Please post your local house search updates, MLS finds, off-topic ideas, and links here.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Northern Virginia Real Estate Statistics
REAL ESTATE SEARCH
County Assessment Websites
Buy/Sell Without an Agent
Local Real Estate Agents
Housing Economics Blogs
Local Interest
Housing Bubble Links
Eastern Regional Blogs
Western Regional Blogs
- Bakersfield Bubble
- Bay Area Real Estate Blog
- BubbleInfo (N. San Diego)
- Burbed (San Francisco)
- Dr. Housing Bubble (SoCal)
- Patrick.net (San Francisco)
- Portland Housing Blog
- Professor Piggington's Econo-Almanac
- Rancid Truth (Orange County)
- Sacramento Land(ing)
- Seattle Bubble
- SoCal Real Estate Bubble Blog
- Socket Site (San Francisco)
Real Estate Blogs
REAL ESTATE AUCTIONS
15 comments:
Here's best wishes to Tabitha's PWC search this weekend.
Bless you, my dear.
I had a question for you--see the PWC thread--thank you--
I am afraid we are crossing the line into panic and haste. We need to move out of this house by mid-June. Our realtor just lectured us about how activity is up, inventory is down, and our advantage is evaporating. But we don't want to just buy a house because we have to...we want to buy a house that could be our home for years to come. My husband and I are at oods, where I just want to give up and rent again, but he is ready to pay a premium so we can just settle down. Yikes...
Activity up? Inventory down? LOL!!
Time to get a new realtor.
Your realtor is only looking out for one person, themselves!!!
Good Luck
I hate to say this but...
...fire your realtor.
Manassas is one of the hardest hit communities in the entire country right now.
Your realtor is either hopelessly clueless or not really working for you.
Your advantage is not "evaporating," nor will it any time soon.
tabitha said:
"My husband and I are at oods, where I just want to give up and rent again, but he is ready to pay a premium so we can just settle down."
"premium"?
What defines "premium"? Fair market value is fair market value. It's what something is selling for at today's prices and not what you think itmight sell for in the future or what you think it should sell for.
You are only paying a premium if you are paying someone more than what it would sell for today.
"You are only paying a premium if you are paying someone more than what it would sell for today."
So Lance is saying that if you pay more than what you you buy it for, then your paying premium. Classic stupidity.
What lance is really saying is that you can't go wrong!
No matter what you pay for your house, you can't over-pay!
...
"Premium" is not just money. "Premium" is selecting a house we would not have otherwise selected, because we are under a time crunch and need to live somewhere.
We have always been at "current market value" with our offers. In fact, the houses we have made offers on consistently sold for less than we offered, but the winning bids paid with cash, or had a higher down payment, or waived the home inspection entirely, or offered some other thing that apparently made their lower offer more attractive.
The fact is, many sellers absolutely refuse to come to "current market value." Case in point: our neighborhood, full of older homes and a few McMansions that replaced tear-downs. The six houses for sale right now have either been for sale for 2-3 YEARS, or, in the case of one house, are trying to avoid foreclosure and are asking what they paid in 2006.
We have taken comfort when the houses we were interested in went to another buyer, because it wasn't meant to be. We have yet to fall in love with a house. I still hope that happens someday.
We have also laughed a little when sellers who shrugged us off eventually lowered their price to what we offered...and still have no buyers today.
While we feel sorry for those who are in a tight spot through no fault of their own, we feel nothing but frustration with those who "want their money," when "their money" never existed. Houses that have been for sale for a year, two years, even three years, are priced too high.
The "premium" we almost paid on the 70s house was offering enough that the owners would even talk to us at all--even though they are still asking way too much for a modest, dated house on an admittedly cozy lot in a pretty neighborhood. And we came to our senses last night. We will not be submitted that offer.
Tabitha,
Rest assured, we all knew exactly what you meant based on your prior explanations.
I'm still holding out hope for your search this week. :-) I'm an optimist.
But, we ran into a deadline ourselves a few years ago when logic prevailed, at which point we let it rest and decided to rent.
I wish your landlord could give you an extra few weeks. Or if you could put everything in storage and take a long family vacation. I'm sure I'm being unrealistic in that, though.
Tabitha said: "The fact is, many sellers absolutely refuse to come to "current market value." Case in point: our neighborhood, full of older homes and a few McMansions that replaced tear-downs. The six houses for sale right now have either been for sale for 2-3 YEARS, or, in the case of one house, are trying to avoid foreclosure and are asking what they paid in 2006."
I think you are absolutely correct about that, Tabitha, and I think that is going on in other neighborhoods as well. As Harriet said, it would be very nice if you could get a few weeks or, better, months more of time in your current home. I think there is SOME chance that reality will break through the current er, optimism, some sellers are exhibiting, when they see that interest rates are creeping up - including the jumbo rates which aren't dropping in response to the new legislation - that the spring didn't bring out all those ultra-able and ultra-willing to buy buyers, that banks aren't going to relax standards, and the slow summer season means more carrying costs for them.
Tabitha,
Perhaps you might concider renting from an apartment complex with a 3 month lease. I doubt you will find one with enough space for all your family belongings, but the professional leasing places might even have a pool for the summer!
tabby:
activity may be up - but there are more foreclosures coming this year.the 2nd way of JUMBO loan arm resets.
there are a lot of contingent sales now - people can't buy unless they sell their home - and given the extremely soft market - lots of contracts will fall apart.
bas_madone,
An excellent point about contingent sales. Last spring we witnessed one of those fall apart in our neighborhood - it was obviously not going to work because the buyers with a contingency priced their house 100K too high!
But accepting that contract (which gave the potential buyers 2 months to find a buyer for their house) took the seller's house off the market during the rest of the critcal early spring market.
The seller who lost the deal finally got a contract for 10% less in the summertime. (And they had also previously priced theirs the lowest in the neighborhood, so it did have a lot of interest).
bas,
Do you have any access to any numbers about PWC/Manassas loans? I have seen the charts about loan resets, but I remember reading that PWC in particular had the greatest percentage of ARMs in the D.C. area.
And it is so true about contingency sales. So many houses we have been watching go "under contract" and just take the little sign back off the big "for sale" sign a few weeks later. Just anecdotally, talking to some local realtors, they cite banks being very hesitant to approve loans here...so besides the contingencies for having to sell before they can buy, that seems to be a problem. The bank providing the new mortgage backs out.
And that's why I can't believe the asking prices of some new listings, tens and hundreds of dollars over assessed value, or over recent sales. Don't the sellers realize that even if someone falls madly in love with their house, they still need to get a bank to sign off on the purchase price?
When we were negotiating with Countrywide for one of their foreclosures, they even said "we had the house appraised when we bought it at auction, and it was appraised for over $450K. So your bank will definitely sign off on your offer."
Nothing specific
just some graphs like here:
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2008/4/23/imfresets.jpg
original story:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/73552-the-impending-mortgage-crisis
Post a Comment