Timing the Bottom

[SD Realtor]

I pretty much trust my own street smarts over anything that is reported by NAR and other associated organizations.

The past 6 months have, for me, been a crash course of how the industry really deals with distress. I have learned a great deal and anticipate that I will learn more. Over the past few months I have seen that both short sales and REO’s alike do indeed sit on offers. I would anticipate that in the case for short sales, the lack of response time is clearly due to staff shortages and a simple lack of motivation to take an official hit on the books.

Sellers may not be the only ones in denial eh? The investors know the hits are going to be made but much like the person who doesn’t like to look at thier etrade account after a bad run at the market, the investors are in no hurry to reconcile the values of thier shrinking investments. (This is all speculative)

Getting back to my point… I think that I have seen a bit of a surge in response times in the past 2 weeks from lenders regarding short sales and REO’s that I have been involved in. Maybe it is the fact they are just getting off the schnied or perhaps they are being big boys now and sucking it up. I will not be surprised at all to see a bit more of a surge in volume, with regards to lower end distressed properties here in town…

Over the past few weeks I have seen many a short and an reo go pending in both the central SD area and the south bay. Many of these were on the market for a few months. They did not all just now receive offers and go pending.

In no way do I attribute any of this activity to be a harbinger to the bottom. I feel it may be a combination of year end cleaning by the lenders but moreover a simple illustration of the pipeline finally starting to churn out results. I am still sticking to my position of this depreciation cycle being no different temporally then the prior, that we are still in year 2 and heading to 3, and that we will see cyclical rallies within the secular downtrend.

SD Realtor

[SD Realtor]

I pretty much trust my own street smarts over anything that is reported by NAR and other associated organizations.

The past 6 months have, for me, been a crash course of how the industry really deals with distress. I have learned a great deal and anticipate that I will learn more. Over the past few months I have seen that both short sales and REO’s alike do indeed sit on offers. I would anticipate that in the case for short sales, the lack of response time is clearly due to staff shortages and a simple lack of motivation to take an official hit on the books.

Sellers may not be the only ones in denial eh? The investors know the hits are going to be made but much like the person who doesn’t like to look at thier etrade account after a bad run at the market, the investors are in no hurry to reconcile the values of thier shrinking investments. (This is all speculative)

Getting back to my point… I think that I have seen a bit of a surge in response times in the past 2 weeks from lenders regarding short sales and REO’s that I have been involved in. Maybe it is the fact they are just getting off the schnied or perhaps they are being big boys now and sucking it up. I will not be surprised at all to see a bit more of a surge in volume, with regards to lower end distressed properties here in town…

Over the past few weeks I have seen many a short and an reo go pending in both the central SD area and the south bay. Many of these were on the market for a few months. They did not all just now receive offers and go pending.

In no way do I attribute any of this activity to be a harbinger to the bottom. I feel it may be a combination of year end cleaning by the lenders but moreover a simple illustration of the pipeline finally starting to churn out results. I am still sticking to my position of this depreciation cycle being no different temporally then the prior, that we are still in year 2 and heading to 3, and that we will see cyclical rallies within the secular downtrend.

SD Realtor

[SD Realtor]

I pretty much trust my own street smarts over anything that is reported by NAR and other associated organizations.

The past 6 months have, for me, been a crash course of how the industry really deals with distress. I have learned a great deal and anticipate that I will learn more. Over the past few months I have seen that both short sales and REO’s alike do indeed sit on offers. I would anticipate that in the case for short sales, the lack of response time is clearly due to staff shortages and a simple lack of motivation to take an official hit on the books.

Sellers may not be the only ones in denial eh? The investors know the hits are going to be made but much like the person who doesn’t like to look at thier etrade account after a bad run at the market, the investors are in no hurry to reconcile the values of thier shrinking investments. (This is all speculative)

Getting back to my point… I think that I have seen a bit of a surge in response times in the past 2 weeks from lenders regarding short sales and REO’s that I have been involved in. Maybe it is the fact they are just getting off the schnied or perhaps they are being big boys now and sucking it up. I will not be surprised at all to see a bit more of a surge in volume, with regards to lower end distressed properties here in town…

Over the past few weeks I have seen many a short and an reo go pending in both the central SD area and the south bay. Many of these were on the market for a few months. They did not all just now receive offers and go pending.

