Real Estate and foreclosure thread

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Another walk & talk with Michael and his wife. In Sonoma.

23:29

Daily average mortgage rates reached 7.78% as of September 27th, according to Bankrate. Amid the high rates, the median monthly mortgage payment for September hit $2,661, Redfin reported. That figure represented a 12% rise from the previous year and Redfin's highest median mortgage payment on record.
 
VD,
Running some market numbers this am for a potential client here in SC... custom home built in 2020 5/4 almost 3k sq ft, unique lot backing up to a horse pasture, beautiful pool, woods on each side at end of a road, no hoa. Would have been 1.2 or more a year ago, now? Heck I have no idea. No homes sold on the street in 2+ years, the "z" says 900k, but some exiling yankee might pay 1.1 to have a three year old ready to place.... comps are stale as the most recent close in their actual area was june 2021.

So 5% down is duck soup, we swing more than that most mornings...
 
Broader numbers/markets are always going to swing much slower than specific markets. Law of averages and all.

Welcome to my world. I never have enough or any decent comp sales. Only going to get worse now. Just widen your search a bit and look for the major variables. Site, GLA, Quality, Basement, garage etc.
 

Vichris said:
Isn't Blackstone heavily invested in commercial real estate??? Shit meet fan......
Click to expand...

Now we are seeing the violence inherent in the system...


More:

Blackstone's Massive CRE REIT Records Eleven Months Of Outflows | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero
www.zerohedge.com
 
Another walk & talk. Michael is in Little Rock, AR for this one.

This is HOW YOU KNOW THEY’RE LYING…​

Oct 15, 2023

24:10

We are being lied to over the past year that the housing market is in good shape from home builders, real estate agents and mortgage brokers and lenders. We're being told the market is great and don't worry about rates you can always refinance, but in the background all these groups are lobbying the FED basically begging them to stop hiking interest rates and offloading their balance sheet. Whats going on?

Articles Mentioned in the Video
https://www.floridarealtors.org/news-...
https://apple.news/A_zN7YjGUQ0mKhNSD_...
https://apple.news/AfB92yEqURCSd95R7f...
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/10/housi...
 
Voodoo said:
Leaked Lennar conference call saying that they've noted the big turn in the market and can't sell homes.

Click to expand...
Hey VD,
Lennar shot themselves in the foot during the housing spike, only giving buying agents 1%. Agents in droves agreed to never deal with them again, myself included. Arrogant, demanding and totally non customer friendly... so in a word, no tears shed over their collective demise.
 
Seems about right. I just can't believe the stock market is not seeing the obvious. What's the best large builder? Or are any of them decent.
 
We bought horton, but knew the salesperson and the super, went emerald when it still existed. So with weekly inspections and lots of arm twisting we did ok, others in our sub division didn't fare as well. Here Toll brothers does a good job, but they are 15% higher for same level homes. Dan ryan, pulte, centex are all just ok...

Most over 55 stuff here is just a rip off
 
Ya, I wonder about a place like The Villages. They've built a ton of homes but they do it all in-house. Running their own construction firms to their own agents.
 
Real estate agents want 6% total to facilitate the transfer of what is the most significant thing most people own. Most of the agents out there barely have any experience and bring almost no value to the transaction.

Hopefully in a few years AI will take over the walking thru of the transaction process for the majority of transactions. I would say purchasing a new home is an area where an agent is least needed.

Parasites might need to find a new host....RIP
 
Wife and I have sold two homes; both without an agent.
First time was 2008, via two different lawyers. It cost each party about $1,300 CDN.
Last sale was a year ago and both parties used the same lawyer. Total cost $2,200 split two ways.
No real estate agent involved either time. From first hand experience, they are entirely unnecessary unless you’re selling shit or trying to buy a unicorn.
 
That is actually a pretty accurate summation.

I have bought once and sold twice - my own and my parents' house. All times I used a real estate agent.

I bought in Erie County, NY (Buffalo and suburbs) and New York is one of the place you scarcely DARE to buy without a lawyer. Even then it's no guarantee - my land, not a large plot, was surveyed into 38 "parcels" scarcely larger than cemetery plots. And the title deed neglected to list, identify or abstract, three in the center.

There was no mystery about the land - it had been owned by Millard Fillmore; the abstract was detailed. No easements, no tribal claims. The attorney just couldn't be bothered to research the land; and the clerks couldn't be bothered to check their work.

I did get it straightened out, but since I wasn't waving money at the attorney, it took plenty of time and noise.

Selling the house was a revelation. I had had several agents from other realty companies come to show the house, and dumber women I have never MET, outside of institutions. I was doing the selling - putting on the show. The agents, mousy middle-aged women, were in the background.

