Get the Press Enterprise today

[waiting hawk]

Front page (Sunday’s) paper. After I saw this I went out and purchased a couple of them. Insdie the paper it show a map of misery where Temecula, Corona, and Mo Val is toast. Here is a photo of the front page.

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=CA_PE&ref_pge=gal&b_pge=1

PS this site is cool for checking out all US front page papers.

[Critter]

Thanks for the link, WH. What a great site – I can riffle through all the front pages and then go to the newstand to buy the real thing if necessary.

Saves a lot of time – “all the news that fits on an Internet page.”

[23109VC]

i’m on my computer drafting my purchase agreement, and of course i like to check piggington… and then i see this..

this is why i’m so stressed….

i can tell you this – my wife and i drive around on weekends and look at houses for sale – we look all over. some nice areas we want to buy in, other areas that are so-so…but we just want to see what is happening.

we see tons of homes for sale. some streets have that “look” like it’s a good street. good location, nice houses, well kept yards…. and then some streets and areas have that “trashy” look…yards neglected, and carspiled up out front like it’s a roommate situation. you can see through the side yard and notice the backyard is still dirt and it’s a 3 year old home… they either don’t care or can’t afford to landscape the back…

the nice areas don’t seem to have the same rate of houses for sale or the “repo” or “bank owned” signs on them. the crummier areas, and areas that have lousy locations seem like they are going up for sale at a much higher rate.

it is scary to see all the houss going into foreclosure. peole just bit off more than they could chew.

[waiting hawk]

23109VC, You have to be crazy to even look at anything let alone get serious, but either way good luck.

I’m always telling my wife what great days we are livin in. It will be to bad that so many will suffer so I can enjoy a better life.

[sdrealtor]

VC,
Throughout the time someone owns a home the price constantly changes but only two prices matter. The price you pay and the price you sell for. You will always be making decisions at a snapshot in time with limited information. If you decide to buy the house, get on with enjoying your life and stay away from places like this. If you decide to wait, this is a fine place to come for information as long as you understand what it is. A place full of people with negative views on housing.

Either way, if you can afford and buy it you should do your best to enjoy it.

sdr

[novice1027]

23109Vc,
As long as you can afford it now, then go for it.
Back in 1991, I was one of the “clueless” ones, had no idea what was going on in the real estate market, not even sure I knew there was one.
I bought my house when things were starting to tank around me. I paid $185K watched the houses around me drop to $135k, thought I would be sick.
Now here I am, in a house the got up to 600K, now on the way down, but what do I care? I live in a nice house with a $700/mo payment. All I cared about at the time was “what is the monthly payment?”
So maybe sometimes too much info is not necessarily a good thing.

[hipmatt]

Are they trying to make it a “race” or minority issue with that couple on the front with their baby?

[23109VC]

i bought the paper today… and read the article.

they interview the family on the front page. they bought a house they couldn’t afford and lost it. then they rented a house. the people they rent from are even more screwed….that’s the good part… the family who rents the house tried to sell their house while buying their “dream home” and then couldn’t sell it. rather than back out they just bought the new house anyway…

the couple claims to have $5400 net monthly income. they have a monthly payment of $4000/month on their $615,000 home they bought from Lennar. the wife was quoted as saying..and I kid you NOT.. “it’s their fault”…. the builder/lendar. guess why it’s their fault?? because “they qualified us for it”….. the wife (idiot) who bought a 615,000 house with a 4000/month INTEREST ONLY payment said they thought it would be easy to pay for it as it was to qualify for the loan..

i mean…. I make MORE money than these people, have relatively NO debt aside from one car payment…and I’m sweating spending between 350-400k. but i’m not going interest only…and i’m not going with an ARM…

anyway…these people are idiots. they complain that the builder sold them a house they couldn’t afford…but what part about “affording” it didn’t htey get.

reminds me of that SNL skit on “don’t buy stuff you can’t afford”….. how do people who make $5000/month net afford a 600k+ house…while still floating their last house? before they got the renter, the “idiot” family in the story was paying $6000/month in INTEREST ONLY payments. the husband was quoted as saying they weren’t paying anything down, paying $6000/month interest payments and were over a million dollars in debt… yeah, who’s fault is that?

just ask his wife.. “it’s their fault”…. sorry. i don’t buy that BS.

i understand that some people aren’t that sophisticated, and can get sold stuff they don’t need, or charged too much…. but please.. you buy a $400k house, do interest only, then you can’t sell it to upgrade to the bigger house, but you buy a second house anyway..knowing you owe $2000 on one house, $4000 on the new house…you sign anyway…and then when you get stuck with $6000/month in payments you say it was too easy to qualify so it’s the bank/builder’s fault?

they have no furniture in th ehouse b/c they can’t afford it and the backyard is all dirt…once again, can’t afford landscaping.

maybe they drive BMWs too… 🙂 the article never mentioned their cars..but that would just be the icing on the cake.. a 330 and an X5.. 🙂 leased… 🙂

[gn]

sdrealtor,

“… A place full of people with negative views on housing”

I have to disagree with you. There are 2 kinds of optimism:

“Grounded optimism” – Based on knowledge and understanding
“Blind optimism” – self-explanatory

Most people at Piggington are not negative. Since they understand the state of today’s RE market, it’s impossible not to be weary of buying.

