Please post your local house search updates, MLS finds, on-topic ideas, and links here.
February sales will be out today at MRIS. I'll post the sales data this afternoon.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 3/10/2009
Posted by Harriet at 6:00 AM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
58 comments:
Washington Post says "Despite the drop in housing values, renters still face a high-priced market in the Washington region, where rents for affordable units remain relatively stable and vacancies are limited. "
@J@
This article is about affordable housing, and the lack thereof in the DC area:
Even in less expensive neighborhoods, one-bedroom apartments can rent for more than $1,000 a month, an amount that is difficult to muster for Mohamed Soumah, a security guard who said he is paid $10.40 an hour and was recently looking for a new place to rent in Montgomery County. He and his family fell behind on their rent of about $1,200 a month at a Gaithersburg complex.
...
Affordable housing is defined as costing no more than about 30 percent of income, but many people in the Washington region pay far more for housing. In Fairfax County, a one-bedroom unit rents for about $1,200, which requires an income of about $47,000 a year for the tenant to stay below 30 percent, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
In the District, a two-bedroom apartment can be found for about $1,300 a month, the coalition said. To not pay more than 30 percent of income, a household would have to earn about $53,000 a year.
I was amazed when I arrived to DC of how universally expensive rents were. I mean outside of Cambridge and downtown Boston, you can easily find one or two bedrooms well under $1000/month, and can actually get a nice townhouse for that amount of money if you're willing to walk to the commuter rail. I swear the rents at the low end are being supported not by incomes but by voucher programs themselves. So while it's true that rents are down and vacancies are up in my neighborhood, that doesn't help working-class folks because the minimum income requirements for my building start above $45k a year for a 1 bedroom.
So I would believe that the low-cost housing that never was a substitute for owning anyway, would not have changed much in cost or availability such that people are now falling behind as the economy hits them.
The Washington DC area just has too many people in it and the schools in some areas are just too poor. Basically, you have a large number of people fighting to get into good public school districts. Almost everyone with children that live in DC will put their children into a private school. Parents will put their children into public schools if they are good as some are in parts of VA and MD but those school districts will have higher property values (I've been looking).
Do you really want to put your kid into a DC school or a school in PG County or would you rather put them into a good district in PWC, Fairfax, or Montgomery? Those areas with the worst school districts are generally the cheapest areas.
Jeff,
So your solution to create lower rents in the area is to spread demand more evenly by somehow making DC public schools better? Hmm, that's a good idea, probably more effective than rental vouchers (which I'm positing as just a counter-productive stop-gap measure). But I'm pretty sure this article is saying that rents are too high even in those areas where you wouldn't choose to put your kids...
Agreed Jeff. I live in FFX Cty. At first, schools were not the top priority for me in my house hunt. I was ignorant and assumed that all FFX Cty schools were similar and all were "good". The TH I currently reside in is in a great school ladder so I was accustomed to top notch schools even within Fairfax County. At first, finding the best deal was my top priority.
As time went bye, and I searched for the best deal, I realized the best deal was the best deal for a reason. Location and schools played a big role in that. After doing extensive research, I realized the obvious - all FFX Cty schools are NOT equal, there are many which are pretty bad in fact.
I realized finding the right "area" with a great school would provide the quality of life I wanted for years to come. I stopped looking for the best deal in areas I would not want to live or send children to school.
I found the best deal I could find in the area I was looking. I could have found a better deal, but that the quality of life in my new location would make the next 10-15 years much more enjoyable and rewarding.
Everyone is different, and many on here may not have the need to find homes with great schools. But just because you don't need it right now, there is no telling what you may need down the road, or if you go to sell and a family who does need a good school is looking to buy.
I agree that rents are ridiculously high. My sister and her husband lived with us for a while last summer after they were married, so they could get on their feet, and I helped them find a 1BR apartment. I was astonished that the cheapest of the cheap, scary places were still asking over $1000/month--out here!!
There is a strange floor to rents--that $1000 line--and perhaps vouchers is the reason why. Places with bugs, coin-operated washing machines, and bad smells cost the same as freshly painted, wood fireplace-containing, upgraded appliance places--on the same street!
