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September 27, 2007 at 8:43 AM in reply to: VOTE: state of the bubble collapse, Worse, OR Better than your expectation? #86085September 27, 2007 at 8:28 AM in reply to: VOTE: state of the bubble collapse, Worse, OR Better than your expectation? #86080
farbet
ParticipantECONOMIC REPORT
New-home sales plunge 8.3% to seven-year low
Median sales price down 7.5% in past year, biggest drop in 37 years
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Sales of new homes dropped 8.3% in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 795,000, the slowest sales since June 2000, the Commerce Department estimated Thursday.
Sales are now down 21.2% in the past year, with no sign of a bottom in the crippled housing market. Read the full government report.
August’s sales pace was weaker than the 825,000 expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. See Economic Calendar. In addition, sales in May, June and July were revised lower.
The sales figures do not account for canceled sales contracts.
The median sales price fell 7.5% to $225,700 compared with a year earlier, the largest year-over-year decline in 37 years. The median price can be affected by the mix of homes sold between and within regions, and the price does not include nonmonetary incentives, such as upgrades, free vacations and new cars.WORSE WORSER WORST.
ParticipantThey are really creepy. Follow you around asking “used car sales techniques” questions,trying to check you out if you get my drift.has opposite effects
ParticipantThis a sick thread. Get an Fing life
ParticipantI am thinking of buying 4 or 5 shacks in San Ysidro. Tearing them down and build a MAC Mansion.
Talk about cultural diversity.
Santee has too many gifted and talented folks who can’t pay the prices.ParticipantLittle lady Go live in Santee please. Another area where Mission Impossible is Venzano in San Elijio Hills
ParticipantIts the Mission Possible hype.I am sure it’s a bust
September 23, 2007 at 11:16 AM in reply to: Broker sentenced to 28 years for mortgage fraud in Atlanta #85613ParticipantWhatever happened to Super Jennae and her shennanigans in Carlsbad?
Any follow ups from thos that were manipulating the system?Participant“It’s so bad that even a crooked appraiser can’t make it look stable”.I totally agree Bugs
There are some greater fools are still plunking down in Carmel Valley. They claim they are doing it becuse of the great schools. Asians of courseParticipantAny updates at Mission Possible-was it a bust at the various standard pacific sites um models
ParticipantNot all sellers have come around to the new reality. “We have homes overpriced by $300,000 or $400,000 out of just pure insistence,” she said
and the rest of the story(wish the Union tribune could write articles like this.ParticipantWhat must be going through the minds of those that “bought” at the height of the must buy mentality frenzy of the past few years? They just sit and wait or walk away …
One would be a greater fool to rush in and snap these houses up.The builders are feeling the pain a little.When will homeowners gonna feel the pain.Bailout thoughts you think?
Then again there is always a sucker…
Do you think the discussion today are about “what a killing I made in real estate ,or how much equity is in the house-I can get the Hummer or the boob job,or vacation in Tahiti”??
ParticipantBuyer be where?
Axel Koester / For the Times
IT ALL HAS TO GO: Standard Pacific Homes’ Diamond Ridge development in Victorville is one of the company’s 49 SoCal properties that are part of a “Mission: Possible” ten-day blowout home sales event.
Builders find interest low despite hefty incentives
By Andrea Chang, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 15, 2007
It was supposed to be a blowout sale for home builder Standard Pacific Corp.For days, the Irvine company has been touting its “Mission: Possible” extravaganza in 49 communities throughout Southern California, with bonuses for buyers totaling as much as $20 million. Standard Pacific is aiming to sell 200 homes by offering mortgage loans with rates of less than 6% and other perks, including a free 42-inch plasma-screen television with every home purchase.
But in Victorville on Friday, the blowout looked more like a washout. Only a trickle of potential buyers showed up on the first day of the 10-day event.
Like Standard Pacific, home builders around the country are hosting everything-must-go sales — complete with giveaways and promises of discounts so free-flowing that all homes would be unloaded in a weekend.
The stakes are high for builders. After a construction frenzy, they are faced with a swelling collection of unsold homes as lenders have tightened their standards and speculative buying has cooled. Last month was the worst August in 15 years for Southland home sales, and prices in most communities in the region fell.
