From Yahoo Article: "Existing home sales were down for the second straight month, according to the National Association of Realtors, with April sales off 0.8% from March. That's despite housing prices that are roughly $9,000 less than they were last year when the government was doling out its first-time homebuyer credit, mortgage rates that Fannie Mae says are down from 5.1% last April to 4.84%... [more]
From Yahoo Article:
"Existing home sales were down for the second straight month, according to the National Association of Realtors, with April sales off 0.8% from March. That's despite housing prices that are roughly $9,000 less than they were last year when the government was doling out its first-time homebuyer credit, mortgage rates that Fannie Mae says are down from 5.1% last April to 4.84% last month and a 9.2-month supply of homes still on the market."
So, let me get this straight; they can buy a home with the same di$count Uncle Sam was giving them AND they can get a lower interest rate?
If they intend to stay in their homes more than a few years, the public/sheep should be rushing to buy homes, like they were lined up around the block for the stimulus tax break.
Why, why, WHY, are they so STUPID?!!
When the easy credit era came around, I said to myself "Don't these people know they have to pay the money BACK?" But they lined up to be fleeced by deceptive mortgage brokers.
Now they are offered a bigger discount than ever, and they just shuffle their feet and walk off.
People are stupid.
Rant over.
[less]
Response by falcogold1
about 15 years ago
Posts: 4159
Member since: Sep 2008
Many years ago I was a traveling door to door salesman out trying my fortunes in rural America.
One day I knocked on a door and a strange looking boy answered. I asked to speak with his mother but he said she was out back having sex with the sheep. He spotted the shocked look on my face and told me to follow him around back. There, behind the house, was his mom on all fours with a sheep doing it's business. I looked at the boy in shock and said, "Doesn't this bother you"?
He said,"NaHHHaHHHaHHah"!
I hope that helps.
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Response by jordyn
about 15 years ago
Posts: 820
Member since: Dec 2007
Maybe people learned their lesson and now no longer want to pay too much for their housing?
Just because something is cheaper than it used to be doesn't mean that it's cheap, and (as has been discussed here) current low interest rates probably means downward pressure on prices in the future when interest rates inevitably decrease.
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Response by lucillebluth
about 15 years ago
Posts: 2631
Member since: May 2010
because so many who could afford to buy and wanted to already did and no one else has any money? except the stubborn grouches who refuse to overpay and know that house WILL be cheaper next year? just sayin
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Response by dealboy
about 15 years ago
Posts: 528
Member since: Jan 2011
You have the cause/effect backwards.
Houses are cheaper b/c fewer people are able to buy (lower salary, unemployed, etc)
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Response by lucillebluth
about 15 years ago
Posts: 2631
Member since: May 2010
who?
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Response by Truth
about 15 years ago
Posts: 5641
Member since: Dec 2009
Where?
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Response by huntersburg
about 15 years ago
Posts: 11329
Member since: Nov 2010
What?
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Response by Roro
about 15 years ago
Posts: 46
Member since: Oct 2010
*agrees with dealboy.
needsadvice, buying is done with cash, financing to "buy" is not "buying" at all but "borrowing".
Why borrow against a depreciating asset? What's more, a depreciating asset that is depreciating in a market where prices are being sustained by artificially low interest rates and g'ment subsidies (and g'ment financing ((Freddie and Fannie, anyone))?
When rates rise, prices will continue to drop. It would appear that you may count yourself among the mainstream-media kool-aid drinking sheeple you so self-righteously deplore. I can't blame you entirely, your getting your information from the 6 corporations who control the vast majority of the media in the US.
Government subsidies, including free highways, tax gifts for mortgage holders, and government financing (FNMA) have been part of the American system of private homeownership since WWII. Other government subsidies, like police enforcement of trespass laws and public schools, have been around longer. The suburbs wouldn't exist without the Highway Trust Fund,the mortgage deduction, local school funding, exclusionary zoning and mandatory parking.
Some of this is bad planning, but why do you call it 'artificial'? Isn't it perfectly natural for people to use their government to escape the state of nature?
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Response by needsadvice
about 15 years ago
Posts: 607
Member since: Jul 2010
There are opportunities, particularly in rental properties in Florida, that are amazing.
"Ms. Moore, meanwhile, has plowed her earnings into her own deals, recently purchasing a second duplex for $30,000 in cash. “I’m getting $650 a side in rent, a lot better than the stock market,” she said. “My plan is to buy up as much multifamily as I can while the market is down.”"
