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Saturday, January 23, 2010
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58 comments:
“These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,’’ said Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.” Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., agreed. (The New York Times, Sept. 11, 2003)
Called the IRS yesterday to inquire about the status of our $8k tax credit. Seems that the timeline is now up to 180 days.
If I called the IRS for anyting, even the current date and time, I would ask for written proof of the answer before I used it based on their track record with tax advice:
The IRS track record on free tax advice
Seems these people have been trying to sell this house for a long time. Is there something wrong with it? Maybe price is still too high?
http://franklymls.com/AR7238532
If it has not sold after multiple years on the market then yes, the price is too high...
...that said, there may still be something wrong with it.
when I said in DC i was seeing a lot of inventory, i was seeing things like this.
http://franklymls.com/DC7240303
empty, locked up, sitting a half block from this one
http://franklymls.com/DC7157647
205 R has been up since the fall, it's gorgeous in terms of finish.
i didn't like it's layout
but it was clean
but i walked the block and found 3 other foreclosures sitting there.
I love this place from the outside, i think it's overpriced, especially as it needs some work but,
it''s part of that shadow inventory coming out.
Leroy
in 2003, Fannie wasn't facing a crisis. Poorly managed, and certainly the books were screwed up.
Fannie was actually fine even in 2007,
where they got into trouble was when Cheney ordered them to buy all the bad Goldman paper, and then issued a guarantee to Fannie.
"in 2003, Fannie wasn't facing a crisis. Poorly managed, and certainly the books were screwed up."
This is simply not true. The books being "screwed up" doesn't begin to describe the extent of the fraud and mismanagement that was going on by that time.
Fannie and Freddie were poorly regulated ticking time-bombs with paper thin capital cushions... This was widely known years ago.
http://tinyurl.com/3g2h6d
The best quote...
"When Mr Raines himself was challenged by the Republican Christopher Shays, to the effect that his ratio of capital to assets (that is, mortgages) of 3 per cent was dangerously low, the Fannie Mae boss retorted that "our assets are so riskless, we could have a capital ratio of under 2 per cent"
Good thing they were working with "riskless" assets huh?
Fannie had trouble, certainly they had been engaging in cookie jar accounting to keep bonuses flowing.
However, in 2003, and for much of the 90's Fannie had been buying decent paper. Full Doc, Prime.
now did fannie need a 5% capital cushion, sure, any organization does.
but in 2003, Barney was a nobody, ranking member on a committee, Tom Delay ran the House.
sehrwunderbar,
IMHO (and perhaps that of many other buyers and I'm certain the neighbors) the exterior is very ugly.
Also, they appear to be raising the price while it is not selling. I'm no realtor but I'm pretty sure that usually is a losing strategy. ;)
http://franklymls.com/FX7155525
I find this one bizarre. It seems to me a big reason why this costs a lot is because it's a 0.6 acre lot. However, if you look at the satellite map there appears to be no room to build a home and have it front the road. At best you could build a private driveway with one home behind the other. Which is not ideal. I'm also skeptical that you could even develop that entire lot. The trees appear to be a buffer zone between neighborhoods.
http://franklymls.com/FX7242198
Is this the largest home in Fairfax County? 12,000 square feet. Probably not many up there. Almost 3 acres as well.
I believe this home was zoned to Madison HS until the redistricting to South Lakes. I wonder what affect that had on a home like this. $500k in lost home value? $700k?
TBW, interesting - FFX Co. says it's valued at twice what is shown on Franklymls. The co. also shows the square footage above grade to be 7,626.
I wonder if one of the embassies will move there (another one bought a huge, showy house like that in No. Arlington last year, IIRC).
TBW, re: http://franklymls.com/FX7155525, might someone buy it and tear it down to rebuild a big house? Seems as if the lot lends itself to that, and the selling price may not be bad.
