Steph asks a good question:
"Wouldn't it be hilarious if one of us bought one of his properties for a steal at an auction?"
Speaking personally I wouldn't want anything he's touched for any price. Think about everything that could go wrong:
Casey could not acknowledge that it isn't his property.
Worse he could convince himself that I, like Wells Fargo, actually stole from him.
The title and encumbrances are so muddled even a courthouse sale won't necessarily clear up liens and clouds.
What if Bubba from Cashcall doesn't get word of the change in time?
Or a hater?
Okay. Enough about the individual properties. There's the larger issue of the general state of distress sales right now. THe world is still awash in liquidity. There won't be any bargains until at least 4 things happen:
Liquidity dries up.
Lending practices tighten.
The last greatest fools jump in first.
Time Magazine declares on the cover; "Housing; Dead and Buried"
46 comments:
Don't sell the fools short, they have an incredible ability to one-up each other.
Liquidity first, media second.
Lenders already seem to be tightening standards.
Good points, Rob. My question is this - what constitutes a bargain these days? In my area, compared to housing prices last year there are bargains on every block. If I bought one of these properties today as an investment would I still feel I had "bought a bargain" a year from now?
It will take the fools to jump in first - even with some of the low prices and some incredible owner financing terms I am seeing I am waiting. Liquidity will become even greater - too many speculators are hoading thier funds and waiting to see if the bottom will really drop out. I am a prime example of that - my money is comfortably sitting in a money market account instead of chasing "sweet" deals right now - because right now without my crystal ball I have no idea if these deals are sweet or not. A painful thing to admit when you haved studied the local market as long as I have.
I agree with Mel. There really won't be many "sweet deals" to be had until the trillion dollars worth of ARMs reset and everyone finally gets the memo that the market is tanking.
The MSM is still mostly interviewing and quoting real estate professionals in the articles I've read in my area (SoCal/LA county) and of course they're biased in what they say.
It won't really be a great time to buy until people hear anecdotal evidence from family/friends. People are still holding out for their wishing prices but time is on our side. Soon there'll be nothing BUT sweet deals.
"The title and encumbrances are so muddled even a courthouse sale won't necessarily clear up liens and clouds."
-- Yep. Macroeconomic and geographic issues aside, this is the single biggest reason I'd think long and hard about buying any Serin property.
Let me make this clear. There are no bargains yet. None. I don't want to hear about cash flow positive apartment buildings with 110% financing and double digit appreciation and rental increases. The truth is that prices are so far ahead of fundamentals that the correction is going to take out these mythical investments as well. I've got a present for you. It's really pretty and well made. It's a knife, here catch! See the problem?
Two ads running for Robert Kiyowski right now - here's one:
Robert Kiyosaki Recommends Mlm And
Network Marketing. See Why He Does
Damn, the irony of this blows me awy.
I say it's more of a time horizon issue. If it's too short, houses are a lousy investment.
If you asked me what stocks to buy and told me you "needed" to have gains in 5 years -- or at the very least no losses, I'd tell you to go down the hall and visit the bond market.
If you had 20 years, that's another story.
Houses are even worse. They're illiquid and take at least two months to sell and close even in a hot market (or a year in a down market). You pay an initial sales commission within the price and there's a back end load fee to get out.
When you do finally sell, it better be because you want to, not because you've been transferred somewhere and have to sell. You can't "lighten up" your position --say, selling half your house. And most people can't diversify adequately as you might with stocks and bonds.
You do get a tax break if you live in the house. If you're going to be making all those payments in rent anyway, that's fine. But for many, even the tax benefits might not be worth putting all those eggs , but that's not worth putting all those eggs in that one tiny basket.
So, what does this mean for those of us living outside the major speculation zones? Without giving too much away (although Rob knows exactly where I am if he looks at his logs closely enough) I'm in a smallish town somewhere betwen the Cascades and the Rockies. While we haven't been hit hard by the recent real estate mania, prices have risen. It's unclear whether that's entirly due to population growth or if the housing bubble has played a role here too.
I'm not looking to buy for another few years at least, and by then hopefully the situation will clarify itself. If I was in the market now, though, how's a guy who's outside the most obvious bubble areas to know what to expect?
Ogg, I am in the same situation. I live in Oklahoma and hubby is REALLY putting on the pressure to buy a home. I really just want to take a wait and see attitude.