There is also an interesting ceiling. Single family homes rarely ask more than $2000/month rent.
(As for schools: consider homeschooling and you will be set free!)
The other question I have about schools is in the Boston area there are plenty of well-regarded high-performing Catholic schools with tuitions around $6000/year. That's more like a car payment than a house payment. This allows people to live where they want to live, and thus probably favorably impacts the public schools with greater property taxes. Are there just not enough of those around here? Are we just not Catholic enough? It seemed from the Obama search that private schools in the area are in high demand and charge accordingly.
Just checked the February numbers on my favorite PWC zip codes, and the most interesting thing about them is that they are boring. Several months of similar numbers now. Average price, median price, DOM, average list price, all almost the same since October. If anything, those numbers are improving slightly.
YOY decreases improving slightly, as they must at some point, still down about 40% though.
Inventory holding steady, but still going down a touch from previous month, as it has been this past year.
>$500K not selling. 0-4 Manassas, 1-14 Manassas Park. Last March there were 0-23 >$500K Manassas, 0-44 >$500K Manassas Park.
Cara said: "Are there just not enough of those (private Catholic schools) around here? Are we just not Catholic enough?"
Perhaps it is a dieing business model? http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/wayoflife/03/09/us.religion.less.christian/index.html
Oh, and for financing, Manassas is split evenly between conventional and cash, the rest FHA/VA, Manassas Park split evenly between conventional and FHA, the rest mostly cash. Looks like the investors have taken control of Manassas.
Cara--
The Catholic schools around me always have more applicants than spots, and a new Catholic HS just opened down by Quantico, I think. Maybe closer in it is different?
jaime,
cute :)
But the article does note that:
"The percentage of Catholics in the United States has remained steady at about one in four since 1990, while the percentage of other Christians has plummeted from 60 percent to 50 percent."
Perhaps this is because Catholicism is an alternative to government not a business model. Perhaps not.
Thanks Tabitha. Getting admitted to the best Catholic schools is definitely an issue, in Boston as well as here.
Cara,
"...The percentage of Catholics in the United States has remained steady at about one in four since 1990..."
I attribute this to the influx of Latino immigrants. I don't see how other Christians is declining but not Catholic.
This is OT, obviously...
"Tabitha said...
Several months of similar numbers now. Average price, median price, DOM, average list price, all almost the same since October. If anything, those numbers are improving slightly."
Tabitha - I am digesting those items now, but I agree. I know you arent going to like it, but I think I am getting ready to declare the dreaded "bottom" word for PWC.
Yes, your price point still has a way to go, and so does the entire NOVA market at anything other than foreclosures. However, the median price data, & sales doesnt reflect that & probably never will. If anything, if the high end starts selling, Median Price will shoot back up, and the news headline will be "the recovery" is underway.
My only point being, while the reality is different, years from now, when a person who wasnt here when this was going on is sifting through the data, they are very likely to say this is the turning point, even if entire other segments of that market had a ways to go.
CRT--
I am willing to agree with you. PWC seems to be leveling out its bottom, especially when you consider sales:contracts&contingents has been just about 1:1 for months now. I can't believe the bad economy is not having more of an impact out here.
Or maybe it is, more on the >$500K side:
PWC 4BR+ >$500K sales/active
2/09 17-370
1/09 21-361
12/08 19-381
11/08 22-438
10/08 39-471
9/08 25-500
8/08 42-565
7/08 37-609
6/08 62-675
5/08 39-717
4/08 40-771
3/08 31-800
2/08 22-833
1/08 23-845
I messed up on a previous post, using 3/08 numbers instead of 2/08:
20110 Manassas >$500K sales-listings
2/09 0-4
2/08 1-28
20111 Manassas Park >$500K sales-listings
2/09 1-14
2/08 2-40
Can't wait to see your #s, CRT!
Hello all,
Long-time lurker, love this blog.