Also, TBW, on the FFX map on the assessment site, it's a corner lot. Maybe one could carve out a little lot facing the other street. But it looks as if most houses near there have big lots so the zoning might prevent that subdivision.
sehrwunderbar,
I've been past that house a few times. IIRC, in 2007, a small builder was trying to build it. The house was huge and out of scale with the lot and the size of nearby houses. It is also on a strange 3 corner lot so the house feels "out there". The builder went belly up and it stood unfinished. Then it appears the bank took it over, got someone to finish it as quickly as possible, and now it's for sale. But would you want to buy a house in this price range with these shortcomings, and where a lot of corners were probably cut just to get it done?
Also, it's just personal taste, but I think the house design is ugly and my guess would be a few others think the same thing.
I think these are huge risks when you are building a big place. People don't "need" that much space, don't want to pay for space they don't want unless it is really desirable and well-priced, so they can be quite choosy about what they'll trade off.
a few others such as TBW - sorry I overlooked your comment!
TBW - Re the Crowell Road property, yes this was part of the "Madison Island" rezoned from Madison to South Lakes.
Looks like a house built for someone with money, but no taste. I wouldn't worry too much about the impact of the HS redistricting on the property value, since the eventual occupant more likely will be a foreigner with money who sends his children to boarding school in New England (if not Switzerland).
tbw,
Sometimes when I read your comments, I think you actually believe that the school funding is determined by the wealth of the students. You might be surprised, but we got the same books and computers that you did even though a significant portion of our student body was as wealthy as yours. If you are a true representative of what a typical Oakton graduate is like, God help this country.
You all here take a lot of digs at South Lakes, which I really don't understand. You do realize that the reason there are so many low income students at South Lakes is because Fx County owns over 700 apartments in South Reston that are rented to low to moderate income families. All of these apartments feed into South Lakes High School. The County doesn't own apartments that they rent out to low income and moderate income families that feed into schools like Oakton or Madison. Also, I doubt any of the homes sold under the Affordable Housing Program feed into either of those two schools. I do know that Hayfield, South Lakes, Fairfax, Chantilly, Herndon, Edison, and South County have a bunch of homes sold under the Affordable Housing Program that feed into them. So stop criticizing these schools for having low income students at them and saying they are bad because of that.
Hayfield Grad - I hope you didn't take my post as casting aspersions on South Lakes; I was attempting to point out gently that the assigned local public high school was perhaps not the most relevant consideration in the world for someone considering a house being offered at $3.5 million or a similarly lofty price. There are plenty of houses like this in Great Falls, in the vaunted Langley HS district, where the families wouldn't consider ANY public school - including Langley -for their kids.
As to South Lakes HS, you should understand that there are still a lot of bad feelings lingering from the 2008 redistricting, in which the very upper-middle class South Lakes PTA group in Reston persuaded FCPS to redistrict kids from supposedly over-crowded high schools like Oakton and Westfield to supposedly under-enrolled South Lakes. The South Lakes parents from the Section 8 or other affordable housing projects feeding into South Lakes weren't the ones leading the charge for that change; it was the upper-middle class parents who otherwise claimed that South Lakes was every bit as good as the other schools (begging the question as to why they were so anxious to import additional students). Now, two years later, FCPS has rejiggered its projections and now says Westfield, for example, will be under-capacity in a few years and South Lakes will be over-crowded. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the School Board believed that the ends justified the means.
In the case of the "Madison Island" neighborhood where the particular house TBW mentioned is located, it's hard to get too upset, because that "attendance island" was much closer to South Lakes than Madison anyway and putting that neighborhood in the South Lakes district made the school boundaries look a little bit less like a set of gerrymandered Congressional districts. However, even accepting that ours is a county-wide school system where FCPS can largely redraw the boundaries whenever and wherever it wants to, it is a bit unsettling to know that FPCS may do so under false pretenses - when, among other things, its decisions clearly have some impact on the local property values.
REALdealSEEKER and any of the others that are offering on short sales. If you've got a buyer agent that doesn't have their head up their asses, you make your offer contingent on your offer only being RATIFIED! (Signed by buyer and seller, the bank is a contingency only) Also your offer needs to be void at buyers option, if the LA does not revise the listing to under contract and keep it that way. You escrow your EMD once that has been done.
