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August 25, 2006 at 9:47 AM in reply to: Another KPBS (89.5 FM) program on the SD housing market #33199
powayseller
ParticipantI love it! The contrarians like Rich and us on this forum, will go down in history as the smart ones. The longer these people are wrong, the better for us. And don’t worry about them keeping the market going – it is not helping. The market turned down in spite of the RE cheerleaders.
ParticipantThis story deserves its own thread. Mind if I post it?
ParticipantWhat is the futures market’s expected decline for San Diego?
Participantwaiting hawk, the peak prices for condos was the spring of 04. SFH peaked a year later. Just goes to show: real estate is a slow moving ship. It took over one year for the downturn to move from condos to SFH.
August 25, 2006 at 7:58 AM in reply to: Looking for honest suggestions and strategies for selling a condo in this tough market #33168ParticipantWhat’s the diff bet/ months inventory and active/pending? Is it that active/pending is more current, since months inventory uses sales, which are lagging since they were entered into contract 1-2 months earlier. However, many pendings fall out of escrow, so it this a reliable measure?
ParticipantI have another listing on my little street, 2 doors down from the current townhome. (Realtors, it’s Creek Park Lane).
I stopped by during the realtor Open House yesterday, where not a single realtor stopped by. The listing agent told me he was holding a broker tour, and when the owner returned home, saying, “You told me to go out for an hour”, he said the broker tour was winding down. There wasn’t a single broker who came by! At least he was honest, and didn’t say there were any coming by.
I chatted with the owner, my neighbor, and she said that SD has a strong economy, esp. in defense contracting and the military.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that military families don’t have the income to buy $540K townhouses.
The identical floorplan 2 houses down is reduced now to $499K. It has been on the market since February. The new listing is a little nicer, corner lot and nicer yard, but same old 1980’s kitchen. What do you think these townhouses are worth, realtors? My guess is mid 400s.
Participantcawireman, Poway is awfully hot! Our A/C ran throughout the night. My house that I sold was on a crappy, narrow, steep, part-dirt road. Let’s call a spade, a spade. We moved to Poway only for the schools. Now what I like is the absence of builder tract subdivisions, and the large area of open space and trails. The zoning in Poway is awesome, but it does get real hot.
Somehow, Poway has managed to keep a good reputation, even though it is east of I-5. Why? The schools, the City in the Country feel that it maintains?
ParticipantGrowing up, my husband and I learned that grades, sex, and money are private matters.
ParticipantHey, did you read how to make links? Enclose your link in quotation marks, then enclose the entire thing in greater than and less than signs, like this. I have to use {} in place of greater than or less than signs.
{a href=”URL”} Name you want us to see goes here {/a}
Pretty easy, huh? But use < and > instead of { and }
Keep this on a cheat sheet everyone, and you’re set to go….
Participantbarnaby, I wonder too if people exaggerate their incomes, or if only people earning over $100K/year come to piggington. How much do software engineers earn anyway, assuming they are in management? I think it’s $120K max for an engineer. Don’t we have any median type of people here?
DarylK, what would you advise David to do about the house? Are you planning any layoffs over there or is his job secure?
waiting hawk, you’ve really got to go shopping with me. I bet you’re real hot, but who would know in those costco jeans?
ParticipantWhy do you say it’s happening quickly? The downturn started in the summer of 2004, so it has been in process for 2 years. Inventory doubled from 3,000 in March 2004 to 6,000 in June 2004, and then doubled again to 12,000 in September 2004.
The inventory doubled because buyers were squeezed out. Prices were getting too high for first time buyers.
Lenders are even more lax than ever, and the Fed funds rate does not affect the exotic loans. So I don’t buy the story that the Fed’s raising of interest rates started the slowdown. I think, and I don’t really know, that prices were simply too high and people couldn’t afford to buy.
The ripple effect of longer times on market started at the low end, and
took over one year to get to the mid end.From preliminary data, isn’t August holding up fairly well? Sales are the same as July, so they are not decreasing further.
I have some ideas for why it appears to be happening faster this time. Exotic loans are leading to foreclosures among new and older homeowners, putting more motivated sellers and REOs on the market. More speculators this time created a greater frenzy and perhaps more building, creating a further glut of condos and homes. This cycle is national in scope, so the impact of cooling housing is having a stronger effect. Internet via blogs like this and realty web sites are speeding the flow of information; consider how many potential buyers chose to rent thanks to piggington. I can think of a couple people who cancelled their escrow due to getting data about housing from this website.
