USA Real Estate Good time to buy?

TylerStewart said:
Call me an optimist, but I tend to think the market has pretty much hit the bottom, and will start heading back up... It may fall a bit more, but not much. I'm on the lookout for 2-5 acres of land in the NW Vegas area (enough space for a moderate home now, and my palace later on in life :D), and I'm trying to buy it sooner than later because I'm afraid prices are almost on the rise. I'm tapping into an old girlfriend that works for Wells Fargo to get me approved for a loan LOL.

Not to make this a political thread, but anyone that blames Bush for the housing market simply doesn't have their eyes open. He obviously knew better than to try to get people with $20K a year income into a $400K house which is what happened in many cases, and caused most of this mess. Sadly, it is the same people that pushed these things through that are now trying to "fix it."
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hey tyler i think we all know which party came up with everyone should own a home and the bottom line is everyone can't it's the sense of entitlement that they have that got us here you want to buy a home put 20% down thats how it worked for years until clinton started this nevermind im goin to just go off and now prepare for socialism in the u.s.
 
I guess I shouldnt complain that my house is still "over valued". Housing hasnt dropped much if at all here in the Victoria BC Canada area, though things take slightly longer to sell. My house is worth now more than I paid for it one year ago at the "hieght" of the market, but its not really worth half what I paid for it. My taxes have likewise gone up.

I'm considering an investment condo in the states, going in on it with several others. Have found some very nice deals via a broker. Sad to profit from someone elses misfortune, but.... I cant buy a cardboard box here for $200,000 and there are some great homes going for that in several desirable states.

Important to actually go SEE the place and the area before ya buy. Line up a few and make a mini vacation out of it.
 
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ciafardo 4 said:
hey tyler i think we all know which party came up with everyone should own a home and the bottom line is everyone can't it's the sense of entitlement that they have that got us here you want to buy a home put 20% down thats how it worked for years until clinton started this nevermind im goin to just go off and now prepare for socialism in the u.s.
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At least if/when the second amendment gets flushed down the toilet, we've got enough ammo stockpiled between my dad, brothers, and I to fight world war 3 LOL.
 
Not the bottom yet........

I'm with Ciafardo 4 on this.....Not many Americans know the 30 year history of our present crisis. In fact, the Canada Free Press has done a better job reporting on this issue than most of the American news media has. The very people who dealt the final blow to the mortgage market in 2007 and 2008 are the people in charge of fixing it right now. And they won't fix it because to do so goes against their "social" policy. Consequently, the market is not going to hit bottom for several more years. We have yet to see the effect of the bankrupcies that are coming down the pike. There is not enough rich people's money to bail them all out.

We have only started this big economic downturn. I'm afraid the worst is yet to come. I'm a CPA and I worked exclusively with businesses. The corporate tax, environmental, union and energy laws that will be passed this year are the biggest business killers I've ever seen. Business and capital is flying out of the USA at the speed of light in anticipation of these laws. I believe that unemployment is going to double in the next five years. We live in a global economy now and jobs and capital can go elsewhere pretty easily these days and it is.

I worked with businesses my whole adult life. I have never before felt that I would not place a bet on our economy being able to recover. I've always had faith in it. The things I see coming down for businesses in America right now lead me to believe the economy may tank big time after these things are passed. Sorry to be a spoil sport, but I spend a great deal of time each day studying the global economy, the stock market and business trends. The only thing I am investing in these days are gold, bottled water, canned goods, home and personal security enhancements and chameleons......
 
Howdy All,

Speaking of real estate and how we got into this "mess", here is a series of three radio stories that are very eye opening while being very entertaining and essentially politically neutral enough that both my right-wing and left-wing friends and co-workers were impressed and enlightened by them.

If you click on the: "Full Episode" Icon on each website, it will play through your PC. Search the web and you'll also find them as free downloads on the "Public Radio International" site.

Episode 355: The Giant Pool of Money
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242

Episode 365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1263

Episode 375: Bad Bank
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1285

I've listened through them all several times to internalize what was said. They are each about an hour long. Good for those long drives.
 
Yea I wouldn't be so quick to call bottom... Here's a good site that explains a lot for California and also the U.S. in general.

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...el=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=G&um=1

If you take a look at the sub-prime loans(the worst type) we have already experienced a reset, but if you look at the next graph, (prime loans) we have not yet begun to experience there reset. Meaning that the houses that have lost most in value are the lower income houses. We still have more resets from the Prime loans and other higher valued loans coming. Im not saying the same % of people will default, but some of them will, meaning that there could be better deals on better houses. Also look at the time frame on these charts...they go out til 2011, meaning that housing will not begin to stabilize until around that time.