I've told MANY agents to start looking up these shady SS agents in the MLS. You go back 1 year. If MOST of thier listings are expiring and being withdrawn, STAY AWAY! There are many SHADY SS agents in the business currently.
If you have a decent agent, this should be how they represent you always. I always look up the agent, if i don't know them, so I know what kind of dolt I'm trying to close with. You're welcome.
Hayfield Grad Thanks for mentioning that TBW went to Oakton HS. From the way he references Madison HS and Vienna, I thought he went to Madison. I am relieved because I laugh everytime he says "anyways," and I know Ms. Ferrick, the best English teacher at Madison, would not be happy if she knew someone from Madison repeatedly made this grammatical error.
Pat Looked at 3 condos today on the Orange Line. Might make an offer on one of them, but agent has to confim when the tenants are moving. Asked agent about your dark windows on Wilson condo theory. She said that it's not Wilson Blvd but Rhodes St between Clarendon Blvd and Rt 50 where the new condos are being built. We looked at these condos but all the 1 beds have been sold. Builder is releasing the next phase in February and March. Are these the condos you see at night?
CB
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Arlington,+Virginia+22204&ll=38.882665,-77.101171&spn=0.005312,0.02605&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=38.88266,-77.101177&panoid=K_uTFOl2CBNd2ivT8UBOqQ&cbp=11,285.58,,0,-3.6
see the solid white shades drawn?
also the complex at washington blvd and wilson and 10th street.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Arlington,+Virginia+22204&ll=38.884369,-77.096686&spn=0,359.97395&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=38.884375,-77.096577&panoid=opnsIX1NoPB4cY0b4UtjkQ&cbp=12,43.64,,0,7.45
Is it strange that the court is not allowing any contingencies on this. I don't think I am interested, but I find this a little strange. I don't think I would ever buy a place without checking out the bones of the place
http://franklymls.com/FX7244190
"Fannie had trouble, certainly they had been engaging in cookie jar accounting to keep bonuses flowing."
Intentionally cooking their books to the tune of billions of dollars must seem like a bigger deal to me than to you. Any organization that is carrying out a wide ranging coordinated fraud from the highest levels of leadership is in big trouble...
"However, in 2003, and for much of the 90's Fannie had been buying decent paper. Full Doc, Prime."
That is true, but it doesn't mean that loss reserves aren't necessary.(As we have seen in this current bust even prime loan losses are way way up.) This is elementary stuff. Even with relatively "safe" assets sufficient loss cushions must be maintained. Fannie and Freddie's refusal conform to sound operating principals set the stage for their failure.
"now did fannie need a 5% capital cushion, sure, any organization does."
Again, this is going far too easy on them. Maintaining an insufficient capital reserve is reckless. They had no excuse not to have properly protected themselves, especially considering that they were making huge amounts of money.
Anyone who knew anything about Fannie and Freddie knew they were behaving in a reckless manner. Article after article was written on the subject. That is why efforts were made to reform them. Efforts that were blocked largely by Barny Frank.
"but in 2003, Barney was a nobody, ranking member on a committee, Tom Delay ran the House."
A ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee is not a nobody. That is a simply ridiculous thing to assert. (especially in the Senate where the minority party can do much to complicate life for the majority)
There is really no need to try to rewrite history here. Ideas were put forward to reform Fannie and Freddie. If these efforts had gone through Fannie and Freddie may not have collapsed and if they did their losses would have been smaller.
The simple fact is that they weren't relying on their tiny 3% cushion for safety, they were relying on Uncle Sam and Barney Frank was one of their principal enablers.
