Considering these things:
– Only 12% of mortgages in the 92109 zip are underwater.
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Where do you get only 12% of mortgages in 92109 are under water?
I’m not an expert. Just trying to do as much research as I can before I break down and buy.
From my observation, as I’ve said, places are languishing on the market. From what I see, seems like very little moves. It has to be reduced considerably to get a sale.
I don’t think the stimulus will help the higher end homes, particularly if there’s no principal write-downs and no Jumbo provision.
The tightening lending standards will make it harder to flip the hot potato onto someone else lying to get a loan.
Alt-A and Option ARMs will be the nails in the coffins for a lot of higher priced homes.
Incomes are still certainly out of whack.
Other issue not mentioned is the unemployment – and the people who cannot declare unemployment should be added to the mix.
Businesses in PB are closing left and right.
As I said on another thread, short of some miracle, I don’t know what’s going to save it.
I will qualify by saying that there was a tremendous amount of HELOCs pulled out of places that were purchased well before the bubble started.
My take on that is if these people banked their money, there is a LOT of cash out there on the sidelines. If they spent is on buying other houses, paying cards off, remodling, taking trips, buying cars, LCDs, etc. etc. then they’re pretty much screwed.
I’ll say that knowing the nature of people and consumerism, there’s a small percentage of people that banked their HELOC.