Also look at housing inventories...they still have not yet begin to stabilize... You may be correct in the statement that the market has began to stabilized...but not the economy. Remember they are two different things...Actually, I still don't believe the market has fully bottomed...we may retest lows... Im still shorting the market... :)
 
ciafardo 4 said:
hey tyler i think we all know which party came up with everyone should own a home and the bottom line is everyone can't it's the sense of entitlement that they have that got us here you want to buy a home put 20% down thats how it worked for years until clinton started this nevermind im goin to just go off and now prepare for socialism in the u.s.
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That's Crazy huh? When my parents got their home, the bank gave them a loan even thought they knew he was unemployed.
 
Dave Weldon said:
Howdy All,

Speaking of real estate and how we got into this "mess", here is a series of three radio stories that are very eye opening while being very entertaining and essentially politically neutral enough that both my right-wing and left-wing friends and co-workers were impressed and enlightened by them.

If you click on the: "Full Episode" Icon on each website, it will play through your PC. Search the web and you'll also find them as free downloads on the "Public Radio International" site.

Episode 355: The Giant Pool of Money
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242

Episode 365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1263

Episode 375: Bad Bank
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1285

I've listened through them all several times to internalize what was said. They are each about an hour long. Good for those long drives.
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Yes!

I heard these on the radio when they aired. This American Life is really worth listening to...I really enjoy it.

I also agree with PardalisGirl on her views...nobody in our life time has been through what happened in the 20's and 30's and I have spent sometime reading books and studying what really happened then to see what the path ahead might be like and its scary and its going to take a very long time to turn around....unfortunately :(

I am sitting on my hands for a while before jumping into the housing market.
 
I'm a Real Estate Analyst and deal with this mess probably 10+ hours a day. I see some areas that were hit hardest showing some signs of slowed declines, while I do belive that areas, especially the areas that I am looking to buy in have not yet seen the declines that will come.

If anyone wants to see a powerpoint presentation from a large analysis firm titled "An Overview of the Housing/Credit Crisis And Why There Is More Pain to Come" Send me a pm with you email and I'll send over the power point, it's about 150 slides though. It basically talks about how the subprime crisis is thinning, however, a new wave from Alt-A mortgages that were originated between 2005 -2007 that are going to reset starting this year and continuing though the next 2. The poeple with these mortgages are not going to be able to refi out of these mortgages when the intro rate expires and may not be able to afford the rate that comes after the teaser, just like the subprime crowd.

Also, if you like to keep up on things check out dqnews.com. Another analysis firm, with good raw numbers and some analysis/articles.

Tyler,

I think you mentioned that you've been checking zillow and see some stability in the estimate. Take this in mind though. Zillow counts forclosures as sales, so if your neighbor got forclosed on, zillow thinks his house sold for the amount recorded in county records, however, this is most often the loan balance at the time of forclosure, which is typically higher than the current market value for the property, resulting in inaccurate estimates occationally.
 
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That was me talking about zillow. That's good info. I know zillow isn't accurate, but it's a nice quick ballpark. My house price on there is definitely not market value around here.
 
Royden,

The NW has been doing reletively ok, their wasnt the buy up there was down here. Just check yor zip and it showed a -5% for 4th qtr 07-4th qtr 08. That is pretty good! I would considered that reletively stable, with slight trend to decline. Compare that to places like riverside, San Bernardino San diege that area showing -40%+ for more than a year. Some homes are worth a 3rd or less of what they were in 05.
heres a site you can check, the information is always 3-4 months behind though as they only run the numbers four WA quarterly
http://dqnews.com/Charts/Quarterly-Charts/Seattle-Charts/ZIPWA.aspx

Zillow is a good ball park if houses in your neighborhood are all pretty similar, like tract homes from 1950+. In places where there are significant differences from house to house or the houses are older and each has been modded over the years ect or like in OR and WA, and/or where people put a lot of value of finished basements, don't rely on it much for anything except the trend line in the zestimate and charts tab. Don't look at the trend line for your house, look at the trend line for your zip and city, zip specifically. Their estimates for individual houses vary too much and tend to be less acurate. The zip tends do a pretty decent job of showing what has been going on in the past fwew months...

Also check out

Trulia.com

This site has listings/recently sold/recently forclosed homes similar to zillow, however, there data is presented in a different manner. In their statiscics page they show trend lines for average listing prices instead of sales prices, so it kind of showes what you can expect in the next month. I use this site when I am in a market that I don't have MLS access to.

That being said, if anyone here wants some information on their house I may be able to help you out if you live in California, Arizona, Nevada, oregon, washington and a few others as I do work in these states weekly if not daily.
 
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I would love to buy a house and this thread has me thinking about it more than ever. Does anyone have any tips for a first time buyer? I am 20 and have two low paying jobs, but would be very serious about payments and don't mind a fixer-upper at all. My s.o. also has two low paying jobs. How do you go about buying a house when you don't make a lot of money? Is it even possible or worth it?
 
kenya said:
I would love to buy a house and this thread has me thinking about it more than ever. Does anyone have any tips for a first time buyer? I am 20 and have two low paying jobs, but would be very serious about payments and don't mind a fixer-upper at all. My s.o. also has two low paying jobs. How do you go about buying a house when you don't make a lot of money? Is it even possible or worth it?
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hey kenya why not trade the two lowpaying jobs in for a high paying job then get your girl to trade her two low payin jobs for one high payin job wich equals 2and ahalf high paying jobs the half is what the government is giving hahaha this is just a joke i call it job math:D
 
Hey Kenya :)

Hey there Kenya......first thing you have to do is save some money. As much as you possibly can. Right now it would be pretty tough for you to get a home loan from a bank. They are all gun shy right now. People are getting loans but they are putting money down and they have good credit.