All though most people seem to think that Oklahoma was exempt from the bubble I totally disagree. Ten years ago a friend of mine bought her house for $55k (3bed/2bath/2car and 1450 SQ ft.) NOW houses in the same neighborhood are going for 100-110k! Housing doesn't just double in 9 years time! Does it?
I am new to this housing thing. In fact I was pretty much clueless until the USA Today story with CS. I still feel pretty out of the loop even though I have tried to research it some and have gleaned some knowledge from reading IAFF (not from CS but all of the "haters") and this website.
SO what do you think Rob? Anyone? Should I try to put the stopper on hubby's determination to buy before summer and wait another year or two or is Oklahoma a pretty safe bet for buying?
We bought our home in 1999 for 155K.
It has 1650 heated sf and 2500 total sf. Our lot is .42 acres. Price today in Wilmington NC (coast) is anywhere from 280K - 300K
It has almost doubled in "value" in 8 years.
So, what does this mean for those of us living outside the major speculation zones?
The good news is you don't have as far to fall the bad news is everyplace with banks and Ditech and Countrywide commercials is in the bubblezone.
Without giving too much away (although Rob knows exactly where I am if he looks at his logs closely enough) I'm in a smallish town somewhere betwen the Cascades and the Rockies.
I won't tell. In fact I make it a point not to look unless there's a pressing reason and don't often talk abourt it in order for other people to not get ideas.
While we haven't been hit hard by the recent real estate mania, prices have risen. It's unclear whether that's entirly due to population growth or if the housing bubble has played a role here too.
The equity locusts from California have surely eaten some of your crop.
I'm not looking to buy for another few years at least, and by then hopefully the situation will clarify itself.
That would be my advice as well. I'm all out and happy. I'll get back in in a big way in a few years.
If I was in the market now, though, how's a guy who's outside the most obvious bubble areas to know what to expect?
We are literally in uncharted territory. I started with the observation that real estate was no longer a place to realise long term gains. I've since gotten increasingly more pessimistic as the errors at the macro level have been allowed to compound. Tightening lending standards too late, hiding M3 rather than restrict runaway money supply invention, lax regulatory oversight, government overspending... lot's of common sense suggestions, litlle common sense in evidence.
@Anon
Welcome to the wild and wacky world of real estate speculation my friend. Like I said earlier, just because you buy a "bargain" today will not guarantee that you will still feel like you got a sweet deal a year later.
But I was also talking about buying real estate as a speculative venture, not as my primary dwelling for myself. To me, buying a home, THAT YOU CAN AFFORD, is the best investment that you can make. I would keep my eyes open, study the local market and not hesitate. The tax write off, combined with the capital gains savings if you stay several years will be well worth it. I do not mean anything derogatory by this, but homes under 150k are not nearly at risk of becoming devalued as a home that was built and sold in 2003 for $250,000 and sold for $450,000 two years later. Those folks going to sell and expecting a large margin for profit will be in a world of hurt in today's arena. And those unfortunate folks that fell for 1% ARMs and are so overly leveraged that a quick sale is the only way to stop the bleeding will find their properties being auctioned off on the courthouse steps.
My humble advice? Buy well within your means and don't fall for any tricky dicky financing.
Ogg:
If you want to buy and hit that bottom, who can say?
If you want to buy when there's a good chance the worst is over, watch the foreclosure market. The crappy areas will have a lot of them. The desireable areas will have some, too, but probably not as much. The desireable areas will clear out well before the crappy ones, but when most of the foreclosures are gone in the crappy areas, then at least most of the supply side issues are well out the way.
Demand side? That's a lot more difficult. Lots of people seem to think that there's going to be this mass swelling of "sweet deals" and buying will begin again. Not gonna happen that way. It's nice to look at a $500,000 house and say, "boy, I wish I could get that house for $300,000..." But when the actual price DOES go down to $300,000, it doesn't look all that sweet.
I originally bought my house because I couldn't find a place to rent that I liked. Rentals were in high demand. You had to go to "open houses" packed with 50 people and fill out an application just to rent a house. But if you wanted to buy, they licked your boots. From today's perspective that seems insane. Why wouldn't everyone buy a house when you could just rent it out and make a killing? But it took a long time for people to come to that realization.
So wait until they want to lick your boots. THAT's the time to buy a house...or at least as good a time as any.
