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Thursday, December 10, 2009
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31 comments:
C, here's how you put a link in your comments.
<a href="URL_HERE">TITLE_HERE</a>
For example, if you want to post a link to google: <a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a>
The code above creates this link:
Google
Is it just me or is it strange that the first price reduction was $15K while the next two were $400 and $1,000. What is the point of reducing the price by $400, do you really think that will impact anyone? The house does look pretty nice although it was probably over improved
FC house
While we wait on the MRIS stats, the NVAR stats are out:
https://www.nvar.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=PaZ%2fBUxQDFk%3d&tabid=574&mid=1454
In the close in areas, median prices in condos, townhouses, & SFH are up YOY -- however the explosion in the number of condos sold may drive the aggregated median down.
Outside the beltway, prices are generally up but its a bit more balanced saleswise -- curious to see if we see a median drop here or not.
There are some great short sale opportunities poppin up.
I know some of you think "Springfield" shouldn't cost this much, but check out the location relative to Lake Accotink! Amazing proximity without people walking behind your back yard. And it's newly been added to Lake Braddock for 2010.
easy hop up to Braddock road, over over the the Baclick road VRE station...
http://franklymls.com/FX7143921
$330k list Short,
just became active again...
2004 tax $342k
2003 tax $312k
and since then it's moved to a "better" school district. Sounds like a deal to me.
I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but this winter's looking really good. Be ready to pull the trigger.
The Anonymous,
Those reports are absolutely fascinating.
Of course I'm looking only at the FFX cnty data because I'm lazy. But the change in mix for detached housing from Nov 08 is so interesting. The under 200k bucket got wiped in half due to way fewer foreclosure sales, but the 300-399 bucket is up 48% in sales, and given what I've seen that's real sellers (a) daring to list again, and (b) accepting the reality of current prices.
The real cheap deals weren't there, but the distribution as a whole has shifted lower. I know this is due to the shift to first time buyer activity, but I can't help but thinking that the price of good condition "organic" sales has gone down as more owners have been willing to list.
On the other hand you can see the irrational exuberance in the new lists, that are clearly distributed above the new sales. But maybe they're all giving themselves negotiating room. Or maybe more move-up homes are coming on the market.
Oh woops I was looking at single family attached.... do do do...
Holy moley were people ever out there buying houses. (with closes in November). The $400k-$999k range were all up a minimum of 24% (mostly over 50%) even with way fewer active listings. Wow. That can't be the buyer's bribe, it's too expensive (unless it's freeing up people by allowing them to sell their townhomes). It could be the interest rates. Or it could be that confidence in the economy and housing has returned...
On the plus side, at least the new listings (510) ever so slightly beat the closed sales (483) and were distributed quite similarly, so at least we're not loosing inventory.
Cara -- it might be the buyers bribe -- my thought being the sales at the low end helped trigger the "move up" chain reaction. So I do expect the sales to drop off (in relation to monthly averages) next month.
If anyone in CA is still paying on an upside down mortgage, they are just suckers at this point.
The New American Dream, Default, Then Rent, then continue spending like there is no tomorrow
This is the quote that made my mouth drop open:
Ms. Richey, the teacher, arrived in Palmdale in 1999. In 2004, she and her husband, Timothy, bought a two-story home on Caspian Drive, near Avenue O-8, with a no-down-payment loan. They took pride in the amenities they installed: a powder room with granite countertops, a backyard pool and play area, and the purple-and-turquoise fantasy playroom upstairs for their three daughters.
(snip)
But the value of the house plunged to less than $200,000 in 2009. Their $430,000 mortgage, with its $3,700 monthly payment, began to look more like an unwanted burden. By May, amid troubles getting tenants for two rental properties she also owned, Ms. Richey decided the time had come to cut a deal with America's Servicing Co., a unit of Wells Fargo & Co. servicing the mortgage on the house.
Showing a visitor the personal touches in her new home, including a $1,800 dining set she bought with some of her newly available income, she notes the advantages of being a renter rather than an owner.
"You take a risk for the American dream," she says. "I don't have to worry about paying property tax, homeowners' insurance, the landscaping, cleaning the pool or any repairs."
I have no wonder how contagious that "flu" is once it starts spreading across the country....
Alt-Hair Raising key engaged....
Texas Native..not only that..but earlier this week I was talking with a lady who is planning on retiring just as soon as they close on their house in Mar. No, thats not the hair raiser. Then she casually commented that she had a SS in Manassas...get this..last year! So, the SS certainly isn't hurting people that want to buy. Why in the hell they gave so many of my potential buyers t total hell for owning is beyond me.
Texas Native,
The graph is really interesting too. It's the percentage of all DEFAULTS that appear to be strategic. So, that 15% in 2008 for Virginia sounds really high, but you have to keep in mind that it's not a 15% default rate, it's the percentage of defaults that are from people that Experian thinks could have kept paying. As defined by people who kept paying all their other debts while defaulting on their mortgage.
Thanks for the comments.
I am a bit dense, so I would appreciate it if someone could tell me the difference between A&B:
A. I am a bank. I loan mortgage money. The Customer defaults. But still pays their other bills.
B. I am a bank. I loan mortgage money. The customer defaults. And doesn't pay anyone else either.
My focus, in context, is the mortgage debt. The largest debt of any normal household. I mean, do I care, or need to care if someone continues to pay their minimum payment on their VISA bill if they forfeit a $750,000.00 mortgage?
