Real Estate - do we still have holdouts?

[haha]

I saw this in a Bloomberg.com article today:

The S&P/Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell 9.1 percent in December from a year earlier, the most on record. The Conference Board's index of consumer confidence fell to 75 from 87.3 in January.

Ha

[honobob]

Originally Posted by Moemg

I saw a house on HGTV 's Open House that was listed at $700,000 in Bradenton when the show aired. The house is now selling for $480,000.

ProjectBdrm/BathTot/LanaiList Price Diamond Head Terrace - 1 flr1-Jan 438/151
$317,000 Diamond Head Terrace - 3 flr1-Jan 438/151$319,000 Diamond Head Terrace - 2 flr1-Feb 625/130 $645,000 Diamond Head Alii Corp - 1 flr1-Jan 661/0 $410,000

What's list price got to do with market value??
Here's a good example of a crazy asking price. Guy number 3 is asking for $645,000 for his larger/got granite place when smaller (438sf) places are asking $317-319K. A similar sized apartment three buildings over is asking $410,000 and they've been selling high $300's low $400's. This guy will probably get about $400K.

Does that mean the market tanked when his crazy $645,000 list price sells for $400,000? I don't think so.


4% appreciation my *ss

[TargaDave]

Primary home location (Big Ten college town): house just sold pretty fast at the upper end of suggested range.

Retirement home location (Atlantic coastal vacation region): values still sliding down but won't be selling for the next 30+ years. Have some dry powder set aside for a rehab investment or two when this area bottoms.

[jazz4cash]

Originally Posted by UncleHoney

Things have slowed down here like a lot of other locations. Attached is a link to a PDF file I just scanned. It's a listing of homes that sold (not all) in the last 6 months in my zip code (43214). I get the listing each month in the mail.

Recently I've been tracking weekly home sales in the Sunday paper. In my zip code the numbers have hit bottom with just 2 sales listed last weekend, three weeks ago the count was close to 9. The listings are about 4-6 weeks old by the time they appear.

On my street (about 100 houses) there are only two for sale signs and there doesn't seem to be much interest in them.

http://mrcol.freeyellow.com/listing.pdf

We have a local realtor that specializes in our neighborhood that apparently subscribes to the same newsletter service. We get a monthly report in the exact format of the one you scanned.

It shows sales are off by 60% , sales prices off by 8% and and list/sales price ratio is 98.5 here in the Md suburbs of DC. Days on market is 78

Just realized your listings are Columbus, OH.....pricier than I would have expected!

[Texas Proud]

Originally Posted by jazz4cash

It shows sales are off by 60% , sales prices off by 8% and and list/sales price ratio is 98.5 here in the Md suburbs of DC. Days on market is 78

They had an interesting segment on Nightline the other day about some agents 'relisting' a property.... one guy would not let his listings (IIRC) get much past 90 days... and they could relist within ONE HOUR....

SO, the 78 days on the market might not really be true.... it could be much higher..

[Ronstar]

Originally Posted by DangerMouse

I work for a firm of Civil Engineers and let me tell you the residential market with new homes is dead in So. Cal.

Same here. A few years ago, we had more than a 1000 lots in subdivision design at one time. Now we have one subdivision of around 40 lots. Some of our area's bigger homebuilders have declared bankruptcy and some have closed their model homes and left.

Also, a friend of mine was transferred for his job. His company offered a relocation package where the company would buy his house for the appraised value if he could not sell it. He couldn't sell it for the $330k appraised value, so the company bought it. After 6 months without offers, the company sold it last week for $214k.

[blessed]

In the outer suburbs of No. Va. housing is down about 20-25%. However, I think it has further to go. I was in land development and saw this coming, I got out and am happily Fired

[Delawaredave5]

Saw a chart somewhere (will try to find and post) which showed housing slumps over the years.

All of them were a 5-6 year "sideways" correction - prices didn't drop much, stayed fairly flat, and inflation "caught up" to get housing market back to reality.

So I would say:

• We'd at least see a 5-6 year sideways correction. This started late 2005 - so maybe time to start looking is 2010.
• This RE market is more "out of whack" than any prior - so that would suggest that this correction will either last longer or have deeper declines, not just sideways action.