Later, trying to find land to buy in Wisconsin, I was surprised to learn that most land sales are done off platt maps, and without a lawyer's involvement. At first I was suspicious; now, it seems a far better way to go. If you're in an area where you can trust people, anyway.

AI in an assisted-owner-sale setting, would be a true benefit to everyone. Even to those women - they could get meaningful jobs, at the Ford plant or as openers at McDonalds. Pay might be less (but maybe not, since I doubt many of them sell anything at all) but it would be fitting to their people skills.
 
Sadly, for agents and us most all they do is babysit people. There are still plenty of people who need that help. Six percent is real steep but remember WHO set that up. Look into the NAR (they get a cut of everything) and the bankers. That's who setup the system and you can be darn sure they knew how to get a good chunk of that 6% fee.
 
BJ,
You really don't get it....
Yes, there are a whole bunch of agents that bring no value to the transaction, this period will weed through those pretty quickly. Making this no different than a hundred other professions, from welders to teachers to lawyers to doctors to railroad workers to farmers raising beef to car salesman to independent investors to restaurant servers to cab drivers up to and including politicians... our world is full of under performers pretending to all that and a bag of chips...

So yes, the entirety of the real estate/ homebuilding/ surveying/ home repair/ appraisal/ home inspection/ home lending industries are about to see enormous change. Frankly its long overdue...

But don't for a minute believe the average person can really excel in self representation, you give people way too much credit, especially on the buyer side where bidding the right price on a correctly structured contract is the only way to get the good properties. So the self represented either pay too much, buy the dogs of the market or win a good one by chance... 2 to 3% is a bargain to avoid issues like mold, concealed defect, title issues or frankly deals to good to be true.

All I can tell you is that real money people, those flying significantly above the collective pmbugs pay grade all use really, really good agents... remember you don't have error & omission insurance, you sell something and don't disclose you can spend 30 to 50k in legal fees just getting started. An agent I know had a seller not properly disclose a known issue, cost the seller 32k out of pocket on an under 300k deal (10+%), beyond what seller / buyer agents E&O carriers dished out!
 
It's probably already been said here but real estate isn't going to move for now. Forced sales like divorce or job relocations will happen but that's about it. No one is going to trade that 3-4% mortgage for a 7-8% mortgage willingly.
I also find it interesting that people are complaining about a 7.5% mortgage rate when I actually have never known any less less than that in the 90's and mid 2000's. Just seemed normal to me. Last mortgage payment was 2005. Rents on average around the Col OH area are 2k a month plus so not sure why someone couldn't come up with a little more to buy a home. Obviously in demand areas like DC are pushing north of 4k a month for rents now.

I do agree that something needs to be done though. The bankers are thieves. They showed their true colors when they got a taxpayer bailout for 700 billion, breathed a sigh of relief and then wrote themselves bonus checks for a job well done.

So what's all this real estate really worth? My guess is about 10 cents on the dollar. Take away the 30 year mortgage and make people pay cash and that's about what it would work out too. maybe less even. 10 years ago a mortgage was 5 years. Now the front loaded interest heavy mortgages we have today have the 1st 5 years almost all interest. This way when you get up and move or get divorced and go to buy another home you get to do that all over again. It's such a rigged system in favor of the bankers that it is unimaginable how they could ever lose money.
I would propose that every mortgage have a clause in it explaining that the US debt load is barely sustainable and in the event of a debt collapse that the homes value could drop by as much as 90% from what people paid for them.
This debt based system is quickly running out of steam. That 2% annual mandate that congress has on the federal reserve was fine when the average pay was 4k annually or less in many cases. But nowadays a worker making 100 k annually who gets a 2% raise is getting another 2k a year. If it keeps pace with inflation that's fine but what happens when it doesn't or at certain times in ones career that 2% annual pay increase pushes someone into a higher tax bracket. That higher tax bracket negates the pay increases. IMO we have reached the maximum capacity for the balloon to be inflated and from here on out the air needs to be let out. I suspect that for many of us, this is it. We will never see prices as high as they are right now, ever again. The air in this bubble could take a decade or more to be let out.
 
Voodoo said:
28 year low Mortgage applications. The real price decline has likely started. All those hold-outs saying but. but. but are gonna finally see what we've been saying will happen.
Click to expand...
I agree, the decline is definitely coming. Once some new valuations hit the market people are going to wake up to the fact that lower prices are here. At 1st there will be reluctance but eventually people will realize it's time to get whatever they can.

In the end it will all depend on how long the fed can hold rates as high as they are. If the system doesn't crash the fed can hold rates higher for a very long time.
 