I have a question about what data is and is not considered "public record" in this area, and how hard it is to access online. When trying to read up on the history of a property or a certain area, it can be helpful to have access to the raw transaction records. Commercial providers like WaPo, Zillow, etc. seem to often have incomplete/inaccurate data.
For example, looking up real estate transactions in other states, I've noticed it can be alot easier to find things like deeds, loan amounts, etc. for various properties, through official government websites.
What localities around here make it easiest to search historical record data? I'm most interested in the 'immunozones' like Arl. Co. (which seems to allow access with a fee).
Catholic schools? Hah! You're on my turf now!
Enrollment is way down at many/most of them as the economy forces the more marginal households to choose between their house payments or their private school payments. Public school enrollments are us accordingly, which is putting a further burden on the school districts. It's amazing what a difference the private schooling sectors make to public schooling numbers.
Anyway, this indicates to me that school choice is for a large percentage of people one of the first things to choose to let go in a bad economic time, particularly when the 'lesser good' of the public school system is on the whole excellent. (Most of my Catholic Schools data is coming from FFX--but even then, it's not like PWC schools are awful.)
For what it's worth ;
My PWC observation for Haymarket/Gainsville-
the only homes > 500K that are selling are GREATLY discounted foreclosures/Short sales
(homes that originally were over 1 Mill at the top of the bubble)
Tabitha,
Those are really interesting. It seems fairly clear from your numbers that MOI is going down in the upper eschalons by people dropping their prices out of those ranges, not primarily by sales. Is this supposition correct?
spunky--
thanks for that info. it matches what i see. the occasional exception is a property with something truly exceptional, like really good horse facilities.
cara--
that conclusion has been borne out time and again this year. >$500K properties drop their prices far more often than sell, so the drop in inventory by more than half is due more to price drops than to sales.
again, it's never been easy to sell >$500K out here, but fewer people are even bothering to try now. economy? or reverting back to historic norms?
PWC >$500K sold/available
2/00 0-11
2/01 1-44
2/02 8-86
2/03 5-133
2/04 27-212
2/05 116-461
2/06 101-1550
2/07 59-1401
2/08 22-833
2/09 17-370
Great set of numbers Tabitha. It's a great illustration of the bubble forming and then collapsing.
It's interesting looking at the ratio of how many people were willing to pay $500k to the number of people that thought their houses were worth $500k.
"Tabitha said...
again, it's never been easy to sell >$500K out here, but fewer people are even bothering to try now. economy? or reverting back to historic norms?"
I think its a little of both Tabitha. Regarding the continuing rapid sales in PWC, I read on calculated risk that residential investment generally preceeds the recession AND the recovery.
I never thought that was the case. I assumed the deepening recession would cause residential investment to decline, but apparently not. It seems strange but certainly possible - otherwise, you would just have a never ending feedback look where falling sales, leads to job loss to more falling sales, to more job loss, to more falling sales...
Note, I also agree with CR that housing is unlikely to have a V shaped recovery. It is likely an L shaped recovery, and possible we are now at the horizontal part of that "L"
February 2009 per MRIS:
NoVA: -22.5% (YoY median*)
Alexandria: -27.6%
Arlington: -4.0%
Fairfax: -24.2%
Loudoun: -21.6%
Manassas: -47.8%
Montgomery: -24.0%
Prince Georges: -24.1%
Prince William: -36.4%
DC proper: -13.0%
CRT-- I think you may be right-- for now. But longer term I see two possible scenarios developing.
1) Prices in PWC stay about where they are and prices in other areas continue to drift down but don't really tank.
2) Other areas-- I'm thinking somewhat more desirable but generally comparable areas, like farther out Montgomery Co.-- begin to tank as badly as PWC did. The most desirable areas then experience quite steep drops -- but still do better, percentage wise, than other areas. Then PWC really tanks, since you can now get fairly desirable places much closer in for not much more than current PWC prices.
Not being sure which of these two possibilities is more likely is one reason I'm probably not quite ready to buy yet, tho' I'm now actively looking.
Of course there is also the possibility that we'll manage to stop what looks like the beginnings of a deflationary spiral and then we'll have fairly substantial inflation instead.