This house needs a lot of work, but it may be reasonable for people looking in that area. It looks extremely cheap for the area so if you have the money to renovate it may be reasonable. Am I crazy?
http://www.redfin.com/VA/Arlington/2022-N-Dinwiddie-St-22207/home/11236201
I would also say that this is the perfect type of house for flippers. Very few people would buy this because it needs massive amounts of work, but if a flipper puts in some serious work they could probably get a very good return
Flippers are serving an important role. Remodeling, clearing blight in the worst areas, raising tax assessments (and revenues), raising and stablizing comps, etc...Capitalism at it's best.
VA investory said - "Flippers are serving an important role. Remodeling, clearing blight in the worst areas, raising tax assessments.."
And,
- Doing crappy job at it
- Masking fundamental issues with the properties
- Holding thousands of properties off market to reduce inventory artificially
- Have innocent buyers cough up much more money than what they are worth
- Distorting the market to extremes
- Creating bubbles that eventually burst
Flippers were as much responsible for causing some of the hardship our economy is facing as Washington/Fed/Banks for allowing such people to succeed.
Criminal prosecution might be in order for some cases I have seen....
American Housing Crash Top 10 Causes
"With the low-cost of borrowing due to low-interest rates, real estate became a get-rich-quick scheme for millions of investors and property traders. House flippers and price speculators used the artificial demand in housing to buy properties and re-sell them for fast profits, sometimes buying and selling properties before they were even finished being built!
With so many property-flippers and speculators in the market, home prices began to sky-rocket as everyday home-buyers often were trapped into bidding-wars against real estate market profit seekers. In addition, former everyday home-owners decided to get into the housing market and buy additional properties to get in on home prices that were rising into the stratosphere. During the prime home-price boom-years (2002 - 2006), it wasn't uncommon for a home flipper to make gains of ten$-of-thousand$ and even hundred$-of-thousand$ of dollars by buying homes and reselling them a few short months later."
spider,
It's 2010. You are completely misinterpreting and uniformed about what is going on. Tell me how many people are willing to go in and purchase these properties?
Certain neighborhoods where 1/3 of the houses were boarded-up and had two foot grass (where counties and cities were unable financially to do anything) were sold at huge discounts. How would you like to be an existing homeowner's having these places renovated and cleaned (revitalized) at no cost to the taxpayer and sold at low prices to new owner-occupants.
How you can diss this is beyond comprehension. I'd guess 95% of buyer's wouldn't even walk in the door.
What is your basic problem? Missing out on profits driven by risk and capitalism? Too bad, too sad. If you had the risk taking nerve to do this yourself, I'd bet your take would be different.
It's a win-win in my mind, but, then again, perhaps you'd rather see blight and local jurisdictions and neighbors suffer.
Again, please address the harm to society we are seeing in 2008 to present. I await your cogent response.
VA investor,
Most flippers in the market are not playing the role that you mention they fill with reasonable expectations. It is the extent of greed that separate them from "serving a purpose" to "pure gambling".
The greed has gotten hold in the most part - playing with the buyer psychology & tax credit timings are causing lot of ignorant buyers to pay substantially more.
There is no way to justify 50-60% profit in 2 months for putting up granite counter-tops & appliances.
And yes, we are in 2010 - But, I see 2005/2006 behavior return in spirit. Fed is easy again & flippers are galore. I don't consider them much different than wall street speculators.
Fred,
It took my neice 6 months to get her 8K. Any many, many re-submission of the same doc's. Too much fraud going on. Those people need to go to jail.
spider,
As anticipated, you fail miserably in addressing the important issues.
Resales are at half (or a little more than 1/2 peak). You are totally clueless and deliberately fail to address the fundamental issues.
Again, address TODAY'S issues; not the amatuers of 2005 and the stupid people that paid those prices.
VA Investor said - "You are totally clueless and deliberately fail to address the fundamental issues."
No offense. I never expected to convince someone who does this for living or as a hobby. To be fair - I am not completely discounting the role flippers should play - I just differ in how that role has become the one of speculators (and still is to some extent in 2010)
Let's learn to respect other opinions rather than calling others clueless....
spider,
I don't think "clueless" is an insult. It is the truth. You have some adenda, but it doesn't pass any "test". Perhaps others can explain your point/position in a more reasonable manner.