Mel (who isn't Melvin) gives good advice. The lower priced traditional homes will be most resistant to price corrections but... No matter where you are that isn't in the path of the last half century of demographic shift is also exposed to becoming Buffalo, NY. Go to realtor.com and look at what $15,000 gets you. One idea I've got after the bottom is to go there and buy these homes for the copper, hardwood, architectural elements and fixtures. I'll bring a truckload of labor and a a flatbed. Buffalo won't like it and will quickly make up some fake laws but not before I've absconded with millions in stuff people in SoCal drool over. So, yeah, as long as your communitiy isn't going to become Buffalo a home to live in is always going to do okay.
I live in Albuquerque and was thinking about going to check out Casy's Rio Rancho foreclosure on Valentine's Day, but then I figured why waste my time. Even if I could get that place at 200K (if it's even worth that), I have no desire to live in Rio Rancho.
interesting post, bob dawg.
but, I still have a thesis that housing has merely kept up with the true inflation rate. Basically, the price increases in housing, health care, education, and commodities merely reflect the true surge in liquidity, and nothing more.
What do these 4 have in common? There are no artificial deflators for them. For example, practically everything else can be outsourced to India / China, but these cannot.
this explains the paucity of wage growth for most people since 2001.
how can prices rise without wage growth?
commdities and health care make sense because these are needed to live, and in limited supply. massive amounts of easy credit removed the natural deflators for housing and education.
The true CPI has been almost 10% since 2001 (go see the shadow stats website where they undo the hedonic adjustments step-by-step). this is about the annual growth in M3, so it passes this CPI passes smell test for me.
Now, compound that out, and housing isn't quite to frothy after all. I'm not saying housing prices at these levels are sustainable. But, what I am saying is that housing in general has not actually appreciated against inflation as much as some would believe. (I think Shiller's "infamous" graph in the NYTimes showing inflation adjusted housing prices would be significantly less steep if the correct CPI were used).
Some bubble markets may be excluded of course.
What's next? Syllia of massive wage inflation (that 70's show) or Charibdis of some good old fashion deflation (hello '30s)?
I'm not sure, but I can tell you that either way the middle class will be gutted, and the US will be ready for globalization.
Sorry for the length of the post, but this is an interesting topic to me. And yes there is more to king friday than "bubba" jokes. LOL.
Anon @ 2:49
I live in the Oklahoma City area and I have written several times about the Oklahoma City market. Here is one.
Always be careful about buying a house as it is a long-term investment. Don't be pressured into taking one of those toxic mortgages. Before you apply for a loan, check your credit at myfico.com/12. You can even buy your real estate score for an extra $5, I think.
If you look at how much it costs to rent an apartment or a house, you will probably find that the cost of a mortgage is pretty close -- at least in the Oklahoma City area.
I talked with a foreclosure attorney (I am primarily a bankruptcy attorney, so we are often on the opposite sides of cases) and he said to wait until at least March, when many of the foreclosures will start coming on the market. So, there is no harm in waiting a few months; there will always be houses available to buy.
As for prices doubling in 10 years, just figure that by the Rule of 72, money doubles every 7.2 years at 10% interest. The amount of increase @ 10 years is a little more than the official inflation rate, but you also have to figure in people from California buying houses in Oklahoma, where it is relatively cheap. Many real estate agents I have spoken to have told me that Californians buying in Oklahoma is keeping the prices up.
Good luck on your house search.
One the one hand, everything that's been said above about not waning to catch a falling knife, etc, is completely true. It's totally possible that if you buy this summer and the market doesn't bottom out for another 18 months, you could see the value of your home decline short-term.
On the other hand -- it's virtually impossible to time the market perfectly. Often the bottom can't be identified until after it has passed. And even if you could time the market perfectly, there no guarantee that the house you want to buy will actually be on sale at that point in time.
So what I would say is -- if you do not live in a Ground Zero bubble area, are reasonably sure you won't be moving out of the area in the next 5-7 years, and you can afford to buy a house you truly want with normal financing, what the hell. Buy if you want to. There's worse fates than paying $50,000 too much for your home. If nothing else, Casey taught us than.
"housing isn't quite to frothy "
King Friday:
Housing prices may not be "too high" if you just looked at prices, but there's way too much leverage in the market.
I think you can use 50% leverage when you buy a stock. Is the stock market too high or too low? If I knew everyone was buying stocks on margin, I might have a different opinion on that than otherwise.
King Friday
You just don't seem to realize just how badly I have always wanted to jump on that trolley. After your last post I'm buying a one way ticket.