Very difficult to guess what comes next.
Tabitha/Cara/Jeff. Its a near certainty that the reason high end inventory declined so dramatically is it all just moved down by price points. Yes a few sold, and a few gave up and quit listing, but looking at the low end numbers, it appears they all got compressed down.
This is another reason why I like watching the 0-300K market. These lists cant "slip away" by going to another lower bracket. This is mostly the REO market, but that needs to clear out before any bottom can form. In that regard, heres PWC 0-300K (SFH only)
Feb 08
3080 lists/227 sales (13.6 MOI)
Feb 09
2139 lists/551 sales (4.2 MOI)
Massive improvement from last year. More importantly, the total number of listings at this ultra low level has declined dramatically YOY. FWIW, new listings taken this month went from 1868 (feb 08) to 1139 (feb 09).
Also important is the MOI. It appears that when MOI is at or under 6, Total inventory cannot build, and any built up/excessive inventory declines. With Low end PWC posting Arlington summertime MOI, it looks like this low end market is clearly in much better shape.
it seems that sales in the above 500k range started to stall in arlington. at least moi there is around 15 (for houses) and probably much higher for condos (where observed inventory gives about 15 moi and there must be quite a few units that developers are not listing from the relatively new buildings). does not look too optimistic.
CRT,
I think what Sarah said is very reasonable --- certainly PWC is much more affordable right now given the huge drops in prices, that leads to increased buying activity. I also believe that nicer nieghborhoods in PWC have a way to go down. This will make today's bargains (mostly homes in so-so neighborhoods that were outrageously overpriced in 2005 and are priced more reasonably now)look not so good next year. I'm a little bit pessimistic on PWC and I think there are just too many houses in some areas of the county compared to the number of adjacent jobs, especially given gloomy economic outlook.
Sarah - all those look to be possibilities to me. However the least of which is any rapid inflation - its possible, but I think its least likely - at least for another few years.
If it is the beginning of the "L", this should give you some confidence, as it means we arent going into Contrarian's deflationary spiral. At the same time, it isnt V shaped meaning you have to worry about a quick turnaround.
Sarah: but you'd need wage inflation to drive up prices, and I don't see that happening. Other things, like oil and other imports could inflate due to a tanking dollar.
Huggies suggests investing in real estate:
http://tinyurl.com/b6a9pl
scroll down to #4 ("Investing").
"Konstantin said...
it seems that sales in the above 500k range started to stall in arlington. at least moi there is around 15 (for houses) and probably much higher for condos"
Not only Arlington Konstantin, but everywhere on the high end looks awful right now. I look at the 700K plus range as this is where buyers are most vulnerable due to quasi-jumbo financing. Heres 700K-2.5 MM MOI:
DC 11.2
Arl 19.2
Alx 20.1
Ffx 18.5
Lou 35.8
PWC 32.8
Other side of the river looks even worse:
Montgomery 21.0
Howard 28.0
Frederick 36.0
Anne Ardl 148.7
P.G. Infinite (no sales)
Charles Infinite (no sales)
Note, this is another reason why I continue to reject the "moving in" explanation of this correction. As has been the case for a while now, when one market gets worse, they all get (relatively) even worse.
It will be interesting to see how they all try to cope with this. In California, the high end MOI has been consistently and absurdly high for about a year now, and the cracks in premium areas like Westside are now starting to show - again, the recession can do what the bubble could not. My guess is if these dont get worked down dramatically in the next few months, its reasonable to assume prices will come down.
i think quite a few people will be buying real estate a little bit below their means these days (given likely depreciation of the housing values). most people will also realize that a nice hel/heloc to fix the house is also off the table. so foreclosures in good shape for <300k will be pretty popular. not so sure about the >500k market. and it does not matter whether it is arlington or pwc. 500k+ requires two incomes to pay the mortgage for most families, these days a lot of people worry about their job safety.