To lure potential buyers, builders are offering extras such as free appliances as well as heavy discounts on home prices. Hovnanian Enterprises Inc., for example, is holding a Deal of the Century sale this weekend in 19 states, including California, with price cuts of as much as $100,000 and other goodies.
The sales promotions “show the builders are serious about moving inventory,” said Patrick S. Duffy, a principal at Los Angeles-based Metro Intelligence, a building industry consultant. “They’re trying everything.”
But the perks didn’t seem to be attracting much interest in two newly developed Victorville communities on the first day of Standard Pacific’s sale. Only a handful of prospects, although more than usual for a Friday, stopped by the sales offices of neighboring communities Diamond Ridge and Crystal Spring, which were decorated with colorful banners and posters proclaiming the event.
Inside one sales office, agents set out cookies, candy and bottled water for shoppers and chirped about a daily drawing for a $500 gift card. Outside, spiffed up the merchandise, installing windows, painting stucco and laying sidewalk.
“They’re beautiful homes, but there’s a catch,” said Tracy Davenport, 31, of Victorville, who viewed the sample properties with her mother, Frances.
Davenport, who owns a day-care center, said it seemed clear the agents were anxious to make a sale. Despite offers of $75,000 in discounts, mother and daughter left the sales event shortly after arriving.
“They’re desperate because they’ve got to make money,” she said. “They’re trying to get rid of them.”
The bonuses did impress some potential buyers.
“That’s a heck of an incentive,” said one woman as she rushed out of the Diamond Ridge sales office clutching paperwork.
The nationwide housing slump has made potential buyers wary of entering the market now, with many instead preferring to wait it out.
A few years ago, the housing market was pumped up by the availability of unconventional home loans that allowed many previously unqualified consumers to buy houses. To serve the flood of new buyers, builders quickly jumped on board. .
“They built toward what the demand was at the time,” Duffy said. “With the disappearing of the financing, what would have become supply-demand equilibrium now becomes overbuilding.”
To stay competitive, other builders are holding similar events this weekend. Hovnanian of Red Bank, N.J., is providing refreshments and live music at its Santa Clarita sale, where “bonus-boosting extras” for potential buyers include as much as $20,000 in incentives, a free refrigerator, washer and dryer, miniblinds and landscaping.
Standard Pacific, which did not return calls seeking comment, had been offering deep discounts even before the start of the sale.
The strategy worked on Julia Peña and her husband, who bought a home in Diamond Ridge a month ago after being offered $40,000 in incentives as well as a $10,000 reduction in the sale price.
Peña, a homemaker, said she didn’t know why the builder offered — unprompted — to cut the price of the five-bedroom home, “but I liked it.”
“They gave us a good deal,” Peña, 36, said. “We were so happy — it worked out for us.”
A month ago, Juan Ramirez bought a Diamond Ridge home for $388,000 after the builder offered him a free washer and dryer and $30,000 in incentives, which he used to upgrade the carpeting and tile in the five-bedroom home. Although the juice-bar owner was worried that the home’s value would decrease, it was too good of a deal to pass up, he said.
“You’ve got to take a chance to see what happens,” Ramirez, 40, said.
But others weren’t convinced. As she left the sale with her daughter, passing by a fence draped with a “Mission: Possible” banner, Frances Davenport expressed doubt that the builder would reach its goal.
“It’s an impossible mission,” she said. “They’re saying possible, but I think it’s impossible.”
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ParticipantRe SEH.If you go in to the builders they try to sugarcoat it.They all play dumb and(deaf) on the tax question. I am from the East coast and nearly made a huge mistake in SEH.
Stay away from this opressive tax I say.ParticipantOC Renter is right on the money(as usual)
IS there anything that can be done to protest the high Mello Roos? I was told by a realtor a few months back that the Mello Roos will be reduced in SEH as the developments are finished. Also there is a surplus in the Mello ROOS Fund.The Jonville team- can’t remember her name.
Why aren’t residents in SEH protesting this high tax burden.Like vote the bastards out.Let the Builders pay 50% of the tax etc. Most of them are young families- how do they justify living there?
What say ye El Jafe!!! -
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