Yeah, baby!
Thanks everyone for the good advice. This has been something I have been pretty concerned about since hubby really started putting the pressure on to buy now.
Personally I would still prefer to wait until we have a better down payment but he has his VA Loan which we have been told will not only get us 100% financing but a better interest rate as well since we have pretty good credit (760).
I just drive him crazy cause I tend to be too cautious at times. I just don't want to get into anything that we can't handle down the road.
To err on the side of caution is way better than the flip side. Use that VA loan - your husband earned it.
"What's next? Syllia of massive wage inflation (that 70's show) or Charibdis of some good old fashion deflation (hello '30s)?"
Nope. Something new this season. "Foreclosure: The castration of a superpower."
Whatever happens here doesn't matter all that much. We've lost control of our economy (if we ever had any). We've been sending way too many dollars overseas. For a normal country, that's okay. But foriegners would rather have what those dollars will buy, not the dollars themselves.
With a new reserve currency on the scene, the Euro, the Chinese, Indians, Saudis, etc. are actually going to want something in return from us for our dollars. Unfortunately, we don't seem to make much stuff they want. Well, we could, but not at a price suitable to them.
So soon, they'll be cashing those checks all over town, buying properties, buying companies, etc. It won't be pleasant.
I don't suspect a complete meltdown. After all, the Chinese will still need to sell us a few flat panel TVs to keep their economy rolling along.
So I predict we'll be getting loan guarantees, bailouts, etc. to keep our economy afloat -- you know, the kind of stuff WE used to do for countries like Argentina. Though we will have to tighten our belts.
But I doubt we'll be invading too many countries in the years ahead. And when our landlord goes blasting even more satellites out of the sky, they're not going to care very much about our opinion.
So we'll have to do what we should have done all these years -- live within our means.
Oh, and be humiliated, too. But we'll get over it.
Anon,
A good rules of thumb for home prices is price to monthly rents or price to area incomes. If a home sells for more than say 120x the monthly rent, it's getting expensive (conversly below 80 is getting cheap), so if your 110k home rents for $1000/mo it's not too bad a deal (exclusive of appreciation).
On the price to income's most people can afford a home that is priced at 3-4x their annual income without resorting to Ramen meals or lack of heat or something drastic to feed their alligator. If substantially more homes are priced above that (or are priced above that in areas that no one making that kind of money would want to live) then things are probably a little out of whack. Poke around the neighborhood and see if you have some idea what some of the neighbors do, if you can guess what they make you might have a good idea of how affordable their homes are.
Anybody want to bust a gut? Go to this site and check out these mostly offensive and very hilarious t-shirts.
Here is the one I picked out for Casey
http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product.php?productid=182
Rob Dawg:
Holy shit. I see houses in Buffalo for less than a grand. They're probably run-down in lousy neighborhoods, but still...
I understand that the area is depressed, but how did it get so bad? How did such an oversupply develop that you can get a house for that kind of money?
WTF???? Buying a house for $550 in Buffalo? I am stunned - like Rob said the fixtures alone are worth more than that as scrap.
$3,500 for a free standing home with gas and connected to the sewer system. What gives? Why?
I have to have someone explain this to me - how can this be???
The mortgage payment is $4 per month - the house is almost 5,000 square feet.
Am I awake?
http://realtor.com/FindHome/HomeListing.asp?snum=6&locallnk=yes&frm=bymap&mnbed=0&mnbath=0&mnprice=0&mxprice=99999999&js=off&pgnum=1&fid=so&stype=&mnsqft=&mls=xmls&areaid=436&poe=realtor&ct=Buffalo&st=NY&sbint=&vtsort=&sorttype=&typ=1&typ=2&typ=4&x=74&y=13&sid=080AF93E0525C&snumxlid=1073043909&lnksrc=00003
To answer my own question:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo,_New_York#The_20th_century
Apparently Buffalo's population has declined steadily since the 70s, is smaller than in 1900, and is roughly half of its peak.
I wonder if those are tax sales. County takes the house, and lists it for taxes owed.
Either that or the houses are in Love Canal (a legendary EPA superfund site). Oh, and Lake Erie (Buffalo sits on the shore) used to be so polluted in the 80's that it literally caught fire. Yes, the lake was literally on fire.