[CuppaJoe]

Chilling stories on this thread, I voted up up (edit I mean down down-[the first cup of coffee hasn't kicked in]) and away. I think, with the exception of the usual suspects, i.e, the most expensive Zip Codes, it's a sea change for the average Joe. The writing is no longer on the wall, it's running red in the streets--Kidding, even I am not that extreme. It boggles my mind to imagine an entire extended family piling into a single McMansion and scrambling for privacy. Thank god for the iPod, anyone check to see where room divider futures were this morning? Japanese screens?

[Marquette]

Bought our townhouse 5 years ago for 263. Highest sale during the last 5 years for a comp unit was 285 with 5k back for closing (so 280ish more or less). We think a realistic sale for ours would be 258-262.

On the other hand, the only offer we've gotten so far after months on the market was 245, which is what the foreclosure across the street went for.

So, no offers... good thing we don't need to actually sell.

I guess I don't know what I'm saying. I picked down but then I've been saying the market was going to go real soft real fast since November 06 (with our awesome timing, we didn't get around to listing until April 07, last good sale in our neighborhood was March 07). I'm a pessimist though so I try and keep my investing philosophy separate from my day-to-day mood.

[haha]

Here is an optimistic note from Sam Zell:

"I think Bernanke's reduction in interest rates has been spot-on, because basically we're going to fix the credit markets by creating a big enough spread between the risk-free cost of capital and what's available so that greed overtakes fear and the game begins again."):


ZellÂ* Sees Start of Housing Recovery in the Spring - Real Estate * US * News * Story - MSNBC.com

Ha

[figner]

Last week while watching the morning news there were a couple commercials by the National Association of Realtors. Not selling anything in particular, just trying to convince viewers in a feel-good way that buying a house is a good investment. Desperation, perhaps?

[Notmuchlonger]

Originally Posted by figner

Last week while watching the morning news there were a couple commercials by the National Association of Realtors. Not selling anything in particular, just trying to convince viewers in a feel-good way that buying a house is a good investment. Desperation, perhaps?

Tends to happen when your livelihood is on the line and you are trying to put food on the table

[Marquette]

Originally Posted by figner

Last week while watching the morning news there were a couple commercials by the National Association of Realtors. Not selling anything in particular, just trying to convince viewers in a feel-good way that buying a house is a good investment. Desperation, perhaps?

They've been running lots of radio ads here on what a great investment a house is. In fact, according to them, "on average, the price of a home doubles every 10 years". So, honobob is on to something. That's about a 7% CAGR, right? That blows a 4% CAGR out of the water.

[ladelfina]

So a $250k "average" house today will be $500k in 10 years, and a million dollars in 20 years? Where is the wage/GDP growth to sustain that? They are desperately pumping their own sector.

As is Zell. I'd never heard of him 'til recently. He sounds like kind of a nut.

Zell attributed much of the current economic troubles to fear-mongering and politicking by Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

ZellÂ* Sees Start of Housing Recovery in the Spring - Real Estate * US * News * Story - MSNBC.com
It's all Clinton's fault!

If you're a farmer and you're getting $25 for your wheat, you're having a great time.

Food shortages = "good times".

There's 10 weeks of global wheat supply, apparently.

Food shortages loom as wheat crop shrinks and prices rise - Times Online

[twaddle]

I noticed Zell backed off his recovery prediction for places like Miami. I wonder what his prediction for Detroit would be.

The Big Picture | Detroit Housing = ~$0

[jazz4cash]

Originally Posted by Texas Proud

SO, the 78 days on the market might not really be true.... it could be much higher..

From casual observation, I would agree!

[newguy88]

Warren county NJ toll Brothers development. Homes 1/3 to 1/2 acre 2700 to 3300 sq feet built between 1995 -2001 Prices sold units 05 through early 06

499 -539K

Prices sold last three months Nov 07 through Middle of Feb 08 385 -405K

Same houses.

Listings as of today since not much is selling are 385 to 469K with two homes still listed from 15 months ago and still on the market over 550K They may never sell.

Market is in deep trouble.

[honobob]

Ritz-Carlton Kapalua suites sell for $176M - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

Forty per cent of the buyers were from international markets! What's the Canadian word for Aloha?

[Caroline]

{quote]So a $250k "average" house today will be $500k in 10 years, and a million dollars in 20 years? Where is the wage/GDP growth to sustain that? They are desperately pumping their own sector.[/quote]

hmmmmmmmmmm.

My parents bought their house for 20K in 1965, so in retrospect:

1965 -- 20K
1975 -- 40K
1985 -- 80K
1995 --