<p>I don’t think that Palo Alto house will be a teardown. It looks like a typical 1950s Brown and Kaufman tract house which generally age fairly well. The print edition of the Merc has a photo of the front of the house. </p>
<p>Here’s a similar house in Palo Alto that has been renovated:</p>
<p><a href=“The Home That Inspired the Web Site Houzz - The New York Times”>The Home That Inspired the Web Site Houzz - The New York Times;
<p>Too many short sale released in my area. Unbelievable. Heard some local companies will be laying off too. Not good for housing.</p>
<p>I had a look at one of the many layoff tracker blogs out there and things don’t seem as bad as they did after the internet crash where there were a lot of announcements with numbers in the thousands. Most of the stuff I see is below 100 with some places cutting several hundred.</p>
<p>Layoffs are definitely bad for housing though too.</p>
<p>I think that banks releasing too many properties at once is also a problem. They seem to be pretty good at dribbling them out in my area.</p>
<p>BC, lots of condo and townhouse types. I have never seen this many. Before the bubble, it’s hard to find 2-3 bedroom in $200K-$300K range. Now there are plenty. The problem is that banks still keep the asking price too high. If prices are not too high there will be more movement.</p>
<p>The banks keeping the asking price high is working in my area.</p>
<p>There was a foreclosure in my neighborhood (not the flood) that was in pretty poor shape. A contractor bought it for his daughter and spent about six months renovating it. He lives 50 miles away and came up on weekends and sometimes during the week to work on it. I thought that he got a fantastic deal on it but I found out that he bought it for about $10K less than market. I spoke to his wife one time and she told me that it wasn’t worth it. I’m curious as to what the flooded place sold for - though I’m not completely sure that they bought the place - they could be renting from the bank.</p>
<p>I just had a look at Zillow on the property. It looks like it sold at market - the bank did do a fair amount of work on the place. I’d say that it sold at about $35K below peak. I believe that the previous owner bought around the peak though I don’t know how much he put down (perhaps nothing).</p>
<p>Looking a little wider, I do see several that were sold recently at lower prices and one really distressed sale. The distressed sale might have been something like a sale to a relative. The price was 40% of peak and way below market. I have seen those sometimes on the town transfer cards (saw one for $1 a long time ago) and I don’t think that those are normal market transactions.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the banks are better at getting higher prices than individuals. Of course the banks are backstopped by the Fed with low interest rates and they can afford to carry these places longer than a distressed homeowner.</p>
<p>Dr Google…what area of the country are you living in?</p>
<p>I am going for a drive today…maybe through Novato, Ca.
Novato has been hit by the housing crisis pretty good.</p>
<p>I don’t remember how much Novato has been hit…and I am too lazy to look up the info.</p>
<p>I think the declines are 30 to 50 percent…with the smaller declines hitting the nicer places.</p>
<p>One thing I have noticed…
The condos that were 400,000 at the peak are 200,000 now…and…I still don’t really want to buy any. They were crap at 400,000…and they are still crap at 200,000. These condos should not have ever sold for 400,000. Just because something’s price drops in half…doesn’t make it a deal.</p>
<p>SoCal. If you want more specific area, I will have to PM you.
haha, that’s exactly how I feel about them.</p>
<p>I am not like you all and that is how I have felt. I remember looking at condos in Walnut Creek in 1995, priced at 100,000 or thereabouts. Then they went sky high and I thought, forget it. They are not worth it. My parents sold their retirement condo right before the prices dropped, right before. 
They were always lucky.</p>
<p>Nah Dr Google…you have revealed enough. Just wanted a general idea where you are.</p>
<p>I have a friend calling me constantly. “We have to buy…We have to buy…”</p>
<p>I really don’t want to buy drek.</p>
<p>Last year…I remodeled the house I sold and and remodeled the townhouse I bought…and I know that to bring up some of these condos is going to cost 75,000…or so…maybe even more…they need kitchens…and bathrooms…and paint…and flooring…maybe windows…The condos have never been fixed up…</p>
<p>So…where is the deal?</p>
<p>You need a deal with the Fed to borrow at 0.000001% so that you can buy and hold and wait for the next bubble to unload. The banks seem to be doing a reasonable job at this.</p>
<p>Well it just figures that the minute I get my dad’s house sold, at the bottom of the market, the market starts to turn around!!! :(</p>
<p>Sorry…jym626</p>
<p>When I had my parents put their place on the market it was spur of the moment. They couldn’t live there anymore. My son was going off to college and I found a place for them to live and we packed up and sold the place. Just happened to be top of the market, peak. I still have the storage shed full of their furniture and stuff. I need to deal with that soon.</p>
<p>Thanks, overseas. The way I rationalize it is that I am no longer carrying that house, at an approximate cost of $3k/mo.</p>
<p>Just as well then. I am still carrying the storage unit, but it isn’t 3K a month! Thank goodness.</p>
<p>I suppose. The mortgage, utilities, insurance, taxes, etc added up. And the RE agent was a PITA, and we are free of that hassle too. I think her middle name was “I am not a …” which was the response I got every time there was some issue to deal with. Sigh…
Still, giving the house away was painful.</p>
<p>I imagine just having to give it up was hard.</p>
<p>Yes, it was a bittersweet experience for sure. Dealing with it allremotely was even harder. I can’t exactly go over there and replace a lightbulb when it burned out, and yes… my RE wanted me to get one of the repairmen (who I had to find and hire to repair damage afer that freak NE hurricane last year) to replace the lightbulb so she didnt have to. Ok - good riddance to all that!!</p>
<p>Where did your parents live when you sold the house?</p>
<p>I lived far away but thankfully had just arrived for the summer when both my parents went into the hospital. They came out with full time nursing staff. My son was in France in an orchestra and he was due to arrive about the time I was to return to my job. He helped with packing up in the end and as an 18th year old, he did a decent job. He was on good terms with the realtor and her stager; and left for his first year of college on a jet plane with whatever bags he had packed all on his own. My parents were living in Walnut Creek, California. It was horrendous but looking back, it would make a short story.</p>
<p>The market has flipped in Marin. It’s a sellers market now. </p>
<p>I was told that even in Novato…75 percent of the homes are sales pending.</p>
<p>I looked at several places today…most I did not like…but one I did like. </p>
<p>I don’t know if I would buy it, but it doesn’t matter. Probably 100 people saw it today…and multiple bids are expected. To buy the place and rent it out…I think you get about 4 percent cash on cash. </p>
<p>I talked to a realtor today…and he said sellers see prices rising and they no longer want to put their places on the market. The sellers want to see how high prices can go. There are a lot of buyers. And the buyers see interest rates rising and are itching to buy something.</p>