<p>Barrons,</p>
<p>If you are still around, care to update us on your current state of optimism regarding the housing market? </p>
<p>Some of these oldies but goodies make for interesting reading!</p>
<p>Regards</p>
<p>Written 12/06/06</p>
<p>“If these loans and other loans fail, I don’t want to see any bailouts.”</p>
<p>LOL</p>
<p>LOL is right (sort of). Things are tanking fast. Good thing we aren’t trying to sell at the moment.</p>
<p>Allmusic, which state are you living in?</p>
<p>In MA, Boston area. We’ve had humongous losses in value…I think even Barrons acknowledges them (but maybe not).</p>
<p>I heard there were humongous losses but that things were starting to turn in Boston.
No?</p>
<p>We just recently bought the house we’re going to retire to (and move to sooner if we find jobs in the area.) We paid 20% off the original price. Our present home is paid for, so hopefully when we sell it, prices will uptick again, but even if they don’t, we’ll easily be able to cover the other mortgage, since we bought so low. The house we bought had been on the market for something like 450 days.</p>
<p>Cape May?..</p>
<p>Enjoy your retirement house. Congrats.</p>
<p>In another thread I noted that I had sold our NoVA house in July. We originally purchased in 1989. We received about 7% less than the original asking price, which I thought was too high. The initial asking price, and the sale price, were lower than they would have been the previous year. However, our house was not in the greatest of shape. I was absolutely delighted with the final outcome. From listing to closing took three months, and we sold for well over twice what we paid for it.</p>
<p>In Madison, we bought our condo for $10,000 less than the asking price, received a tandem parking space, rather than a single at no additional cost, and requested, and received, a lovely dinning room table with six chairs worth over $2,500 that was in our unit (it was a model.) </p>
<p>The whole real estate thing worked out well for us.</p>
<p>So far the “crash” predicted has not happened in the SF market. At worst we have seen around a 10% correction which is what I believed would happen even before the mortgage problems which made things much worse than they might have been. A 10% drop after leaps of around 50% on average is not much and nowhere near the 30-40% drops some were predicting. The entire Pacific NW still has had gains at a good clip. Mortgage rates for good credit people have come down significantly which should get some of the sluggish areas moving a bit. The excess inventory in a few areas is being worked down and many now think the worse is over or nearly so. So that was the worse? In my opinion not that bad. Only the last in and speculators got hurt which is fine with me. And happens in every type of market.<br>
As to Boston the annual decline was under 4% and maybe a total of double that over the last two years. Hardly a horrible loss in an area that saw growth of around 60-70% in the prior 5 years.</p>
<p><a href=“http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/333067_housing26.html[/url]”>http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/333067_housing26.html</a></p>
<p>Boston 171.30 -3.7%</p>
<p>Note date on article below. If you listened you are smart.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.boston.com/business/markets/articles/2004/07/01/home_prices_poised_to_take_a_hit/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/business/markets/articles/2004/07/01/home_prices_poised_to_take_a_hit/</a></p>
<p>On a personal note I just lost out on a house in Lynchburg where I bid over the asking price the second day on the market. It sold to another party because the seller did not want to sell to an investor. I was very unhappy but understand their position.</p>
<p>Ah, barrons, you speak like a true real estate person.</p>
<p>18 months ago you were saying prices would never drop, all was clear sailing. Now you say the worst is over and the drop was not that bad. yes, 10% drop is not so bad unless you bought with 10% down just before that drop, which some folks did, of course. </p>
<p>Regarding mortgage rates, they’ve come down from what? In May, we purchased a house with a 6.125% jumbo, no points. Today, the rate would be 1% higher. </p>
<p>Inventory? Nationally, it is the highest it has been in 18 years by at least one measure.</p>
<p>Good to see consistency in attitude, barrons. Like any good real estate pro, there are never bad markets. they are all an opportunity. too bad the opportunity for quite a few has been to lose lots of money.</p>
<p>Please show me where I said prices would never drop in some markets. I told people to stay out of the Las Vegas and Miami condo markets at least two years ago. What I did say is they would not crash and to me a loss of less than 10% after a 65% gain is far from a crash It’s a relatively mild correction.</p>
<p>All rates for conforming loans are down below 6%. Jumbos will take longer because they go into the pool funded by the big investors who are still spooked a bit. I’d expect jumbos for excellent credit will be down half a % in the next month.</p>
<p>
In 250 words or less, he has said it all. It was true when he said it. It was true one…two…ten… or twenty years before he said it. It is true today. It will be true next week, next year and in 10 years.</p>
<p><em>btw, in our little corner of the world, prices and # of sales are up for two months in a row</em></p>
<p>As I said, I just watch trends. It’s all funny money anyway (unless you are the one losing it, in which case it is very real money indeed), but houses have devalued by far more than 10%, just anecdotally, looking at what the same houses sold for pre-improvements several years ago. We are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars here…not exactly pocket change, and that doesn’t include the cost for new kitchens, bathrooms, landscaping, etc.</p>
<p>We’re riding out this real estate slump, so I don’t feel affected, but surely feel for the people who bought high and now are watching prices plummet.</p>
<p>And we may be at the bottom, on the upswing, and we may not. Hard to tell. Information is conflicting…</p>
<p>I think it’s worth noting that people who are in foreclosure or are “losing” money on the housing market are those who purchased homes with no down payment and/or subprime loans.</p>
<p>dstark:</p>
<p>Go to Boston.com and scroll down on the right side. There’s a report on the housing market, but the real estate site has lots more information about housing in the Greater Boston area.</p>
<p>True for some, not for all. Certainly there are many people who have lost money in the recent housing downturn who did have down payments and more typical loan structures.</p>
<p>I will say that is tens of thousands of dollars lost for most people, not hundreds of thousands, but it is still a lot of money, no matter how you look at it.</p>
<p>Dstark, not in but close to Cape May (which was out of our price range). We can bike over, though. :)</p>
<p>(and jsut to be clear, its a retirement house in name only–we are not close to retirement!)</p>
<p>Marite, thanks.</p>
<p>Garland, close enough to bike is good. ( I won’t rush your retirement. 
)</p>
<p>Well, it’d be okay with us if you could…:)</p>