalled under construction ) street! They don't know or care what is happening in the world in general, can't see or understand basic economics and so dont see it coming themselves. Of course when they do, a bit like our govt, they talk it up, to hide the coming truth. Eventually the cracks begin to show and the rest is what we now know.
The realtor that sold to these people can always hide behind the story that was put out there by the very top (aka White House/Fed) there is no recession! Doesn't matter who is in power, I'm sure it would have been the same course.

[bentlebee]

I agree, but I experienced with a builder that the mortgage company related to them denied a client based on credit score, income, etc. The builder than came up with another mortgage broker who could give any mortgage even if the creditscore was so low, didn't matter. If they would have signed they would have forclosed and the mortgage broker didn't care, because I was there with another person asking a lot of questions and stating how can you even consider a mortgage like that. This is not reasonable and this person will go bankrupt. This lady said, oh no we do it all the time. This lady should not be allowed to work in a place like that and give advise, that should be a crime. Also the builder who just wanted to close instead of the client pulling out of the contract, should be punished, after all their own mortgage company was fair to see "no, you can't afford this". People better loose their down payment than go bankrupt.

[spainbrit]

Hence the problem in the subprime market Bentlebee. I totally agree with you, I worked once with a mortgage broker, and he - at the last minute - said buyer could not have mortgage as it was, (night before closing) and offered another with awful conditions and rates. My buyer had the cash in UK to be able to close without him, though a mortgage as originally offered was preferable. I had to delay close, but that was OK. This guy is now out of business and back where he belongs - which is not here in FL. There was widespread back scratching going on, both sides of which are now suffering, but not as much as the poor folks they talked into working with them.

[HSCCS]

The market is on a downward spiral. I know someone that purchased a home for 82,000 less than her contracted price in 2007 because the appraisal forced a new home builder to place the home on inventory and reduce it from 392,000 to 306,000 ( 3500 sq feet with 100,000 in upgrades and a large beautiful pool). She broke her contract because the builder refused to adjust the price of the home. When she did that, they put it on inventory and offered it to her at the reduced price.

I wouldn't start looking until summer and/or winter of 2008. AND don't expect the market to skyrocket again for another 10-15 years.