Hi everybody,
A few of you have noted the decline in building costs over the last year, and I've also noticed a price decline for some fairly nice lots out in my area of interest (Clifton/Centreville/Burke), though the well-priced ones are usually too much land for my budget. In previous years I believe people would buy up the entire parcel, divide it into as many pieces as possible/legal to build homes on, and then sell the homes at a huge profit. I shudder at the thought of trying such a thing now - but these lots have got me thinking. Anyone else out there looking at buildable land? At what point would it be worth the expense/difficulty to get a group of buyers together to purchase land that could be divided into smaller plots? I'm not talking huge estates, as I'm looking at about 1/4 to 1/3 acre for a low-cost home. I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts.
MM pointed out yesterday that the crooked house just went under contract:
Crooked House
The crooked house indicator is dampening my optimism about price declines in Arlington. People are still buying this crap!
Jeff B,
There are plenty of people who bought citi bank stock last year at $30 per share thinking that it is a great investment.
CRT, are purposefully looking at just houses (excluding condos)?
Because that seems to be what you did with DC, where the numbers including condos for $700-$2MM are 590 listings and 41 sales for 14.4 MOI. It is 11.2 for just houses, though. BTW, the #'s for just condos are 208 listings and 7 (!) sales, for 29.7 (!!) MOI. I think the DC high-end condo market is ready to implode, but there does still seem to be demand in the 300-600k condo market, but prices will have to fall there too, just not as dramatically.
lol Konstantin I just saw your post on the prior thread.
I don't know how they squeezed that much square footage out of that place. They must have included the loft and the moldy basement. The location is very nice, I'll grant that, but the interior leaves a lot to be desired.
Bryson,
That's not a bad idea!! Friends of mine did that in TN, but they were siblings, with one lawyer, and the father is a contractor. For a family compound this is done fairly routinely (including parceling the land properly), but it hadn't occured to me as a group venture other than in the "group compound" sense.
In terms of timing, building should turn around sooner rather than later (according to CR) because of the severe cutbacks in new construction. So, one might want to get in ahead of that without overpaying for the land. So my guess is actually, this summer or fall. You might also just look into getting a builder interested in the deal. I would think they'd be more than happy to be building to order under your accumulated construction loans rather than their own financing.
And a builder should know the ins and outs of getting a piece of land parceled by the county.
There's at least three of us on here vaguely interested in Burke, and there could be many more lurkers. But trust and balance would be high priorities for finding people to cooperate on such a venture.
OT - but for those who care, I am retracting a statement I made few days back claiming rent in N Arl NOT walkable to metro has come down (because most SFH listings I'd been tracking had dropped prices).
Well the realtor of my current rental home just notified me that the house has been rented out - at $50 more a month than my rent.
So, there you have it. It's different here.
Dumb question - what is "CR"?
Jeff B,
yeah, i myself can withstand couple of more years of renting ---some people cannot. if a person absolutely needs to buy today, in that area and needs a sfh for that budget --- here comes the crooked house. i agree that it somehow reminds me the house in the monty pythons 'house hunhting' sketch.
'CONDEMNED' sign will fit better than 'SOLD'.
t,
sorry
CR = calculated risk
(only the world's most fabulous site on the economy ever)
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/
CRT, that's the best theory I've heard so far about the inner areas' price stickiness. Better to buy in an area that has corrected itself than in Arlington or DC which still have a long way to fall. Buying in the inner areas is like taking a time machine back to 2006 and buying a house in PWC at peak price.
"Anon412 said...
CRT, are purposefully looking at just houses (excluding condos)? "
Anon412 - yes as it was a response to Konstantin's statement. I agree DC condos does look worse, and in that market, they are a vital part of the high end.
Just as an aside - In PWC there are 13 condos in the 1MM-2.5MM price bracket. I am assuming its a developers project built on spec, but I cant imagine what he was thinking buinding 1+ MM condos in PWC. Does anyone know anything about them?
Cara - you're right about the required trust and cooperation for a joint land venture. Perhaps a good real estate lawyer could draft something up that would minimize the risk to all parties, so the group could focus on the "cooperation" part (which would be tricky enough, I suspect). Suggestions, anyone? I also think that the group of people might need to be formed first, and then work together to find a suitable parcel - but that could fall apart if a parcel were found that appealed to only some of the group. I'm thinking "aloud" at this point, but the idea is getting more and more appealing.
