It is what it is, or is it?

[Jazzman]

I don’t go looking for this, but it never fails to grab my attention, especially when I see the sources.

Janet Yellen’s big concern: Housing slowdown. Really, I wonder why that might be. http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/07/investing/janet-yellen-housing/

Las Vegas in trouble: Active inventory is up 103%, median prices fall. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2014/05/las-vegas-real-estate-in-april-year.html

This is Housing Bubble 2 – Yahoo Finance. Another crackpot who missed buying when the market bottomed. Loser. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnFcEEHFFSY

Bank of England warns of another bubble. Commie Canadians have invaded. “UK households with debts that exceed four times their income accounted for around 30% of UK mortgage debt”
http://ampp3d.mirror.co.uk/2014/03/28/bank-of-england-raises-fears-of-a-housing-bubble-after-the-size-of-mortgages-explode/

[spdrun]

How could offers decline 100% in Vegas? This would mean no offers. Do you mean that active inventory is up 103%? Vegas is a hot, dusty pesthole. I can’t blame people for not wanting to buy and “live” there.

All I can say is that I’m CHEERING!!!! the fact that there are 1.5x the number of listings on auction.com as there were last year in the lovely state of NJ, and 2.5x the number of listings on Home(less)path(etic).com. I’m in NJ right now, actually, looking at a couple short sales and fork-losers today. Hopefully this will mean another rental in a month or two.

BTW – it’s not only in the “bad” areas any more. As to the people who took idiotic mortgages and are now having the chickens come home to roost, them’s the breaks. Glad that Gov. Krispie Kreme has vetoed any sort of extraordinary assistance for them.

[The-Shoveler]

It’s probably not what they think it is either.

Things are slowing a little, but different markets are much different.

[spdrun]

But you’re biased by seeing the San Diego market. It’s an outlier in that it crashed hard and recovered unusually strongly in a short time period.

[The-Shoveler]

Pretty much all coastal California, South Florida, NY and maybe Boston, but OK.

L.A. is smoking Hot also.

To most foreigners our top cities are ridiculous bargains

[spdrun]

I’m in NY(*). I have not seen price appreciation of the same type as San Diego in the past year. You have moderately low inventory, but not the same type of decrease as in San Diego.

Other than the very wealthy suburbs, the ‘burbs are also riddled with foreclosures and short sales right now, some coming in the market after being foreclosed 2-3 years ago. Interesting times!

(*) – it’s nice that a lot of the housing stock is co-op, and co-op boards can restrict whom apartments are sold to. So foreigners looking for a pied-a-terre that will be vacant 95% of the time or to be an absentee landlord are out of luck in many buildings. As it should be.

It’s also a special case because there were virtually no foreclosures in Manhattan. A lot of buildings required 20% down, which sort of nixed the type of mortgages that were prone to foreclosure.

Also, the nice thing about the NJ ‘burbs is that they don’t have Moonbeam Brown or Kamala Harris to protect people who made terrifyingly stupid financial decisions from themselves.

[The-Shoveler]

Well at the end of the day I don’t see a big crash in Socal at least IMO.
There is just not the large amount of foreclosures anymore here and they are just not building enough new stock.

Also I never saw the Wallstreet guys here, maybe someone else did ?

I just don’t think they were involved in this market.

[spdrun]

Have the foreclosures gone away, or just been delayed for a few years by the Homeowners’ Bill of Rights?

The timing of the market rise in late 2012 to 2013 was suspiciously coincident with that law coming into force. But banks will adapt, and quite a few mortgages that are HIGHER than peak values still exist, so there’s meat for the machine.

I’m still seeing a sizable % of short sales at the lower end of the market, BTW. e.g. person has a $200k mortgage, no payments in years, property was worth $180k at peak, $95k at bottom, and s/he/it is trying to sell for $130k. I suspect that there are still plenty of people that need a short sale. They’re just sitting tight as the bank goes through the motions required by the Bill of Rights.

[The-Shoveler]

In the markets I have been looking they have been ruthlessly cleared out, there was no holding back as far as I can see.

[spdrun]

Have you only done research on homes actually held by banks, or homes with overleveraged zombies still living in them? (i.e. future short sales)

[The-Shoveler]

When you have had 40% of the housing stock turned over since 2009 what do you think.

[spdrun]

Cite for the 40% figure? If true, glad things move slower in NJ and there are still zombie “opportunities” around.

[The-Shoveler]

The 40% was a guesstimate but you will have to trust me, it is not far off.

[Coronita]

still no inventory in MM….

And Qualcomm stock is still close to 52 week high….

[Jazzman]

[quote=spdrun]How could offers decline 100% in Vegas? This would mean no offers. Do you mean that active inventory is up 103%? [/quote] Apologies, that is what I meant.

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