Can't see the forest for the trees here.
Or as we say in the country "I can't fill this hole up if ya keep digging it deeper."
Texas Native,
I think the idea is that if they are still paying the rest of their debts they "might" have been able to keep paying you too. Of course having that 48% of gross income off their backs could very well be the reason they are able to keep paying the rest of their debts...
The distinction I think is that supposedly people used to try hardest to keep the house, and let everything else go to heck. File bankruptcy if need be. Anything to keep the home. The 15% who are paying the other bills are putting the personal value on keeping their credit card interest as low as possible and their car not getting repossed higher than the value they assign to their albatross of a home.
Thanks Cara. That's a bit clearer.
What I should have added is the simple fact that if 15% of homeowners in a given area default on their mortgage...that is noteworthy. Nationwide it's a disaster.
15% defaulting on consumer debt, locally, regionally, or nationally is just noise....or so it seems to me.
Given the other home ownership criteria spoken here, and the example of one or two (you), one has to assume that here, in NVA, there are more people thinking just like those folks (let's walk away from this mortgage) rather than in shock over their antics (like me).
I think the article, and the people depicted within it are scandalous and beyond contempt. But, then again, so are the bailed out banks and the system we taxpayers have to support. I will really have to hold my nose this year when I fill out the 1040.
As I said, it looks like a California fever tying to grow up to full fledged USA pneumonia.
Tis scary these mores and values.
I don't know about the rest of you, but my education, mores and values raised me to view articles like this as danger signs, not as a sign of economic recovery and wise home buyers.
For the life of me, I can't see how anyone can read that article and say to themselves "Yeah, this is a good idea for the country."
Yikes.
Texas Native
It's not 15% of mortgage holders defaulted. It's 15% of mortgage defaulters paid their other debts.
As I said, very misleading graphic until you read all the fine print.
California is different from Virginia in that in Virginia Mortgage debt is "recourse". Recourse means that Bank's can go after your other assets as well as the house.
In California, provided the loan is a "purchase money" loan (ex., not a refi or second, etc.), the only recourse is to take the house.
Granted, Lenders may currently be far too busy than to pursue deficiency judgments but I have no doubt that, at a minimum, these bad debts will be sold to debt collectors.
As far as "walking" on a debt that was incurred due to one's own stupidity or greed, when one is able to repay it, it is reprehensible.
Does anyone think that if a car is repossessed and there is still money owing that the lender will just forget about it?
VA_Investor: "As far as "walking" on a debt that was incurred due to one's own stupidity or greed, when one is able to repay it, it is reprehensible."
Well that's something that we can both agree with. Sure, walking away is within their rights, but they can't ever have the luxury of saying "I'm not a deadbeat," in my opinion at least.
kevin,
Virginia has "always" been a recourse state. At least as long as I've been discussing it on the blog. You just forgot, or weren't around when it last came up. I think you weren't here yet...
There are actually very few non-recourse states.
But yeah, Virginia is pro-bank, fully recourse, and non-judicial. This is part of why we're further along in this process than MD, and could have been part of why our bubble may have been allowed to grow bigger (banks thought they'd be paid back, and that it wouldn't be much work to foreclose).
Cara, that's why I removed the post. I misread it because she was differentiating between VA and CA which are both recourse states.
oh sorry,
Ca is non-recourse for purchase loans though. Just recourse for anything thereafter.
CA is a bit washy. It's not non-recourse exactly. From what I understand, the banks are allowed to pursue the defaulters if they have significant other assets. Doesn't mean that they will (and they don't even seem to be doing it here either), but they are able to.
Hey all Diana Olick at CNBC reports the HAMP numbers:
31k/31k permanent/failed out of 750k trial mods to date
Lots of good perspective therein.
One interesting and bizarro conclusion is that if only 1 in 4 borrowers who were in the 60 day late bucket actually responded to the HAMP modification letters, how much could HAMP's failing actually effect the REO rates?
In other words, 3/4 of the 60 day late bucket was progressing as usual through the cure or fail process. Which would suggest that the backlog of HAMP pre-foreclosures should perhaps double the REO drip-rate if an 8 month backlog of 1/4 of the possible REOs appears over the course of 2-3 months.
Given the current "low" rate here in NoVa, that doesn't sound too scary to me, unless you think the HAMP attempters are more likely to be in lower-default states.
This could very well be another nothingburger...
It's not 15% of mortgage holders defaulted. It's 15% of mortgage defaulters paid their other debts.
Thanks. I feel slightly better.
And thanks for not staring at me with my train off the tracks toilet paper on my shoe attention to detail on this article.
Thank you Novahog. I looked up how to do it but I think that I had an extra slash or two that messed up the result.
Like everyone else, I found the new MRIS stats very interesting. I notice that although prices went back up almost everywhere, the actual number of sales was more or less what it was last year for outlying counties but the actual numbers went up in Loudoun and closer in.
Given the median price on the closer properties, I can't see that the 8K credit probably made that big a difference. I think that there is a lot of pent up demand from people sitting on the sidelines. Sales/listing ratios have dropped dramatically. People may be anxious to buy but not nearly so many want to sell. It's still a buyers market but not nearly so much as before.
just remember we now have a wave of IO and Option ARMs going bad.
Subprime is over, wave 2 is on us.
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