Bryson,
In the families that I know that have done it (a whole whopping 2 cases) it worked thusly. Most recent case: 2 siblings and a friend already lived in the same general area, and were already thinking about building themselves houses, and they decided to buy some land off their dad (the contractor) and parcel it up and each build their own house. So, in all likelihood, the parceling was accomplished quite simply by the current amenable owner and the decisions thereafter were largely independent.
Case 2 (twenty years ago) a matriarch in RI decided she wanted all her daughters nearby so split her property into 4 parcels and built two more houses, leaving the 4th unbuilt which they later sold. The houses were all owned collectively in a trust until being divided by the beneficiaries at the matriarch's death.
Finding land that's agreeable to all people's requirements might be difficult, thus it might be easier to identify potential locations first. But, if there were a lot that conformed to everyone's wishes, it's likely that you've also found some quite desirable location in that it can meet so many people's needs...
"Kevin Said...
Better to buy in an area that has corrected itself than in Arlington or DC which still have a long way to fall. Buying in the inner areas is like taking a time machine back to 2006 and buying a house in PWC at peak price."
Kevin - thats not exactly the takeaway from what I was trying to say. What I have been trying to say is that while high end may still have farther to fall, it is not strictly dictated by geography.
In that regard, Arlington in particular has outperformed the rest of the area - month after month for about 38 months now. Every time one area got worse, they all did, every time one area got better they all did - I do not expect that to change now.
Also, with regard to PWC, its highly likely it is a special case. Years ago on this site, we looked as sales records and it was obvious PWC had an extraordinary amount of speculator activity the others did not. Its also very likely PWC collapsed because of the mass migration of illegals which coincided with the PWC resolution telling them they werent wanted.
Lets put it this way, PWC has always had its own special cross to bear, and I would be absolutely stunned if anywhere else got down to PWC's level. If anything I think its far more likely PWC has a sharp rebound such that it comes back into line with Loudoun in terms of the total price drops.
So the takeaway is, high end everywhere is dubious right now, but if you want to buy high end, the best place to be buying, (the one with the least potential for a big price drop) is Arlington.
CRT,
I would say that some price drops are bound to happen in Arlington. And unless somebody believes in high inflation or makes a lot of money (enough not to worry about any housing losses) Arlington is not a great place to buy now (i believe in possibility of 30% price drops in Arlington).
an offtopic question: does anybody have a decent idea of what was the cost of contstruction for highrise condo buildings and townhouses during the bubble period per sq.ft?
and what is the current cost?
i remember some person was explaining here that for a highrise it was about $500 per sq.ft, but i believe it was a realtor with room temperature iq.
crt--
i am nodding along with just about every one of your points, but i do have one point of disagreement:
pwc's immigrant population was leaving well before the resolution was passed, and it left for a myriad of reasons unrelated to the resolution, overwhelmingly economic. they signed the dotted lines of loans they could not afford YEARS before the resolution came about. they lost construction-related jobs well before the resolution passed.
i had nothing to do with the anti-illegal-immigrant movement around here, and found it largely distasteful, as the daughter of immigrants married to the son of immigrants. however, the specious connection between the resolution and the exodus of recent immigrants, legal AND illegal, makes me a little frustrated.
i grant that many illegal immigrants left in fear of discovery, and many legal immigrants left with anger, but that was well into the foreclosure wave, and that was more to follow jobs than to make a political statement.
pwc has felt the pain of the bursting bubble disproportionately because of its special circumstances, but karmic punishment for racism and xenophobia is not one of those circumstances--at least not a major one.
CRT,
I would say that some price drops are bound to happen in Arlington. And unless somebody believes in high inflation or makes a lot of money (enough not to worry about any housing losses) Arlington is not a great place to buy now (i believe in possibility of 30% price drops in Arlington).