I was a little surprised this was the first time I have seen one family unit starts vs. total starts. housing starts
This makes it look like there are still too many one family units, but there are probably the correct number of total units. Assuming population growth was pretty constant over the last 40 years, which I think is correct.
Leroy utterly screws up:
""but in 2003, Barney was a nobody, ranking member on a committee, Tom Delay ran the House."
A ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee is not a nobody. That is a simply ridiculous thing to assert. (especially in the Senate where the minority party can do much to complicate life for the majority)
"
Um Leroy, Representative Barney Frank is a member of the House.
if this is the extent of your understanding, no wonder you have such sad and pathetic understandings of the political collapse of finance.
Please go to 7th grade, and start over. Do not wave around any teabags.
condo buyer
look at the bldgs on wilson near
Virginia square and east towards clarendon.
now i can't say what's on MLS but if you use realtytrac, to identify potential Defaults.
Worthless flippers are still out there trying to make a quick buck.
This home was purchased on January 6 2010 for 55k, the flipper turned right around and put it back on the market for double the price in the exact same condition as a "handy man special".
http://franklymls.com/DC7238976
HayfieldGrad,
As always you miss the point. The question was not whether South Lakes is a good school or not. It was how the real estate marketplace would treat the different school pyramids. I think you are alone on here if you do not think homes in the Madison HS island who were redistricted to South Lakes now sell for less.
Mozart said
I was attempting to point out gently that the assigned local public high school was perhaps not the most relevant consideration in the world for someone considering a house being offered at $3.5 million or a similarly lofty price. There are plenty of houses like this in Great Falls, in the vaunted Langley HS district, where the families wouldn't consider ANY public school - including Langley -for their kids.
Yes, I considered this. However, I think clearly some families in $1M+ homes are sending their kids to public schools or else Langley would be severely underenrolled given the school district encompasses an area where many homes are $1M+.
I think many families shopping for that kind of home are going to go the private school route. But I also know many well to do families that believe in sending their kids to public school (and work with people who fit this description). While they are seen as snobs by HayfieldGrad because they do not like 50+% FRE schools, they also do not think a private school full of only rich kids is the way to go either.
ANYWAYS :), the point I was making was that when you are dealing with such a pricey home a policy change by the county could have a humongous monetary effect.
Mozart said
Now, two years later, FCPS has rejiggered its projections and now says Westfield, for example, will be under-capacity in a few years and South Lakes will be over-crowded. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the School Board believed that the ends justified the means.
AMAZING. Very interesting info. It sounds like they did not do a good job if South Lakes went from severely underenrolled to overenrolled.
because that "attendance island" was much closer to South Lakes than Madison anyway and putting that neighborhood in the South Lakes district made the school boundaries look a little bit less like a set of gerrymandered Congressional districts.
I agree 100%. There was absolutely no justification for that island. OTOH, the Madison island parents were right there also was no justification for western Great Falls residents going to Langley instead of South Lakes which was much closer. It was a little bizarre that those residents were not even in the redistricting study.
I'm surprised HayfieldGrad thinks there was not overwhelming displeasure with South Lakes among area residents and that I'm not representative of many area residents. South Lakes was about 1,000 students under capacity whereas every high school surrounding it had trailer parks because they were bursting at the seams (especially pre-Westfield HS opening up).
I actually first learned about South Lakes's reputation from a school board member who noted this capacity issue many years ago who mentioned how he could never convince any HOAs in Reston to go from Herndon to South Lakes.
HayfieldGrad said
The County doesn't own apartments that they rent out to low income and moderate income families that feed into schools like Oakton or Madison.
I do not know if the county owns these apartments but there are plenty of apartments that feed into Oakton and Madison that house low and moderate income families.
You do realize that the reason there are so many low income students at South Lakes is because Fx County owns over 700 apartments in South Reston that are rented to low to moderate income families. All of these apartments feed into South Lakes High School.
You do realize that concentrating low income/Section 8 housing in one area is now considered a policy failure by those on the left and right, Republican and Democratic Parties.