But people are sheep, and they won't consider real estate because the media is telling them not to. Well, the media and the "experts" told them to invest in dot coms (I didn't), not buy NYC real estate in 2009 (I did) and to buy at the height of the RE bubble (I didn't).
Sheep.
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Response by alanhart
about 15 years ago
Posts: 12397
Member since: Feb 2007
What media (aside from various fringe websites) is telling people NOT to buy real estate? Almost everything I see demonstrates how much prices have fallen, with the implication that it's a great time to buy. The only exception are those that say lots of inventory is coming online imminently, which is basically a way of saying that in addition to it being a great time to buy, you will also have lots to choose from.
Run away briskly.
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Response by huntersburg
about 15 years ago
Posts: 11329
Member since: Nov 2010
Alan, you have to post a link to be taken seriously. Please post a link like needsadvice did.
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Response by bob_d
about 15 years ago
Posts: 264
Member since: May 2010
People base their thinking and behavior based on how OTHER PEOPLE think and behave. Don't you know that?
Do you believe in global warming? If you do, I doubt it's because you know anything about the science behind it, you believe because OTHER PEOPLE in your social class believe.
There's very little independent thinking going on in the world.
That said, maybe there are more people today who own houses than SHOULD own them based on logical rather than herd-like thinking, so that's keeping downward pressure on sales and prices.
Ignored comment.
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Response by lucillebluth
about 15 years ago
Posts: 2631
Member since: May 2010
" they won't consider real estate because the media is telling them not to."
it's not what the media tells them, it's what they see around them that scares them. most of the young families we know who bought before the crash are stuck with those houses at those prices. florida? sure, why not. my uncle had to declare bankruptcy in florida after taunting my dad for years with all the easy money he was making with his "investments". think his kids will ever get into re investing? think i will? maybe. but if we don't, it's not because we're sheep. it's because we're human.
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Response by memito
about 15 years ago
Posts: 294
Member since: Nov 2007
First I love how so many are talking about being such real estate "capitalists" while the entire industry and its financing has been essentially socialized (well, the losses have been).
The great number of economic distortions the previously existed and have recently added to the RE market as a whole makes "buying the dips" a more complicated than people are will admit or even be aware of:
The FED holds $2.5 trillion in trash securities - much of which is linked to the RE mkt (this is far from normal);
The FED's interest rate policy is unheard of and rewriting the rules of finance and economics;
The foreclosure "Robo-signing" situation is far from being resolved;
We vastly over built during the boom years with much of the foreclosed supply being held off of the market by banks in attempt to suppress;
I am not saying there aren't opportunities out there, just that the idea that it is time to buy simply because everyone else isn't may not be as straightforward as it was during previous recessions.
Buying foreclosed properties today means that you think that the government is going aggressively side with banks and essentially defy hundred's of years of property law - which seems like it might be the case. The only problem in the meanwhile is how do you mitigate the risk that the property you bought from the bank wasn't illegally foreclosed upon?
Even if your property isn't directly impacted, what happens if a bunch of court cases pop up in the community you bought in - effectively stymying the sales market and disuading future buyers.
I really haven't seen too much talk of this from the "buy the dip" crowd which makes me wonder if they are really assessing the risks in today's RE market.
Many years ago I was a traveling door to door salesman out trying my fortunes in rural America.
One day I knocked on a door and a strange looking boy answered. I asked to speak with his mother but he said she was out back having sex with the sheep. He spotted the shocked look on my face and told me to follow him around back. There, behind the house, was his mom on all fours with a sheep doing it's business. I looked at the boy in shock and said, "Doesn't this bother you"?
He said,"NaHHHaHHHaHHah"!
I hope that helps.
Maybe people learned their lesson and now no longer want to pay too much for their housing?
Just because something is cheaper than it used to be doesn't mean that it's cheap, and (as has been discussed here) current low interest rates probably means downward pressure on prices in the future when interest rates inevitably decrease.
because so many who could afford to buy and wanted to already did and no one else has any money? except the stubborn grouches who refuse to overpay and know that house WILL be cheaper next year? just sayin
You have the cause/effect backwards.
Houses are cheaper b/c fewer people are able to buy (lower salary, unemployed, etc)
who?
Where?
What?
*agrees with dealboy.
needsadvice, buying is done with cash, financing to "buy" is not "buying" at all but "borrowing".