Last, and MOST important: with prices so much higher this time, we have 50,000 people per year leaving San Diego, shrinking the pool of buyers. Did people leave San Diego before the layoffs in the last cycle? No, they left due to the layoffs. Likewise, when construction workers and lenders lose their jobs, they may leave too. But notice that in this cycle, people are leaving BEFORE the recession, simply due to the high prices. We can’t attract people to come here. “Hardly anyone wants to live in San Diego” is more like it, as few are willing to pay 50% of their income on shelter. At today’s prices, fewer and fewer people are coming here, and more are leaving. I think the exodus of middle wage earners has the greatest negative impact on housing prices, but it is not discussed in the media at all.
The high prices were the cause of the bubble popping, as 1) people couldn’t afford the loans anymore, and 2)people started moving away selling their homes to cash out or plain refusing to pay so much to a mortgage. It was just too expensive to live here, so buyers started moving away. If the media ever covers this, it will make my day!
On a related note, we need some accurate forecasters, because our government officials have got to be educated on the dire situation facing us so they can act with a proper plan. If we could get a meeting with the County officials, we could perhaps persuade them to provide incentives for companies to come here. We can solve the housing issue with our knowledge that prices will drop a lot in the next few years, thus attracting workers who would be willing to rent for a couple years. It is critical to bring in recession proof businesses as soon as possible, so we can minimize the impact of the recession. Esp. biotech.. gov’t officials have to be prepared for less revenue in sales tax, property tax, and human suffering that goes along with foreclosures and bankruptcies (homelessness, suicide, bankruptcy counseling, social services). They must realize the population exodus, but I am afraid they do not. If they pay Alan Gin for forecasting, they still
believe this is all temporary. This is a huge disservice to our population. Does anyone want to get together with me to schedule a meeting with city or county officials?Schahrzad Berkland
Participant1) Rent
2) Yes, sold 1/06
3) After the peak, but only about 5% below peak value
4) piggington
5) undecidedThe reason we have intellectuals and no bitterness here is because of the intellectual leadership (yeah, Rich). His style, the charts and data, attract rational, intelligent people. I really believe it is the emphasis on data that has kept the atmosphere calm.
ParticipantThis property is not listed on foreclosure.com. Without a pre-foreclosure or foreclosure status, it is obviously a sales gimmick.
Manhattan Beach has 18 pre- and foreclosure properties.
No area is immune.
Next week, after my kids return to school, I will do a study of beach communities, unless one of our realtors has the information for us before that. I am interested in the declines so far,and what happened in the last downturn to areas within 3 blocks of the beach.
I am also interested in how much faster builder tract subdivisions lose their value. I was told that anything east of the I-5 is considered sub-par by long-time San Diego residents. The cool properties are west of the I-5. Can anyone confirm that? This friend said exceptions are for old money areas of Poway,e tc. She said newbies to San Diego flock to the McMansions in San Marcos, Escondido, Carmel Valley, but they are nothing special, and native San Diegans shun these places. Any comments?
An area in Poway, called the Grove, is like that. Large homes on 1/2 – 1 acre lots or larger, priced starting at $1.5 mil. Sterile, boring neighborhood. Every house looks the same practically. Palm trees here and there,but no character, no big trees. I would NEVER even rent in the Grove. The gate is so pompous. My friend had her purse stolen one morning, from the top of her car. What good was the gate? Give me Green Valley, a 1970’s neighborhood, with architecturally distinct homes, custom homes, no two alike, any day of the week. That is my dream neighborhood. Trails, a creek, lots of large trees, large lots. Never could see why anybody would buy a hey-I=look-just-like-you type of tract house. Especially when they are so close together. Even the ones far apart are hideous. I hope builders will get back to being craftsmen, instead of slapping together a bunch of wood without any creativity at all. Boring boring boring. My pet peeve is builder tract homes. A real dishonor to the name “builder”.
August 24, 2006 at 5:43 PM in reply to: 1 year ago — “Real estate guru: Local housing market stable” #33090ParticipantUTC Renter, what about Thornberg’s comments make sense to you? He predicting flat prices until wages catch up. He even had a false chart in his report, with no sources, and it falsely showed San Diego housing prices staying flat in the 1990’s downturn. He says some good things, but on real estate, he is way off base. he never mentions exotic lending, and he says a bubble bursting does NOT mean prices drop,because they will NOT drop. A bubble bursting means prices stop rising until fundamentals catch up.
I wrote a 3 part analysis debunking Thornberg’s forecast. There is way too much wrong with it to rewrite it all here. Check the archives or ocrenter’s site for it.
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