In no way do I attribute any of this activity to be a harbinger to the bottom. I feel it may be a combination of year end cleaning by the lenders but moreover a simple illustration of the pipeline finally starting to churn out results. I am still sticking to my position of this depreciation cycle being no different temporally then the prior, that we are still in year 2 and heading to 3, and that we will see cyclical rallies within the secular downtrend.

SD Realtor

[SD Realtor]

I pretty much trust my own street smarts over anything that is reported by NAR and other associated organizations.

The past 6 months have, for me, been a crash course of how the industry really deals with distress. I have learned a great deal and anticipate that I will learn more. Over the past few months I have seen that both short sales and REO’s alike do indeed sit on offers. I would anticipate that in the case for short sales, the lack of response time is clearly due to staff shortages and a simple lack of motivation to take an official hit on the books.

Sellers may not be the only ones in denial eh? The investors know the hits are going to be made but much like the person who doesn’t like to look at thier etrade account after a bad run at the market, the investors are in no hurry to reconcile the values of thier shrinking investments. (This is all speculative)

Getting back to my point… I think that I have seen a bit of a surge in response times in the past 2 weeks from lenders regarding short sales and REO’s that I have been involved in. Maybe it is the fact they are just getting off the schnied or perhaps they are being big boys now and sucking it up. I will not be surprised at all to see a bit more of a surge in volume, with regards to lower end distressed properties here in town…

Over the past few weeks I have seen many a short and an reo go pending in both the central SD area and the south bay. Many of these were on the market for a few months. They did not all just now receive offers and go pending.

In no way do I attribute any of this activity to be a harbinger to the bottom. I feel it may be a combination of year end cleaning by the lenders but moreover a simple illustration of the pipeline finally starting to churn out results. I am still sticking to my position of this depreciation cycle being no different temporally then the prior, that we are still in year 2 and heading to 3, and that we will see cyclical rallies within the secular downtrend.

SD Realtor

[RatherOpinionated]

I’m just reporting one company’s opinion, not suggesting it to be the gospel

********************************

Homes are on sale across the US at prices that would have sparked stampedes three years ago. But buyers are wary. With foreclosures accelerating and asset values expected to slide further in 2008, why buy a house now when prices look likely to drop even more?

As everyone probes for the market’s floor, a range of factors is pushing prices down. Builders are discounting units to clear out inventory and generate cash but their last round of sharp price cuts failed to boost sales. The stockpile of unsold existing homes has grown by 59 per cent in two years to 4.45m. Buyers are skittish over the health of the economy and are finding it harder to secure mortgages. And President George W. Bush’s subprime relief proposal will help only a specific band of homeowners.

Derivatives priced off the Residential Property Index, a new gauge of residential real estate values, imply an 8.2 per cent drop in prices nationwide next year. The RPX, one of several competing measures of housing prices, indicates that home values nationwide have slipped 5 per cent since September 30.

Prices around Los Angeles and Miami are expected to fall 19 per cent between last September and next. That may seem steep but in one former bubble market, Las Vegas, housing prices shot up 40 per cent in 2004 alone. In regions such as those that experienced speculative booms, the cycle has not yet played out. Significant additional markdowns next year are still warranted.

Pending home sales nationwide have unexpectedly risen now for two months. Those numbers do not presage a recovery but they suggest the staggering market may finally be finding a foothold. Prices will continue to slide next year, and certain regions with heavy subprime concentration are sure to be hit even harder than expected. But with bail-outs and lower interest rates filtering in, a broad-based freefall is unlikely.

[RatherOpinionated]

I’m just reporting one company’s opinion, not suggesting it to be the gospel

********************************

Homes are on sale across the US at prices that would have sparked stampedes three years ago. But buyers are wary. With foreclosures accelerating and asset values expected to slide further in 2008, why buy a house now when prices look likely to drop even more?

As everyone probes for the market’s floor, a range of factors is pushing prices down. Builders are discounting units to clear out inventory and generate cash but their last round of sharp price cuts failed to boost sales. The stockpile of unsold existing homes has grown by 59 per cent in two years to 4.45m. Buyers are skittish over the health of the economy and are finding it harder to secure mortgages. And President George W. Bush’s subprime relief proposal will help only a specific band of homeowners.

