Real Estate Crash thread

[Stu Gotz]

Every recession since 1960 has started with a decline in home construction.

For housing and those industries that depend on construction, it won't be such a wonderful life for several years to come.

[enlosandes]

Any input on the fed's cut today? Stalling the inevitable or making a big difference in things? Anxious to hear what the smart maggots think?

[RootSkier]

I make no claims on intelligence, but as someone in real estate I doubt it will have much of an effect, except to give another nudge to those who haven't yet refied their ARMs.

People are pretty scared, at least around here, and while homes will always be bought and sold, the confidence level doesn't seem to be very high.

[Spats]

I make no claims on intelligence, but as someone in real estate I doubt it will have much of an effect

Teaser rate resets and interest-only to regular ARM resets make the actual interest rate irrelevant. It doesn't matter if the payment gets multiplied by 2.2 instead of 2.5, people with "creative financing" still can't afford it.

[RootSkier]

people with "creative financing" still can't afford it.

There are plenty of people out there who can afford to have a regular 30 year fixed on their house but for some reason, don't. Maybe not where you live, but I guarantee those people are out there.

[Chainsaw_Willie]

The median price statistics can be misleading.

For example, the median price can be significantly affected by the parts of the market in which transactions are taking place. For instance, it has been suggested that around here entry level properties aren't moving very well, while higher end stuff is doing better. The median price is remaining relatively stable. Yet my review of listings online makes it absolutely clear that significant price decreases are occurring. One reason for that may be a disproportionate number of high end properties currently being sold.

Also, the average size of houses has been increasing: an increase in median price may merely reflect that. Houses of the same size may be decreasing or remaining constant in price, but if the pool of houses being sold has an increasing average size, the median price may well increase.

In other words, the median price doesn't really tell you anything about what is being sold, so comparing median prices from two different times may be comparing apples to oranges. Prices may be dropping across the board while the median price is remaining constant or increasing.

1100-1200 sq. ft. ramblers from the '50s are still selling for $250K - $350K regularly in this part of the city. Anything priced significantly under $300K sells quickly.

Construction is also booming currently. Especially commercial construction. There are enough contracts already in place to keep the industry rolling along at a good pace for another couple of years. Things are starting to slow down just a bit from earlier this year but that's typical for fall/winter and the electrician's union hall is still a walk-through and has been all year. (Union labor is huge in this area, owning about 80% of the commercial construction market). There is a two year wait for tower cranes. Any residential construction that involves building townhomes or other multi-family structures is still going strong too. Any lot that can be subdivided or have an additional house placed on it, no matter how small or how ridiculously close together is being built and older apartment buildings are being renovated and turned into condos as fast as the permits can be issued.

Overall, I'd say that while lower end homes may not be increasing in price as rapidly as in the past, they are certainly not decreasing in this area. It takes $250K to get into anything within 20 miles of Seattle, and at that price you're looking at something small, in disrepair, and/or not in a good area.

I keep hearing about how things are going south in other areas of the country, but it's not happening here. At least, not yet. Maybe in another 3 years.

[Benny Profane]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/bu...14bank.html?hp


"The proposal echoes the 1998 bailout of the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management, when a group of big banks came together to prevent the fund from collapsing after it made a series of bad bets. And the current round of crisis-driven collaboration illustrates the heightened level of concern among both government and financial players."

[liv2ski]

Right now we have a serious liquidity issue, because for the last 5 years, banks were making 0 down loans with a stated income and asset doc types. Those loans are now history. Furthermore, the more exotic No Ratio, No Income No Asset No Employment loans are toast too.
These financing programs pumped up values by allowing people to get loans who didn't qualify for half the home they bought.
Next year an unprecedented amount of those loans will be resetting from an interest only payment at about 5% to a fully amortized payment at about 8%. The payment nearly doubles. Those folks will want to refi bad, but they didn't qualify then and they really don't qualify now that the products that got them in are gone.
Look for foreclosures to increase throughout 08. Prices most everywhere will reflect this problem. For those living in areas like Seattle, I hope you miss the brunt of this problem for as long as prices are on the rise, so that those who are f#$ked by their loan resetting, can still sell with no lose rather than mail the keys back to the bank because they are underwater.
I really don't see any area escaping the larger problems of this liquidity crisis, but areas in So Cal will likely get slammed harder than the NW. Hopefully, there will be some good values out the at the end of 08 when compared to the peak of 06. Get your finances together so you can score a good deal in the next 12-18 months.
Just my 2 cents.