Most localities now do it this way: developer builds 200 unit building - 180 are market rate and 20 are affordable housing. Or a mixture like that. And those buildings are spread out among the locality and not all in one area. You are the only person I know who still thinks the 1960s idea of creating a building where every unit is subsidized (and surrounded by other such buildings) is still a good idea.
Also, classmates of mine (primarily first generation immigrants) who lived in these affordable housing units who did well in school and went to college and are now doing well have settled in places like Ashburn, Chantilly, South Riding, etc.
Va_Investor said
Certain neighborhoods where 1/3 of the houses were boarded-up and had two foot grass (where counties and cities were unable financially to do anything) were sold at huge discounts.
Va_Investor -- I agree with you that real estate investors are being smart buying up heavily discounted properties in neighborhoods like that. Any neighborhood where 1/3rd are foreclosed probably "over-corrected" and is a good flip candidate.
But the examples that Cara and housebuyer and others show are usually flips of homes in neighborhoods where it was the only foreclosed house. I think maybe spider is getting at that. That flippers are still acting like it's 2005 and new flooring, kitchen, etc should bring a huge profit.
So I think there's a big difference between flipping in foreclosure hot zones and flipping a house in a stable neighborhood.
Jason,
So someone got a great deal and is flipping it without doing any work. One house. Big deal. And so what?
Feel free to address the real issues that spider either can't or won't. Perhaps you, at least, have some basis for your opinions. One can only hope.
It appears that the others here, as evidenced by their silence, agree with spider's ridiculous statements.
HayfieldGrad said
If you are a true representative of what a typical Oakton graduate is like, God help this country.
Considering most people I met in high school and college (and beyond) said (sometimes seriously sometimes joking) that my family was poor and that the house I grew up in was small, I have never felt like a snob.
So I guess if what comes out of my mouth shocks you, then your mouth would be on the floor if you heard what most people from high school, college, or various lawyers I know say about what is nice and what is not.
tbw,
Areas with one or two foreclosures are not the problem and don't need massive private investment.
If people are making money in your targeted area or spider's, then tough luck.
How many of you are willing to take on these places and the attendant risk? About zero?
iirc, Cara has extolled the virtures of many rehabs that she has seen and noted that most are still priced under-market.
Do you honestly agree with spider's list of investor "malfeasance"? Or is spider living in 2005 and only considering the stabilization of neighborhoods as a threat to his price-crash scenario?
Va_Investor said
If people are making money in your targeted area or spider's, then tough luck.
I'm not bothered by it because I think most of these flippers who do shoddy work are not finding buyers. Some luck out and find a fool who will pay their price but many are getting burned.
I just think it's a sign we are still not at the bottom when people still see real estate as a get rich quick scheme. When the number of investors goes back down to the pros then we will probably be at bottom. I know you think it's just the pros now but I respectfully disagree. There are still some newbies out there.
Stakes are high as government plans exit from mortgage markets
Few listen to my drivel but I think EVERYONE should read this Washington Post article. According to this article the Obama administration *is* serious about winding down the extraordinary involvement in the housing sector this spring. Whether they will remains to be seen.
tbw,
I think we can agree that today's investors are not buying new construction and creating "false demand" and the resulting excess inventory.
If newbies are involved, they are putting lots of cash down and into these properties. This is an entirely different dynamic then 4-6 yrs ago.
If buyers are failing to catch some shoddy rehabs, then I don't know what to tell you. In the hardest hit areas, cleaned-up, remodeled homes are selling for 30-50% OFF PEAK.
I'll ask you again the same question that spider refuses to answer; what is better for these communities and local gov'ts? Bulldozer's?
I didn't ask him about reno's in N. Arlington. If he wants to take that on, all power to him.
Smart people profit from overcorrections, whether it's stocks, RE, or other. People have profited from foreclosures since before the Great Depression. It's a business just like any other. Risk/reward.