Derivatives priced off the Residential Property Index, a new gauge of residential real estate values, imply an 8.2 per cent drop in prices nationwide next year. The RPX, one of several competing measures of housing prices, indicates that home values nationwide have slipped 5 per cent since September 30.

Prices around Los Angeles and Miami are expected to fall 19 per cent between last September and next. That may seem steep but in one former bubble market, Las Vegas, housing prices shot up 40 per cent in 2004 alone. In regions such as those that experienced speculative booms, the cycle has not yet played out. Significant additional markdowns next year are still warranted.

Pending home sales nationwide have unexpectedly risen now for two months. Those numbers do not presage a recovery but they suggest the staggering market may finally be finding a foothold. Prices will continue to slide next year, and certain regions with heavy subprime concentration are sure to be hit even harder than expected. But with bail-outs and lower interest rates filtering in, a broad-based freefall is unlikely.

[RatherOpinionated]

I’m just reporting one company’s opinion, not suggesting it to be the gospel

********************************

Homes are on sale across the US at prices that would have sparked stampedes three years ago. But buyers are wary. With foreclosures accelerating and asset values expected to slide further in 2008, why buy a house now when prices look likely to drop even more?

As everyone probes for the market’s floor, a range of factors is pushing prices down. Builders are discounting units to clear out inventory and generate cash but their last round of sharp price cuts failed to boost sales. The stockpile of unsold existing homes has grown by 59 per cent in two years to 4.45m. Buyers are skittish over the health of the economy and are finding it harder to secure mortgages. And President George W. Bush’s subprime relief proposal will help only a specific band of homeowners.

Derivatives priced off the Residential Property Index, a new gauge of residential real estate values, imply an 8.2 per cent drop in prices nationwide next year. The RPX, one of several competing measures of housing prices, indicates that home values nationwide have slipped 5 per cent since September 30.

Prices around Los Angeles and Miami are expected to fall 19 per cent between last September and next. That may seem steep but in one former bubble market, Las Vegas, housing prices shot up 40 per cent in 2004 alone. In regions such as those that experienced speculative booms, the cycle has not yet played out. Significant additional markdowns next year are still warranted.

Pending home sales nationwide have unexpectedly risen now for two months. Those numbers do not presage a recovery but they suggest the staggering market may finally be finding a foothold. Prices will continue to slide next year, and certain regions with heavy subprime concentration are sure to be hit even harder than expected. But with bail-outs and lower interest rates filtering in, a broad-based freefall is unlikely.

[RatherOpinionated]

I’m just reporting one company’s opinion, not suggesting it to be the gospel

********************************

Homes are on sale across the US at prices that would have sparked stampedes three years ago. But buyers are wary. With foreclosures accelerating and asset values expected to slide further in 2008, why buy a house now when prices look likely to drop even more?

As everyone probes for the market’s floor, a range of factors is pushing prices down. Builders are discounting units to clear out inventory and generate cash but their last round of sharp price cuts failed to boost sales. The stockpile of unsold existing homes has grown by 59 per cent in two years to 4.45m. Buyers are skittish over the health of the economy and are finding it harder to secure mortgages. And President George W. Bush’s subprime relief proposal will help only a specific band of homeowners.

Derivatives priced off the Residential Property Index, a new gauge of residential real estate values, imply an 8.2 per cent drop in prices nationwide next year. The RPX, one of several competing measures of housing prices, indicates that home values nationwide have slipped 5 per cent since September 30.

Prices around Los Angeles and Miami are expected to fall 19 per cent between last September and next. That may seem steep but in one former bubble market, Las Vegas, housing prices shot up 40 per cent in 2004 alone. In regions such as those that experienced speculative booms, the cycle has not yet played out. Significant additional markdowns next year are still warranted.

Pending home sales nationwide have unexpectedly risen now for two months. Those numbers do not presage a recovery but they suggest the staggering market may finally be finding a foothold. Prices will continue to slide next year, and certain regions with heavy subprime concentration are sure to be hit even harder than expected. But with bail-outs and lower interest rates filtering in, a broad-based freefall is unlikely.

