In Temecula/Murrieta, this is happening ALL THE TIME! In addition, a lot of houses are being flipped at increasing prices in a down market. By being nosy and looking at information available online, I now believe that it is happening often enough to skew the median sale prices significantly. I’ve looked into a few neighborhoods and found “anomalies” in most of them. I’m going to stay out of the housing market until I am convinced that this has all blown over. It’s going to take a long time since such deals are still being funded. I think the remaining subprime lenders must be trying to bleed every last cent out of the housing market before they go bankrupt. The CEO’s will get their bonuses and the loan officers will get the commissions and they will keep on doing it until they get shut down.
Here are some examples. A friend of mine was asking how much her house was worth and I spotted some “anomalies” in that area by looking at the sales history on Zillow and the comps in the Press Enterprise. I don’t think either one of these houses would sell for anything over the mid 500’s in the current market. In fact, MOST of the comps for these are in the mid 500’s. Also, I find it odd that both of these sold for the exact same price!
39599 Tamarisk St, Murrieta (2913 sq ft tract home)
$730,000 11-28-2006
$615,000 03-31-2006
This one is currently on the market as a short sale for 600K, dead lawn and all. It will be interesting to sell how much it sells for – this time. AMAZING!
