Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Housing ignores the cheerleaders


New housing sales for Jan down 16% or 150k. This not counting cancellations or uncounted inventory issues. Special attention to one cheerleader is warranted.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Give me an F, give me an I, give me an R, give me an S, give me a T. What's that spell?? FIRST!

Anonymous said...

I'm seeing more and more condo projects become rentals - and sellers of houses are suddenly considering becoming landlords because they refi'd at the top and would be bringing money to the table if they took a realistic price.

I'm curious bto see how many Realtors make it through this. Back in 2000, NAR extiamted there'd be about 550,000 Realtors by 2005. There were more like 1.2-1.3 million. The correction in that market that will be interesting to watch as well.

R-Boy said...

@Eth Real

I am seeing the same thing here in Northern Virginia (I think you're around this area, right?) In fact, I do not understand why developers continue to apply for new construction permits and raise condos when it obvious the market is turning. One condo development in Alexandria has turned apartments. 2 are being constructed on Jeff Davis, one is a concrete structure which has mild interest, the other is a completely wooden structure that thas no interest.

I have no idea what's going on. Thank goodness we have a house, and are only interested in an addition to it, and don't plan on moving...ever

Unknown said...

R-boy,
I live in Alexandria. I work near the PTO. This place sure has changed. Lots of condos in this area. I don't follow the condo market to much but have noticed some houses going from for sale to for rent in my area. I too do not plan to move....until i retire. Would like to do an addition in a few years too.

I have also noticed that many houses that were on the market folks just took off to wait it out I guess. Another reason why the NAR is full of shit with their numbers and claiming we have hit the bottom. There amount of inventory out there is biased.

R-Boy said...

Aaron,

We live over in Del Ray, and we have seen similiar things in our neck of the woods. Homes that were being sold now rented instead. I've watched homes in Arlington start at 1.2 million and be sold around 975.

We decided to use part of the equity in our home to fund our addition. Since we're putting value back in, we're not going to lose any money long term on it.

Oh yeah, any NoVa EN's here are more than welcome to email me at caseyserininfo@yahoo.com (using it to send stuff to umm,interested parties). Perhaps we can arrange an EN happy hour.

Unknown said...

DelRay,
That place really took off the past 5-6 years. I remember when it was more slummy. I actually remember it as ghetto when i was alot younger. definitely one of the up and coming areas in my book.

I ride through there on my bike sometimes when i take the long way home. Very biker friendly.

How long have you lived in this area?

Anonymous said...

Here's Sacramento's real estate #s for January. They're not a pretty site.

Single Family Residences
Period # of Sales Median Price
Jan 2007 1,169 $358,000
Jan 2006 1,355 $385,000
Dec 2006 1,536 $365,000
Dec 2005 2,266 $397,000


Condos
Period # of Sales Median Price
Jan 2007 64 $204,250
Jan 2006 80 $247,750
Dec 2006 121 $243,500
Dec 2005 103 $223,000

Anonymous said...

I'm still seeing ridiculously overpriced ghetto properties in West Ventura, Robert's posted some of them. How does that square with housing bubble collapse?

Rob Dawg said...

Froth at the top of speculative bubbles is an indicator not contraindicator. This phenomena is as old as manias. The Dutch tulip mania had a single bulb worth two houses.

Anonymous said...

Rob,

Give us your prediction of a bubble collapse "timeline", over the next say 5 years?

Rob Dawg said...

I've done this before and been pretty good at the events and order but lately there's been a timelag. I will give it full and serious analysis and issue an update soon.

Anonymous said...

OK, looking forward to that.

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