[RatherOpinionated]

I’m just reporting one company’s opinion, not suggesting it to be the gospel

********************************

Homes are on sale across the US at prices that would have sparked stampedes three years ago. But buyers are wary. With foreclosures accelerating and asset values expected to slide further in 2008, why buy a house now when prices look likely to drop even more?

As everyone probes for the market’s floor, a range of factors is pushing prices down. Builders are discounting units to clear out inventory and generate cash but their last round of sharp price cuts failed to boost sales. The stockpile of unsold existing homes has grown by 59 per cent in two years to 4.45m. Buyers are skittish over the health of the economy and are finding it harder to secure mortgages. And President George W. Bush’s subprime relief proposal will help only a specific band of homeowners.

Derivatives priced off the Residential Property Index, a new gauge of residential real estate values, imply an 8.2 per cent drop in prices nationwide next year. The RPX, one of several competing measures of housing prices, indicates that home values nationwide have slipped 5 per cent since September 30.

Prices around Los Angeles and Miami are expected to fall 19 per cent between last September and next. That may seem steep but in one former bubble market, Las Vegas, housing prices shot up 40 per cent in 2004 alone. In regions such as those that experienced speculative booms, the cycle has not yet played out. Significant additional markdowns next year are still warranted.

Pending home sales nationwide have unexpectedly risen now for two months. Those numbers do not presage a recovery but they suggest the staggering market may finally be finding a foothold. Prices will continue to slide next year, and certain regions with heavy subprime concentration are sure to be hit even harder than expected. But with bail-outs and lower interest rates filtering in, a broad-based freefall is unlikely.

[Bugs]

Never mind.

I had a post, but it was basically just a repeat of the prior post. Basic supply/demand. We have way more supply than demand at these prices, and this imbalance can only be reconciled via either reducing the price structure or convincing the speculators that there’s money to be made in the next 6 months via an influx of more stupid buyers and stupid lenders. No upside = no investors, which means that the remaining pricing is strictly limited to how much the buyers make and their ability to service a mortgage made under conventional terms.

We all know where that level of pricing is and we already know that we have a ways to go before we get there.

[Bugs]

Never mind.

I had a post, but it was basically just a repeat of the prior post. Basic supply/demand. We have way more supply than demand at these prices, and this imbalance can only be reconciled via either reducing the price structure or convincing the speculators that there’s money to be made in the next 6 months via an influx of more stupid buyers and stupid lenders. No upside = no investors, which means that the remaining pricing is strictly limited to how much the buyers make and their ability to service a mortgage made under conventional terms.

We all know where that level of pricing is and we already know that we have a ways to go before we get there.

[Bugs]

Never mind.

I had a post, but it was basically just a repeat of the prior post. Basic supply/demand. We have way more supply than demand at these prices, and this imbalance can only be reconciled via either reducing the price structure or convincing the speculators that there’s money to be made in the next 6 months via an influx of more stupid buyers and stupid lenders. No upside = no investors, which means that the remaining pricing is strictly limited to how much the buyers make and their ability to service a mortgage made under conventional terms.

We all know where that level of pricing is and we already know that we have a ways to go before we get there.

[Bugs]

Never mind.

I had a post, but it was basically just a repeat of the prior post. Basic supply/demand. We have way more supply than demand at these prices, and this imbalance can only be reconciled via either reducing the price structure or convincing the speculators that there’s money to be made in the next 6 months via an influx of more stupid buyers and stupid lenders. No upside = no investors, which means that the remaining pricing is strictly limited to how much the buyers make and their ability to service a mortgage made under conventional terms.

We all know where that level of pricing is and we already know that we have a ways to go before we get there.

[Bugs]

Never mind.

I had a post, but it was basically just a repeat of the prior post. Basic supply/demand. We have way more supply than demand at these prices, and this imbalance can only be reconciled via either reducing the price structure or convincing the speculators that there’s money to be made in the next 6 months via an influx of more stupid buyers and stupid lenders. No upside = no investors, which means that the remaining pricing is strictly limited to how much the buyers make and their ability to service a mortgage made under conventional terms.

We all know where that level of pricing is and we already know that we have a ways to go before we get there.

[sdrealtor]

I participate in a monthly survey by BofA Housing market analysts. In return for my participation they send me a couple of the results with market by market analysis.

The long and short of it is homebuilders are dropping prices and its not working.

[Author]

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