You may be able to find a seller financed house. But I'm going to bet it will take awhile. You are competing against a lot of people trying to find a way to get into their first house in this mess. The ones that have some cash to deal with are going to win the race. You are going to need money for an attorney to look over the deal itself and to draw up a contract between you and your Partner. You have to have a contract between the two of you. You will also need closing cost money. A buyer with additional cash for a down payment is more likely to get the seller financing.

As forclosures start glutting the market (I believe they will big time. 50% of the underwater mortgages that were refinanced are back in default again and this will continue) the banks are going to have a huge inventory of these homes. They are going to have to unload for reduced prices and perhaps better terms for people with less credit history, etc. Expensive homes will be drastically reduced because there won't be enough people out there to buy them. Inexpensive homes won't be so drastically reduced because there will still be a market of people who have saved and are ready to get into their first home. This is the group you will compete with. If a bank is willing to give you a loan in your income situation you are going to have to come up with some money for closing costs and a down payment.

No matter what happens Kenya, I think saving all you can now is the key. You will need it to snatch up any opportunity that comes your way. You need to be in that mode anyway if you want to own a home. Most new home buyers don't anticipate the expense of actually owning the home. Things go wrong with roofs, furnaces, windows, appliances, etc. And these things never happen at a good time. You have to have some savings to be ready for repairs :)
 
If you buy a house for vacation purposes and want to rent it out make sure you do your research on your property manager..


I used remax because its a common name. When i was deployed to Afghanistan the remax agent decided she didnt want to be my property manager anymore. So she gave my property management over to someone else in her office.

Ends up remax, rents out offices to people for a fee and lets them use their name. The new property manager she passed me off to was good for about 4 months.

Then he started using my house as a half way house for his church (which i found out on my own). when i got back from afghanistan i flew from italy to georgia to see my house.

The garage door was broke, a door was kicked in from when the police busted down the door to arrest the tenant for robbing a bank. The huge mirror i had in the front room was in a million pieces in the garage.

All of this was never told to me by my property manager. I had a long talk to him about all this and not keeping me informed.
I had to fly back to italy (thats where i was stationed at the time). That was the last i heard from him. He ended up putting someone else in my house who didnt pay for 6 months and i had to personally evict by doing the paper work myself.


I complained to remax, the georgia board of real estate commission.
No one cared.

Basically i signed a contract with remax, who then subcontracted to someone else who they say they have no authority over..

So my 15 month deployment to Afghanistan. I got $1,300 for my house, which was rented out for most of the year. I dont know if the tenant didnt pay or the property manager kept my money

I got screwed. Dont use remax.

but the good news.

Is i have a new property manager who is doing everything i could ever want..

just do your research and dont end up like me
 
What Catherine said Nikki,

Save, save, save.

The more cash you have in the bank, the easier buying a home will be for you, and the less your bank will sweat when you apply.

A house is a great investment, but it costs money like nothing else. Our house was in great condition when we got it but it needed a few things here and there.

Last year we re-did our driveway since it was from the 60's and was basically in 3 large pieces with trees growing out of it - ka-ching $6000
This year our water line broke and started gushing water down the driveway for a month before we got a new line dug - ka-ching $5000 + double water bills.

Lucky for me I have an amazing wife that plans for catastrophe's, so we pay cash for everything. Nothing goes on the credit card. Just a reminder that it's not only great to have a good sized downpayment, but then also have the ability to continue to save for repairs as life goes on. You don't want to be in a house and pinned to the wall by your mortgage payments.

Good advice from Catherine.
 
Great Stuff!

Dave Weldon said:
Howdy All,

Speaking of real estate and how we got into this "mess", here is a series of three radio stories that are very eye opening while being very entertaining and essentially politically neutral enough that both my right-wing and left-wing friends and co-workers were impressed and enlightened by them.

If you click on the: "Full Episode" Icon on each website, it will play through your PC. Search the web and you'll also find them as free downloads on the "Public Radio International" site.

Episode 355: The Giant Pool of Money
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242

Episode 365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1263

Episode 375: Bad Bank
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1285

I've listened through them all several times to internalize what was said. They are each about an hour long. Good for those long drives.
Click to expand...

This is great... I love This American Life.

Has anyone donated to NPR or your local PBS or PRI? lately?:cool: For you socal memers its KPCC 89.3FM or KCRW 89.9FM

Its a REAL eye opener listening to this... wow...

HAHA LOVE the ending of the first episode :D
 
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