The appraisal, hired inspectors, and title attorney prevent all of your mentioned doom. You just proved my point. The agent has nothing to do with it. Other than possibly receiving kickbacks for referrals to those services thus increasing the price to their mark.

All the above don't even add up to near the cost of the scamming schlep carting around the poor suckers in their car that want 6% for basically nothing.

I know where I fit in with the "real money people" and I can assure you that most have a total disdain for agents, in common transactions, and only use specialty agents for unique deals. A new home builder certainly doesn't need to pay 3% for some ripoff artist to cart a buyer over to look at a market competitive deal. The buyers will find that builder all on their own.

I guess we just have to agree to disagree on this.
 
All the above assumes that your measuring tool, the dollar, is still going to continue its existence.
 
BF,
You jumped in claiming the average person can self represent, having never ridden with or interviewed a single buyer or seller. You have zero experience and first hand knowledge of the average skill set of todays market participants. You then claimed that especially buyers shouldn't use agents, in most cases the ones that need help most and since sellers here pay all commissions a service free to them...

But I get your point clearly, Since I've been cooking steak for 50 years and watched Bonanza as a kid, I can roll on down to your farm and run it just as well as you can cause you know anyone can raise cows....
 

More:

September home sales drop to the lowest level since the foreclosure crisis

There were 1.13 million homes for sale at the end of September, down more than 8% from a year ago.
www.cnbc.com
 
I probably bought at near the peak for what we were looking for about this time last year. And we weren't looking for the average home. We were looking for an acreage a bit off the beaten path, and we found exactly that. Probably a bit more home than we needed, but everything we wanted plus some. We paid cash so interest rates didn't play a factor. However, we also sold at about the peak this past spring too. Interest rates had just begun to creep up so it didn't play that much of a factor. Our home sold for the highest price ever on our block, and was bid up about 15% over our asking price. I think we got it all done just in the nick of time.
 

They Lost Their House to an HOA Foreclosure​

Oct 23, 2023

16:01

But the laws are changing in some places on this.
 
6% fees are negotiable, but you get what you pay for. Prices not dropping too much in FL, but number of units sold has. New construction here now starts around $200/sq ft under ac plus some deal sweeteners. In 2005 I was building homes for as little as $69 sq ft.

If you see the perfect house that youbwant you should buy it. If or when prices collapse those types of places with great views or perfect locations will not be available.
 
Another walk & talk. North Miami today.

Housing Market Predictions Continue TO BE WRONG​

Oct 25, 2023

22:29

The housing market predictions that experts have making this year have been very wrong. So wrong in fact that they are coming out with "revised" predictions for the end of the year, moving into next year in order to save some face.

*One thing..............housing prices aren't coming down around here.
 

More:

 
This one is a bit different. DYODD

Forget the 'death of downtowns' — we're about to experience the Big City Renaissance​

America's great cities are in a precarious spot.

As the workforce adapts to the pandemic-jumbled future, millions of people across the country are still not going into the office five days a week. In January, 41% of Americans were working from home for some or all of the week. Fewer people commuting into the office means fewer people spending on lunches and happy hours or stopping by retailers in downtown areas. It also means less property- and sales-tax revenue that cities depend on to fund important programs like schools and public transit. Add it all up, and the remote-work shift is costing downtowns a lot of cash. A recent analysis found that the shift to working from home cost the borough of Manhattan over $12 billion a year.

More:

Forget the 'death of downtowns' — we're about to experience the Big City Renaissance

Forget the "death of downtowns" or an "urban doom loop," big cities like New York City and San Francisco are about to experience a renaissance.
www.businessinsider.com
 
Complete, utter, bovine excrement.

First, the facts. The Elites are busily dumping TENS OF MILLIONS of third-world peasants into our nation. They're going where the Free Sh_t is going to be handed out; and where there are people they can steal from. Where they can sleep on sidewalks and in parks. CITIES.

Our cities are coming to resemble Calcutta of old. And it's deliberate - our Elites think that's a grand way to get and keep power.

Second...the trend. The WEF automatons salted into governments, are hot for those 15-Minute Cities - fenceless ghettos where your money and cards won't work when you cross their arbitrary lines. The first step to that is to create, in the minds of the sheeple, a Potemkin City - a bright and happy place, where you don't "need" to go anywhere.

This is their propagandists starting the first step in indoctrination and conditioning.

This is WHY today's mediuh is WORTHLESS...in fact, dangerous to mental health, as well as physical well-being.
 

Federal agencies maintain offices that sit mostly empty

A new Government Accountability Office report notes that of 24 federal agencies, none of their headquarters are more than half-staffed on an average day.
reason.com

Dumping unneeded gov office space would likely add pressure on the commercial real estate market and consequently, the banking system
 
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