I'd bet the farm that spider never saw Sterling, parts of Herndon, Manassass, etc., at the height of foreclosures or anytime since. How he believes he's qualified to even comment is beyond me.
"Um Leroy, Representative Barney Frank is a member of the House.
if this is the extent of your understanding, no wonder you have such sad and pathetic understandings of the political collapse of finance.
Please go to 7th grade, and start over. Do not wave around any teabags."
Bad call on the Senate part...
...but the rest stands.
I have been polite to you thus far but I see it was a waste of effort on my part.
Do us all a favor and take some time to educate yourself before wasting everyone's time trying to re-write history.
I don't know what your problem here is. You may have some partisan agenda that prevents you from acknowledging the facts, or maybe you are just utterly clueless... but the facts are a matter of public record and you aren't going to convince anyone otherwise.
"Frank doesn't. But his fingerprints are all over this fiasco. Time and time again, Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in good shape. Five years ago, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing." - Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/28/franks_fingerprints_are_all_over_the_financial_fiasco/
"At least the Massachusetts Democrat is consistent. His record is close to perfect as a stalwart opponent of reforming the two companies, going back more than a decade. The first concerted push to rein in Fan and Fred in Congress came as far back as 1992, and Mr. Frank was right there, standing athwart. But things really picked up this decade, and Barney was there at every turn." -The Wall Street Journal (An article worth reading in its entirety for a good history of his efforts to prevent reform.)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122091796187012529.html
TBW, I hope your article is correct. Higher interest rates will reduce the max loan amounts that all the idiot 3.5% FHA buyers can afford. I'm all for paying a "fair" price for a home, but not for bidding against some idiot using play money given to them out of my taxes.
Mike-
Thanks for the advice. Not long after I wrote about what was going on, I saw that the house we have an offer on was listed as under contract, no kick-out, which means that the listing agent has indeed acted ethically. It just took a few days to get the owner's signature, I guess. Now we just wait for the bank's response.....
Spider-
I want inexpensive housing, too. Otherwise, I wouldn't be calling myself a "deal seeker". And I don't want to pay 125k extra for what might simply be frills (granite and stainless stell) on a house that's fairly new and might only need a fresh coat of paint.
Also, while I haven't done what an investor does, going everyday to the courthouse steps, I've spent a lot of time and energy doing Internet research to understand how I might get a home at lower cost, without moving to Michigan. What have I learned from my "real estate" hobby/search? That I basically am confined to being a retail consumer. That deals are hard to find. That you have to know what you're comfortable with, in other words, how much discomfort and potential problems can you tolerate: do you need move-in ready, or can you do repairs? To what extent do you compromise on schools? How far away from the hub of DC can you stand to be? And then you get down to the nitty-gritty of exactly what you need and want for the interior: bedrooms, bathrooms, size.....
You might get a fantastic deal if you make the right series of compromises....or, you have to bite the bullet and wait longer (but how much longer, for either the "double dip" or a larger downpayment?) or spend more.
Last year, at the beginning of our search, which has stretched from Tysons and Alexandria to Leesburg, we saw some really great deals within our budget--mostly in Leesburg of course-- that sold for about 20-30k higher than list. At the time, we were only ready to offer list or slightly less. But if we had offered more than list, we would have landed a great deal. Now, we've moved up our price bracket, because we didn't find the "steal" we thought we would.
We learned by looking at dozens of houses that we aren't tolerant of much discomfort, as our house would have to be fairly new, and in move-in ready condition. These requirements, in the NoVA market, really dilute the significance of my "deal seeker" moniker.
I think that flippers do offer below, but close to, market value. Here is a striking example of this:
Flipper bought for 475k, asking 600k
the exact model, same neighborhood, regular sale, priced 75k higher
Sure, I'd prefer to pay 475k (even that's very pricey), because I simply can't pay 600k. The owners of the regular sale certainly have some stale Bubblicious in their mouths. Maybe there's some buyer out there whose limit is 600, so that other house might seem like a "steal." (But it's certainly been sitting on the market for awhile.)
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