BTW - upstate NY also is home to Onondaga Lake (near Syracuse, NY), which is the 2nd dirtiest body of water in the world. You could literally get ill if you stood downwind of that.
fyi - I escaped the pit of upstate NY, and no longer call it home.
Many midwestern/great lakes cities have turned back into urban praries. Houses don't last for ever neither do cities. Here is a link to read about one neighborhood, in Detroit, and how it changed from the 1950's to the 1990's. Google earth this part of Detroit and it looks like a bomb went off in the middle of the city.
http://detnews.com/specialreports/2001/elmhurst/
Unfortunately, the Detroit suburbs somehow got to participate in the price runup. I knew when I saw giant houses with no lots and a vew of the freeway being advertised by the builder for 300K+ that things were way out of whack.
I live in Central NY, and bought last year. I was really worried as we looked and about about what the market was doing, but chatted with an economist friend who gave me a few things to calm me. First, I ran the numbers on my house through the last few sales (our was the third in 15 years): it only worked out to about 4% appreciation per year. Second, I looked at how much it would cost me to rent a similar house - and it was very close to a draw. Third: We got a fixed, very low interest mortgage (and we had to submit huge amounts of paperwork and proof of income for it; I 'm baffled and furious at how a 24 year old with no income could qualify for loans we couldn't have).
mel, the baffled said...
I have to have someone explain this to me - how can this be???
The mortgage payment is $4 per month - the house is almost 5,000 square feet.
Am I awake?
That one is surely a mismarked rental. But do the math. At 120x rent = $90,000 or $20 per square foot. That's what those hardwood floors are worth in SoCal.
Is everybody a little more concerned about what can happen in places that don't think they are bubblicious? Good, you should be concerned.
Thoughtful comments everyone glad to see the return of polite society. If you could drop many of those Buffalo houses down in identical condition and lot in Pasadena their total sales price would become their new monthly mortgage payment.
I think I've mentioned this before, but, I live in a rural area in the southeast [1], and the whole real estate bubble "thingy" didn't happen here. Relaxed lending standards, perhaps, but so far as I can tell, home prices have increased at about the rate of inflation over the years.
Of course, there are downsides to this, as well. I'll leave out the part about how there are few well-paying jobs and there aren't many leisure activities and focus on the houses themselves: There isn't much of a high-end market. If you built a $500k house and immediately sold it, you'd do well to get $300k for it. Also, and I guess it goes without saying, a new $175k house will be of average construction quality. If you want it built with quality materials by a master craftsman, double the price [2]. Quite a few of the older homes are truly well-built, but many will still have "old house problems" like sparse insulation and an undersized, ungrounded electrical system with a fusebox.
[1] So, my interest in learning about urban planning and smart growth is strictly academic.
[2] I guess this is true in the bubble areas as well. From what I understand, the large homebuilders tend to cut a lot of corners--even on a $750k home. Things like, only a single water heater on a home that is large enough to need one on each side of the house, lest it take forever for the water at the faucet to become hot.
My biggest fear isn't so much the bubble as it will burst soon enough.
My fears are with China and the owning of our debt instruments.
Rob, fellow Casey haters, how do you feel about this issue?
Rob Dawg said...
" Let me make this clear. There are no bargains yet. None.
Rob knows what time it is.
"That one is surely a mismarked rental."
It is not. I've blogged about the Rust Belt before. Cities like Rochester and Buffalo are filled with such houses:
http://louminatti.blogspot.com/2006/03/lets-move-to-buffalo.html
http://louminatti.blogspot.com/2006/02/real-estate-fairy-tale.html
It seems like a tremendous waste to me. These are nice houses. They were good enough for our parents and grandparents.
@Dolph: "My fears are with China and the owning of our debt instruments."
I used to worry about that more, but then I took Macroeconomics as part of my MBA and realized that the situation is not quite as one-sided as I had thought. Yes, China owns a hell of a lot of our debt. However, there's some very real benefits to them for doing so, and they would hurt themselves just as much as us if they attempt a radical course change.
China has a fixed currency exchange rate, not a floating one like most other countries. To maintain that rate (which most economists agree is artificially low) they must continue to buy dollars, because the "basket" of currencies they use to create the exchange rate is made up primarily of dollars. Buying our debt is one way of doing that.
The other option is to switch to a "floating" currency rate, but if they did that, the Yuan would undoubtedly rise -- some economists think as much as 40% -- and that would mean Chinese goods would become a whole lot more expensive than they are today. This would seriously screw the Chinese economy, so the likelihood of them actually doing that is on the low side.
