Please post your local house search updates, MLS finds, on-topic ideas, and links here.
The Case-Shiller house price index for February will be released today.
Calculated Risk has some notes from yesterday's talk by Robert Shiller at Seattle Pacific University.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Northern Virginia Bits Bucket 4/28/2009
Posted by Harriet at 6:00 AM
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NPR and Calculated Risk report that the WSJ reports that BofA, Citi need to raise capital.
Surprise, surprise. Timing a bit of a surprise, but not the news.
It's looking more and more like 17 of the 19 banks will need to raise capital (since Northern Trust and Goldman can on good terms in this environment it's pretty clear they don't need it), but the government and banks have 0 incentive to tell anyone that.
Case-Shiller, Washington D.C.
February, 2009: 168.02
January, 2009: 171.97
February, 2008: 207.95
"Cara said...
NPR and Calculated Risk report that the WSJ reports that BofA, Citi need to raise capital.
Surprise, surprise. Timing a bit of a surprise, but not the news."
Could just be a trial baloon -- govt decides to leak a bit of the info to see how the markets react -- then tweak the stress test accordingly...
Also, on CS the tiered index is out -- it showed a big drop for DC high end.
The shenanigans continue...
Goldman's Missing Month"Goldman Sachs reported a profit of $1.8 billion in the first quarter, and plans to sell $5 billion in stock and get out of the government’s clutches, if it can.
How did it do that? One way was to hide a lot of losses in not-so-plain sight.
Goldman’s 2008 fiscal year ended Nov. 30. This year the company is switching to a calendar year. The leaves December as an orphan month, one that will be largely ignored. In Goldman’s earnings statement, and in most of the news reports, the quarter ended March 31 is compared to the quarter last year that ended in February.
The orphan month featured — surprise — lots of write-offs. The pretax loss was $1.3 billion, and the after-tax loss was $780 million.
Would the firm have had a profit if it had stuck to its old calendar, and had to include December and exclude March?"
Here's a haircut (I hope the seller had some corporate transfer help):
Bought Christmas 2005 for $1,350,000
Sold recently for $1,079,900
North Arlington, near Ballston metro, big house, really pretty lot
http://franklymls.com/AR7010758
Can anyone explain to me what an "Italian Villanate" is?
http://franklymls.com/AR7039907
This couldn't possibly be a Realtor who really meant "Italianate Villa", could it?
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~twp/architecture/italianate/
Ace More interesting story about AR 7010758 is not that it recently sold for a lot less than its 2005 price. The house was built in 2005 as a builder's own home. He bought the 12,000 sq ft lot from a housing nonprofit corporation for $225,000 in 2001, built a large, but very poorly finished house. Although the lot is pretty it does back to Lubber Run which is a wide, rapidly moving body of water and is a big breeding ground for rats. Builder was waiting for the right minute to dump the house and Dec 2005 was the perfect storm. The house was very beaten up by 2008 and because of poor maintenance, the lot was eroding into the run. There is always a reason for a bargain price --
Anielarke, as always, thanks for the inside scoop! Very interesting.
My impression at the open house was that the builder had made some bad choices on finishes (things had a cheap feel and looked tired, even though the house wasn't very old) but had no idea about all the rest of the story! I don't know whether the builder has learned from that experience but his more recent houses have seemed to have higher quality touches - I don't know about the whole construction - maybe he's just better at disguising now.
I believe added to that price pressure was that the seller was transferred or decided to move to California by a certain date. However, some employers do cover any home sales losses so I hope that was the case in this instance (seller appeared to be a single adoptive mom).
Ace The builder's houses are getting somewhat better finishes but are still not aging well. He built 2 houses on Ivanhoe St (off Washington Blvd) 2 years ago and 2 new houses across the street in 2008. The 2 year old houses already look tired and faded compared to the new houses (which will soon experience the same fate). He still won't spend the money to get a solid look to his houses like the builders who are selling in the $1.6 to $2 M price range in Arlington. He is building cheap and pricing cheap so his houses sell but the lack of quality is clear in his 3 to 10 year old houses.
Anielarke, thanks for the info. I talked to the builder a long time ago. I've been looking for a house in the 2200-2500 square foot range, roughly, which is very hard to find in Arl. - especially without defects like being on busy streets, etc. His houses, like those of other builders, tend to be much larger than that. He told me that because a lot of costs are fixed regardless of size, it didn't make sense to build in that size range in Arlington. Probably not, if you are looking to make a huge profit on each house and you believe you have a lot of buyers willing and able to pay $1.5 million and above.
Anielarke, IIRC, he's getting close to your minimum - he just sold 2 more of these in 2009 - here's one of them, big and close to $1.4 mill:
1149 Ivanhoe
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