As case in point, people like Bugs & PerryChase know a lot more about real estate that most folks out there. Certainly a lot more than most realtors 🙂

[AK]

Why would I be here if I had negative views on housing?

I think housing is great. I grew up in housing. I’ve helped to build housing. I live in housing. I hope to live in housing for the rest of my life. I have no desire to be homeless.

What I do have is a very negative attitude toward reckless speculation, especially when it threatens people’s ability to afford housing now and in the future.

I have friends and family in the REIC. One is a non-traditional broker in a small town. I know him as an honest, moral, upstanding person and it pains me to know that he and his family will have their livelihood affected by the aftermath of reckless speculation. Another is a pre-foreclosure investor. I haven’t seen him in years, but I’m sure he treats people fairly and gives them a better deal than they’d get in foreclosure. (OK, one is a former executive with a well-known subprime lender. Nobody’s perfect.) So we don’t all have irrational prejudices.

I’m sure that any rational, right-thinking Realtor(TM) would prefer, say, 10 percent appreciation spread over four years rather than 40 percent appreciation in a single year. (I know the math doesn’t quite work out, but I don’t remember the formula off the top of my head.) Not that either scenario is particularly sustainable, but the former provides a good but stable living without creating the “gold rush” atmosphere that will hurt the real estate industry for years to come.

[AK]

Back to our scheduled topic …

Thanks for the update on the IE. I’ve felt so woefully misinformed on that area since forsakencraft.com had to close shop.

[waiting hawk]

Are you still renting? Yes!

http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Global+Markets/Global+Credit+Perspectives/2007/U.S.+Credit+Perspectives-+5-2007.htm?ref=patrick.net

[sdrealtor]

gn and ak,
Essentially everyone here has a negative view on housing at this point in time and I AM INCLUDING MYSELF. We all believe that there is no stopping a return to some more fundamental level of pricing. We all have different opinions as to the speed and extent of a decline but NO ONE here is expecting good things to happen in the housing market but rather bad things to happen. That makes us all genreally negative on housing.

Stop with the spin doctoring. We are what we are. Ultimately we will be proven right or wrong. However, if VC decides now is the time to make the leap he will do his soul no good if continues hanging around here second guessing himself.

sdr

[no_such_reality]

Hmm, okay, found it. It’s a pair of stories.
Foreclosure Map of Misery

Moreno Valley Foreclosures like in the 90s

I caught this down in it. “Richardson said by the time they asked Countrywide Financial for help, they owed the lender about $10,000. He said the couple could not afford a plan the lender proposed that would have required them to pay $6,000 of what they owed and then make up the rest in installments added to their regular mortgage payment. ”

sounds like loan modification isn’t saving the day there…

[no_such_reality]

I’m bearish. I’m also looking to buy. It’s a damnedable situation. The question is how much will prices in the neighborhood you want really come down? Answer: who knows.

the nice areas don’t seem to have the same rate of houses for sale or the “repo” or “bank owned” signs on them. the crummier areas, and areas that have lousy locations seem like they are going up for sale at a much higher rate

Makes sense to me. It isn’t because the nice areas have people with money. It’s a part, but smaller than you think. My experience with OC may be different than SD, SD locals chime in here.

What I saw in OC looked like a wave from a rock hitting water.

The wave started in the nicest areas. Volume and price surged there. six months, a year later, pricing kept rising, but moderated, volume fell. The next nicer neighborhood surged at that point, volume and prices exploded, prices kept rising, more moderated, but volume fell. The third nicest areas exploded, repeat pattern. We then hit late 2004/2005, the cruddy areas exploded in large swaths and build-out areas exploded with speculators.

What you’re seeing at the moment is the collapse of that last portion of the wave. The nicer areas have a much greater percentage of people bought earlier, 2 years, 3years, 4/5 years. They’ve refinanced, locked long term rates rates at 5.25% and will sit happy to the end of time. There’s some hitting of the ATM, but it probably accounts for less than 10% of the homes. IMHO, the closer to 2005 the purchase, the more likely the housing ATM is being raided.

The buyers in the nicer areas typically, have much more cushion to negotiate, refi and/or ride it out. Their prices will get pulled down relative to the less nice areas, but there won’t as much of a push that the cruddy areas have.

Just m2c.

[Author]

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