Monday Open Thread
This is your open thread for today. Please post random links and off-topic discussions here.
Off-topic comment? Interesting link?
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6 comments:
I see that ziprealty.com reports 91 listings for my area (east Bellevue, 98008) this morning. We've finally crossed the 90 mark after being as low at 45 back in April.
But maybe this is just normal to see an increase in inventory during the fall. I recall Meshugy said that an inventory rise in October wouldn't be abnormal.
Wow! According to the graph in the WSJ article Synthetik linked to, it shows that the number of listings in Seattle DECREASED from August to September. Is this true?
It certainly isn't what I've been seeing in east Bellevue, but maybe King County is seeing a different trend.
Wow, Synthetik. 28% and 30% price reduced is bad news in Houston and Dallas, where prices didn't run up all that much to begin with.
I'm surprised to see DC at only 32% price reduced, given how much inventory has gone up there...unless it's ONLY the district they're talking about, and excluding NoVa and southern MD.
From my favorite macro-economic blog...
The Housing Market - Plateau of Denial
We keep reading about rising rents in Manhattan and San Francisco. Fine--there is still a shortage of available units in those small, hard-to-add-units spots with strong job markets and desirable amenities. But the overbuilding didn't occur in Manhattan or San Francisco; the imbalances lie elsewhere, and that's where the pain will be felt first.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blog.html
I agree that many people simply can't sell their current homes, since they would be under-water (i.e. owe more than they could sell it for).
As a result, I think that the real price declines won't happen until existing home-owners are forced out of their homes through foreclosure. The same thing goes for builders. Builders can only discount so much before they wouldn't make enough to pay their debts. It is only after the lenders re-possess the homes (from builders or otherwise) and start selling them that we will see real price declines occur.
I have been reading about cases throughout the US where even homes coming up for auction at the county court-houses (due to foreclosure) don't sell because the buyers would have to assume the existing mortgages, which are often more than what the place is worth.
Things will have to go to the next stage, where the reposession is complete, and the lenders are desperate to unload all the properties on their books.
Who knows, we might have to wait for the lenders themselves to go belly up before we see the big price declines. Many lenders may be reluctant to accept low prices for their properties because that would require write-downs in their books. The Japanese banks give a wonderful case-study in this phenomena, where they refuse to liquidate assets since they are trying to prop-up the book-values of their loansl.
Maybe we will need a Resolution Trust Corporation 2.0?
In any event, I am thinking that serious price declines will be many years off, and will NOT be offered by today's crop of owners.
Another Seattle condo article, about square footage... but there's some gems in the word-bytes...
About 90 percent of condominiums at 2200, a mixed-use development in Seattle, sold before the sales center was open for business, said Julie McAvoy, sales director
Hmmm.... empty nesters or young urban professionals? ... or as I call it The Phantom Menace aka, out-of-state specuvestors, finding the last bastion of flippable territory in the U.S., where the bizarre ritual of bidding wars is somehow still carried out like some farflung jungle right-to-manhood ritual...
Here's a fun one at the end
"Don't just pick the unit you know that fits you today; pick one that fits you two years from now when it'll be complete," she said. "Look at the bigger picture."
The primary attraction for presale buyers is clear.
Said Jones: "You're shopping in 2008 at today's prices."
Shopping in 2008 at today's prices? Ohhhh, the irony. Hmmm... I realize condos are the only logical way onto the equity ladder, and you're really a fool not to buy now, but what does the smart money say?
The developers filed plans with the city in August to replace the 53-year-old building with two 28-story condo towers, but decided not to build because they had concerns about the current market and found a tenant to lease the entire building for more than 10 years, Wilson said Monday.
nahnahnahnah... I don't hear you smart money... nahahahahaha
//fingers in ears
The developers being...
Broadreach Capital Partners of Palo Alto, Calif.; Continental Properties, of Bellevue; and Seattle-based Unico Properties
Hmmm...
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