So -- yes, it could happen. But I think China has too much to gain by the status quo to want to rock that boat. Their economy is growing like gangbusters under the current situation and I don't think they want to deal with the internal consequences of shutting that gravy train down.
At 9:39 PM, Sprezzatura said...
"China has a fixed currency exchange rate, not a floating one like most other countries. To maintain that rate (which most economists agree is artificially low) they must continue to buy dollars, because the "basket" of currencies they use to create the exchange rate is made up primarily of dollars. Buying our debt is one way of doing that."
You're right, if the dollar remains the world's primary world currency. And that status is what keeps us all pretty well off. Even citizens of countries that hate our guts are happy to see a picture of Ben Franklin.
But now they're almost as happy to take euros. That currency, managed at least as well as ours in my view, is based on an economy about 70% as big as ours.
I think the Euro is going to give the dollar a run for its money. I don't think it will take over in the near term, but if China were to decide to diversify from 100% USD to 90% USD/10% Euro, there could be at least a minor run on the dollar worldwide.
The euro also makes it somewhat more difficult for the Fed to have any effect at all on market interest rates if the European Central Bank doesn't follow suit.
By the way, I read that more drug dealers are now using Euros. One reason might be because there are 500 euro notes in circulation, so they can haul roughly 6 times the cash in the same suitcase. I guess the U.S. ought to launch a $500 bill to compete.
Soon as I saw that mortgage lenders were tightening up their lending criteria, it was obvious that the boom is over.
I can tell because I live in Russia. A few years ago, mortgage lending was non-existent. You bought a house or apartment for cash or you inherited from grandparents. If you didn't have the cash, you rent or live with the folks. That was it.
I understand it was the same way in America not long ago.
Housing in Russia then was quite cheap. $10,000 could get you a fairly nice newer place in the downtown of a provincial capital.
Then came mortgage lending. Lending standards here are still quite conservative, and loans relatively short-term, but now a LOT more money is chasing (roughly) the same amount of property.
Naturally, prices have gone through the roof. $10K now won't even get you a Khrushchevka in a village next to a rubber processing factory.
In theory, lending makes it possible for the little guy to compete for housing. In practice, it means that everyone has to borrow to buy a house, unless you have enough money to compete with a bank.
Of course, it also means that real estate development is the place to be in Russia, if you don't happen to have an oil well.
Because I like to hear the sound of my own posts:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/02/AR2007020200712.html
"Pimping it Old School: Appraisers Pressured by Realtors"
Hey Sucker Banking Corporation
How a British bank blew it in America.
On Wednesday, the giant British bank HSBC warned of huge potential losses because of problems in its U.S. subprime mortgage-lending unit. The company, the nation's second-largest subprime lender, had to set aside $10.6 billion in 2006 to deal with rising delinquency and default rates in its vast portfolio of loans to American homeowners with less-than-stellar credit.
http://www.slate.com/id/2159371/
Barry Ritholz at bigpicture had a contst to rename HSBC. Kilarious. My contribuyion:
Haven't Seen Ban's Copters.
King Friday-
You're a little bit off. Lake Erie didn't catch on fire, that was the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. Time Magazine called it the river that doesn't flow, it oozes. It does ooze into Lake Erie though.
For all you Cali burger-eating vegan whackos, read about your own state park version of Love Canal here:
http://www.borderfieldstatepark.com/
(Courtesy of Tijuana.) It's a very entertaining read. I love the smell of sewage and ricin in the morning! Alas, no sarin.
The main thing the coastal price runups and bubble seems to have done to many midwestern cities is give sellers unrealistic ideas.
I have a relative who is trying to sell a nicely rehabbed Arts and Crafts house in a rustbelt city. Lots of original woodwork, etc etc etc. But the owner poured way more money into it than he should've, convinced he'd get the money out of it, and now he has it priced too high and it has languished on the market for months - along with a bunch of other similarly priced houses. THey all think that because folks in Boston saw their houses double, *their* houses should have doubled as well. Relative had no evidence, no comparables that have gone for what he wants (and what, at this point, he needs to get to recoup the money he spent).
Damn shows on HGTV convinced Average Joes that their houses were along for the Bubble Ride.
IF anyone wants a gorgeous arts and crafts on the shores of Lake Ontario, there are lots currently priced under $150K, move-in condition, etc etc.
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