rallydog wrote: "In a recent phone conversation with Bank of America (BAC), a supervisor in the short sale department informed me that they have 8 million loans under water trying to modify. Many of these will eventually end up in foreclosure." :eek:
(1) I would never listen to anything a real estate agent or NAR has to say about the RE market. Their bias is clear and they have no problem lying through their teeth to pump up the market. (2) Gov't programs are placing an artificial demand on housing right now in terms of buyers tax credits and low mortgage rates. The days are numbered for those. (3) Lots of shadow inventory and new foreclosures are still looming that will keep prices depressed for quite some time. Any bidding wars that are going on right now are no doubt caused by people trying to lock in favorable terms with respect to item (2). It won't last.
Just because the banks are holding back on foreclosure in hopes of delaying write downs, and the remaining foreclosure on the market are getting a slight bid under them does not spell recovery. I live in LA and can drive down any street and see vacant homes with foreclosure brown front yards. Once the banks are forced to dump these homes and inventories of these trashed foreclosures hit the market comps will continue lower.
The market is hot??? hahah It is probably hot in certain cities and towns around the US but the overall market is still hurting. So what if there were 7 bids on the house and that it sold for more than it was listed. Were in October and many are still rushing in to get that huge $8000 worth of monopoly tax credit before it expires in November. I have read that nearly 500,000 houses were sold because of this credit, without that credit the market would have suffered even more, aside from that if the tax credit isn't increased or extended (I think it will be increased and extended) you are going to see even more setbacks in housing. Everyone thinks things are going to come back like they were in 2001-2007 when prices of houses were jumping 10-25%+ in a year, that's not happening anytime soon, any idiot who is in a bidding war buying houses even 5% higher than what they are listed for is a fool.
If the tourism industry is suffering this bad it can't bode well for the real estate market in California. California Hotel Foreclosures Triple in Travel Slump http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a5nTehuUgKfQ All you're seeing in Caliornia is bumps along the road. Nothing goes down forever. Think of it as a stock. Even the worst of stocks have dead cat bounces. I will say, if you have $1 million plus, you can get a fantastic deal on a house. The $500K market here is completely out of touch with reality. Just as home prices overshot to the upside, you will see them overcorrect to the downside. Wouldn't touch any house in Cali till I see it at 2000 levels. Banks still have 7.5 million units in shadow inventory nationwide they haven't unloaded yet. They are hoping for another FED bailout to swallow these. Look for housing market to flatline for the next decade after the bottom is hit sometime in 2011.
According to a 60-minute expose several months back, a new wider and broader range of foreclosures will be upon us in Q1, 2010, when a lot of ARM rate changes come due. This could become another real estate/financial tidal wave.
There's always going to be another wave of ARM reset as long as ARMs are being written. This is not news.
only in that they were written right along with the subprimes...and written en masse. So now people think the "worst" is over when it's mostly a lull before round 2 hits...
+1 Still see realtors around my area who don't get it and continue to try and sell homes "traditionally"... Average TOM around here (Mass.) is 7-9 months...if you're in foreclosure along the way, good luck!