Why borrow against a depreciating asset? What's more, a depreciating asset that is depreciating in a market where prices are being sustained by artificially low interest rates and g'ment subsidies (and g'ment financing ((Freddie and Fannie, anyone))?
When rates rise, prices will continue to drop. It would appear that you may count yourself among the mainstream-media kool-aid drinking sheeple you so self-righteously deplore. I can't blame you entirely, your getting your information from the 6 corporations who control the vast majority of the media in the US.
Checky check it out...
http://boombustblog.com/reggie-middleton/2011/05/12/the-residential-real-estate-week-in-review-or-i-told-you-were-in-a-real-estate-depression-the-msm-is-just-catching-up/
*you're getting...
Government subsidies, including free highways, tax gifts for mortgage holders, and government financing (FNMA) have been part of the American system of private homeownership since WWII. Other government subsidies, like police enforcement of trespass laws and public schools, have been around longer. The suburbs wouldn't exist without the Highway Trust Fund,the mortgage deduction, local school funding, exclusionary zoning and mandatory parking.
Some of this is bad planning, but why do you call it 'artificial'? Isn't it perfectly natural for people to use their government to escape the state of nature?
There are opportunities, particularly in rental properties in Florida, that are amazing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/business/08housing.html?scp=1&sq=north%20port%20florida&st=cse
"Ms. Moore, meanwhile, has plowed her earnings into her own deals, recently purchasing a second duplex for $30,000 in cash. “I’m getting $650 a side in rent, a lot better than the stock market,” she said. “My plan is to buy up as much multifamily as I can while the market is down.”"
But people are sheep, and they won't consider real estate because the media is telling them not to. Well, the media and the "experts" told them to invest in dot coms (I didn't), not buy NYC real estate in 2009 (I did) and to buy at the height of the RE bubble (I didn't).
Sheep.
What media (aside from various fringe websites) is telling people NOT to buy real estate? Almost everything I see demonstrates how much prices have fallen, with the implication that it's a great time to buy. The only exception are those that say lots of inventory is coming online imminently, which is basically a way of saying that in addition to it being a great time to buy, you will also have lots to choose from.
Run away briskly.
Alan, you have to post a link to be taken seriously. Please post a link like needsadvice did.
People base their thinking and behavior based on how OTHER PEOPLE think and behave. Don't you know that?
Do you believe in global warming? If you do, I doubt it's because you know anything about the science behind it, you believe because OTHER PEOPLE in your social class believe.
There's very little independent thinking going on in the world.
That said, maybe there are more people today who own houses than SHOULD own them based on logical rather than herd-like thinking, so that's keeping downward pressure on sales and prices.
" they won't consider real estate because the media is telling them not to."
it's not what the media tells them, it's what they see around them that scares them. most of the young families we know who bought before the crash are stuck with those houses at those prices. florida? sure, why not. my uncle had to declare bankruptcy in florida after taunting my dad for years with all the easy money he was making with his "investments". think his kids will ever get into re investing? think i will? maybe. but if we don't, it's not because we're sheep. it's because we're human.
First I love how so many are talking about being such real estate "capitalists" while the entire industry and its financing has been essentially socialized (well, the losses have been).
The great number of economic distortions the previously existed and have recently added to the RE market as a whole makes "buying the dips" a more complicated than people are will admit or even be aware of:
The FED holds $2.5 trillion in trash securities - much of which is linked to the RE mkt (this is far from normal);
The FED's interest rate policy is unheard of and rewriting the rules of finance and economics;
The foreclosure "Robo-signing" situation is far from being resolved;
We vastly over built during the boom years with much of the foreclosed supply being held off of the market by banks in attempt to suppress;
I am not saying there aren't opportunities out there, just that the idea that it is time to buy simply because everyone else isn't may not be as straightforward as it was during previous recessions.
Buying foreclosed properties today means that you think that the government is going aggressively side with banks and essentially defy hundred's of years of property law - which seems like it might be the case. The only problem in the meanwhile is how do you mitigate the risk that the property you bought from the bank wasn't illegally foreclosed upon?
Even if your property isn't directly impacted, what happens if a bunch of court cases pop up in the community you bought in - effectively stymying the sales market and disuading future buyers.
I really haven't seen too much talk of this from the "buy the dip" crowd which makes me wonder if they are really assessing the risks in today's RE market.