[dapesche]

This is worth a read to put everything into perspective that has occured with the sub-prime blowup. Written by a financial analyst with the Bank of Montreal.

In all my research of markets and events, I have really not seen anything positive about Alan Greenspan.

......But the fact that all such experiments have failed disastrously has not dimmed Wall Street’s faith that some new crop of greedy geeks will find the magic formula for never-ending accumulation of risk-adjusted riches.
One definition of insanity is repeating the same failed experiment over and
over, expecting that the next time one will get a favorable outcome.
But the Jurassic Park Avenue glitterati are not madmen. There is a precedent
for this process that is not grounded in insanity. European monarchs hired the medieval equivalents of the Wall Street algorithm experts as alchemists, to turn base metals into gold. Historians report that when those alchemists failed, their royal clients would jail and flog them;
if the alchemists were lucky, they wouldn’t suffer the fate of others, who had
been thrown from the battlements or boiled in oil. (This latter punishment
was rarely inflicted, we understand, during times of high oil prices.)
We live, alas, in a “civilized” age. Neither outright crime nor loathsome slime
draws the kind of punishment that would give pause to greedy modern
miscreants. Our modern monarchs just (1) scream to the Fed for a bailout,
which is duly awarded, and (2) use some portion of the proceeds to hire
other alchemists, and to search (futilely) for other sure-fire formulae. Our
failed alchemists don’t even have to justify their behavior to Congress.
The medieval mountebanks merely cheated a few monarchs and barons.
Today’s snake oil peddlers bring down financial markets and drive hundreds
of thousands of people from their homes. Reflecting on the differences in
punishment of malfeasance, a reasonable person might well conclude that
the medieval approach has much to commend it. (Perhaps, given concerns
about global climate change, we can substitute some other punishment for
boiling in oil. Nevertheless, capital punishment is surely appropriate for
those who have punished the capital of innocent millions. In the tradition of
the “object all sublime” of the Mikado, “Let the punishment fit the crime.”)

Synopsis of the article is this.

Anyone that is getting the screw from the Credit meltdown was going to get the screw rate-cut or not. Any rate cut that occurs is acting as move of a bailout for all the CEO's and the elite whom invested their money in the the hedge funds that got slaughtered.

QUOTE FROM ARTICLE:

We beg to differ. We agree with James Grant, who calls bailouts “Socialism
for the rich.”
There is no doubt that the 50 bps reduction to date has vastly benefited a
collection of hedge fund managers and investment bankers whose collective
wealth was already in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
However, we were surprised that “The Warren Buffett of Bonds” should resort
to sneering that anyone who wasn’t eager to protect overleveraged billionaires
from their own folly must be a slave to “Republican orthodoxy.”
The subprime and private equity excesses which created this global liquidity
crisis originated in the misbehavior of immoral and unconscionable people,
many of whom happened to be very, very rich—and were determined to
regain whatever wealth market forces had drained from them when their
overleveraging, reliance on models rather than markets, misrepresentations
and—in some cases—fraud were revealed.

hope it wasn't too much info. Helps put things in perspective, I think.

[rideit]

Teton Update:
Market is softening in Idaho, (hopefully some subdivisions will bail or fail) still rockin' in WY/JH pricewise, but volume of sales are down.

[sail'em]

Every recession since 1960 has started with a decline in home construction.

Every divorce has started with a marrage, I'm not saying there won't be a recession but it's no guarantee either. many real estate cycles have not been involved in recessions.

[/QUOTE]
For housing and those industries that depend on construction, it won't be such a wonderful life for several years to come.[/QUOTE]

Agreed.

[Flexon Phil]

we jsut sold our home, w/o a realitor, in 10 days. If you are fair in your pricing and don't get emotional, sales can be had.

[Benny Profane]

Teton Update:

Benny would spend much of his lotto winnings to live where you live.

[rideit]

Benny would spend much of his lotto winnings to live where you live.

What is holding you back?

[Benny Profane]

well, 50,000,000 - 1 odds.

[rideit]

Seriously...what do you do for a living?
Likely you could find a way, if you are serious.
Buying a place can be a challenge, but work certainly isn't.