Konstantin - I'll go one further and say price drops are a near certainty in Arlington. The difference as I see it is a matter of degree. We see this in pricing now, in NOVA the farther out you go, the more severe the price drops - its been like this since 2006, and I dont expect it to change now.
Thus, if high end Arlington is down 30%, I would guess 40% for Alex, 45-50 for Fairfax, 50-60% for Loudoun
Likewise, if high end Arlington is down 50%, Id go 60% for ALex, 70% for Ffx 80% for Loudoun, etc.
Tabitha - I should say, regarding the immigrant issue, yes its absolutely clear the writing was on the wall long before that resolution was passed.
What I am suggesting is there are probably a few immigrant families who might have wanted to stay, might have wanted to make a go at it. Sure it would be tough - home prices were down - not much work going around, but im pretty sure some were interested in not giving up on PWC just yet.
What I am also suggesting is that the timing of the resolution did not help - and it turned what would have been maybe a Loudoun or Culpepper type collapse into the collapse we see today.
I think its clear that most of them would have left even if the resolution hadnt happened. However what I am saying is the ones you wanted to keep - the responsible ones who wanted to make a go at life in PWC - were very well likely driven away when the powers that be said in no uncertain terms "we dont want you".
CRT,
Actually regarding high-end --- that's why i mentioned the cost of construction. I believe that with a lower cost of construction (would like to see how much lower it is these days than 3 years ago, i expect the drop to be sunbstantial --- at least per contractors i know --- but i do not know any builders) it will be much cheaper to get a teardown and build a new home. This alone can lead to certain drop in prices. Also i do not expect a lot of bidding wars for teardowns. And not many people would like to buy these borderline teardowns to actually live in them. It doesn't look very appealing to lock yourself into some decrepit house long-term.
"i grant that many illegal immigrants left in fear of discovery"
One question regarding the migration of the illegal immigrants from PWC - where did they go?
Konstantin - thats probably true but cost of the materials wont affect the underlying scarcity of the land. What I have been pointing out is tht the demand (as pathetic as it is right now) is higher in the close in locations than it is in the outlying areas and has been so since day 1 of this thing.
The builders ideally would want vacant land - in fact for them its worth more if the teardown was already gone (vs the cost of demolishing it themselves). Maybe the crashing cost of materials & labor could cause them to subsidize the cost of the land, but that would happen everywhere - that isnt a geographic issue.
If that crooked house sells for anywhere close to it's asking price, I'll be amazed. Amazed that someone would be willing to pay so much for a serious dump of a property on a tiny lot and amazed that a bank appraisal would support that price.
I went in the crooked house several months ago and it had absolutely no redeeming qualities. NONE. It would be one thing if it was a dumpy house on a nice-sized lot, but the lot is less than 4000 square feet. With setbacks and coverage restrictions, a newly built house on that lot would be TINY!!
crt--
i agree that many good people left because they did not feel welcome. some did stay; the foreclosures in my neighborhood were purchased by young Hispanic families, one a plumber, one an HVAC servicer, and they are wonderful neighbors, and my friends' cleaning lady and her husband (drywall) are hanging on. Our church's Hispanic community is still large. I really think many who left...well, I think it was healthy that they left. but the timing was hard on the housing market, no doubt.
t--
from what i've read in the paper, some went to neighboring VA counties (tracking ESL enrollment #s in schools), most went to MD, to "friendlier" laws...but i understand those MD counties are now pushing for similar measures as those passed here, due in large part to some high-profile crimes committed by illegal immigrants.
Some areas in DC are still very affordable. Yes Georgetown and Adams Morgan are at 9X income, but places across the river are still affordable at like 2X.
I'm not sure about that, CRT. For example, 20020, in SE DC, had a median sold price of homes of $225k in Feb 2009 according to MRIS. And I don't know of a place to get current income data by zipcode, but according to this: http://www.zipskinny.com/index.php?zip=20020 in 2000, the median household income was $28,000. I'm sure it's gone up since then, but I doubt it's gone up to $100k.
20019 is somewhat closer but still not affordable with a median sold price of $128 and a median HH income of $27,000.
Post a Comment