[Benny Profane]

Get real. It's potatoe fields to the west, tourism and tourism to the east. Everything's jacked up by rich people who barely live there (Cheney, evil Cheney and people I've never heard of. Long tradition of rich ass Republicans. Fuck, Rockefeller owned it at one time.) There's no real jobs there, and yet, it costs a Kings ransom for a ranch with a view.

Nice view.

[SuperGaper]

Get real. It's potatoe fields to the west, tourism and tourism to the east. Everything's jacked up by rich people who barely live there (Cheney, evil Cheney and people I've never heard of. Long tradition of rich ass Republicans. Fuck, Rockefeller owned it at one time.) There's no real jobs there, and yet, it costs a Kings ransom for a ranch with a view.

Nice view.

True dat, AND Targhee might go all private- ala the Yellowstone Club.

[rideit]

True dat, AND Targhee might go all private- ala the Yellowstone Club.

I hope you are being fascecious...Targhee is an FS lease, it CAN'T go all private.

But you are probably joking.

I heard that only out of towners will be allowed on the tram next year as well.

[SuperGaper]

Geordie Gillett has repeatedly told Teton County Commissioners that his family can no longer operate Grand Targhee as currently configured. He of course has been working on a large expansion plan as you know and since that has gotten the kibosh for the most part he wants to take his ball and go home.
I'm sure forest service regs are malleable- what federal land use policy isn't?
You might want to check out the meeting this Tuesday, it is the vote for his plan. BTW, Targhee's lease is up for renewal with the FS, and Gillett is serious about either being allowed to build big or go private with say 20 public tickets sold per day. My source, who follows Teton County closely thinks that that would be an easier sell to the FS than big expansion (private club-less impact),
so no, I am not joking.
I think it is pretty screwed that a tiny part of WY, Alta can impact the lives and economy of Idaho, but no one said life was fair.

[rideit]

Well, I just talked with him for ~1 hr. about some of it on Friday, (I was his bartender, so I got him good n' sauzled) and from everything that he said to me, as well as announced at Larry Williamson's retirement party, they are going to go ahead with whatever they can get, beg, borrow, or steal from the county.
The whole retirement speech was about how they want to grow, but only can do it with the public support in the valley, how the locals make up the flavor of the resort, yadda.,yadda...read into it what you will.

(And he is full bore charged up about DH and CC mt. biking, like, REALLY fired up)

[SuperGaper]

FWIW Larry Williamson was not on board with the expansion, he lives in Alta and I wonder how many in attendance were from Alta? Gotta tailor your message to your audience!
My source insists that Geordie says 450 units is not going to cut it, but he agrees that he does like MTBing. The FS likes that he would have a trail manager because the people in Alta are also concerned about unauthorized trail building! (That is not directed at you in way, as I agree with your trail building pursuits.)

[Dirk Diggler]

For you Teton County mags, the property taxes are the killer. I worked at the Virginian Lodge back when they had an RV campground that was packed totally full for the entire summer season. The revenues however weren't even enough to pay the taxes on the place. Brutal.

I ended up in Steamboat, and what Ive seen with markets like here and Jackson is there are enough people with enough money that will move here regardless of cost. If you've got more money than you can spend in your lifetime, you dont care about how much it costs. The locals that bought houses 10+ years ago are looking good. Those that didnt are being shut out. The sad thing is the younger people will no longer be able to afford to come here and survive for very long. Ski bums will quickly becoming a thing of the past and that sucks. Yeah you can come to town, rent a place starve for a few years and do some skiing, but setting up shop for the long run will be tough.

[Benny Profane]

George, the man who gave us Vail. Do you want Vail up there? I don't think so. Well, nobody on this board, I hope not.

[Benny Profane]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/business/16lend.html

"Borrowers who took out loans in the first six months of 2007 are falling behind on payments faster than homeowners who took out loans last year, according to a report by Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, an investment bank based in Arlington, Va. The data suggested that more Americans could lose their homes and that the housing market’s troubles might persist longer than many analysts have been predicting.

The report’s author, Michael D. Youngblood, a portfolio manager and analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey, said that most mortgage companies and banks had not tightened lending standards for borrowers with weak, or subprime, credit until July or August, even though early this year regulators, analysts and mortgage investors knew that the easy lending policies of 2005 and 2006 were producing high default rates."