Exiting the market...

U have to let the knife cather have their fills...in this case, it's not fair to call them knife cathers, atleast the catcher have eyes.

The media told them to buy, they buy like a bat out of a cave.

I stopped looking; too many idiots to compete with.

callista, i have seen properties two months ago with buy=rent and no takers. now it is very profitable to buy and still not takers. till september atleast the prices are going to drop fast and hard. after september we will see flat line. i'll post my source for this info.

Callista,

      Don't give up on your house hunt.  I understand your frustrations of the mutiple offer sistuation. Try to get ahead of the traffic by having your Realtor keep you on a 24 hour watch so you know what goes on the market asap via internet MLS. Try looking at homes on a Mon/Tues, and submit your offers before the weekend. Have your realtor develop good relationships with the bank owned listing agents, and perhaps they may give her heads up on an upcoming home. You have to be as proactive as your Realtor to beat the odds. Eventually you'll win, and the results will be rewarding. Good Luck!

I've made some "assumptions" in the extrapulations I did on the adjacent graph from Zillow Affordablity Index data.

The real questions are:

1) What is the true long term inflation rate in California land and housing?  (Blue line represents about 7% annual but some say it should be 4%).

2) How much will values over-shoot the inflation line before it goes back to normal.

I really don't expect it to suddenly shift from rapid down to "flat-line"; I expect it to overshoot, then gradually increase back to normal inflationary decline of the dollar value.

But from my extrapulation, I don't expect the bottom to hit in the Gateway area of Sacramento until after the beginning of 2009.  Even then, it may not since there is still a huge back-log of foreclosures coming from the very bad lending practices over the past several years.  The overshoot may be a lot more extreme than anyone expects.

Goodluck indead... as soon as it hits the MLS, there will be multiple offers.  Good news though, more foreclosures on the way.  The better property will have to priced lower. Let the knife catchers take the junk at high price.

I m

I

I meant good news for buyers.

Yeah this winter should be easier... at least I hope so. That's when I'll be lookin... ;p

The same thing has been happening in my area of Virginia....lowball offers on foreclosures aren't working and the houses are selling at or above list price if they are in marginal or good condition.  Multiple offers are the rule of the day.

As there will be more foreclosures there will also be the same buyers who lost on their first couple of bids, as well as people entering the market for the first time.

We'll all know more in August or September...2007's market in Northern Virginia virtually stopped in mid summer, but the pace of the market seems to be much quicker this year.

dan,  i know that you are in NoVa, but i was wondering if you knew a good place to get any info about Richmond... i.e.  maybe a blog or website tracking housing stats here?  thanks!

callista:

give it time. The spring uptick in seasonal buying seems to be all aimed directly at REO property. but, by september, the seasonal slowdown will be solidly in place. Usually listings slow down then too, but this year will be different: the foreclosures just keep coming and banks  have no choice but sell them...

The same thing has been happening in my area of Virginia....lowball offers on foreclosures aren't working and the houses are selling at or above list price if they are in marginal or good condition. Multiple offers are the rule of the day.

This has been the case in my neck of the woods (Boston area) for homes that meet the following criteria a) Move-in condition b) Not drastically overpriced c) in a decent town.

A large component of this is that while demand is lower than peak times, supply is also low.    In the 4 towns I've been looking in, houses go in a week or languish until price is reduced to a certain point then multiple offers are received (applies only to move-in condition homes in these 4 towns).  If you go 90 miles north to where I grew up, the pace is downright glacial because supply is much higher.

Some supply numbers, in the 4 towns I have been looking, MLS lists 278 houses/condos for sale and the towns have a combined population of 114,527.  In the town I grew up in, there are 218 houses/condos for sale in a city with a population of about 15,000.

The smart agents looking to move property quickly in the area I've been looking seem to be starting move-in condition houses out with very low asking prices and then let the bidding bring the value up to a decent amount (which is still less than 2005 levels, but better than the norm today).

Maps of Real Estate Doom

Thanks all...we are just taking a small LOA from the market..we anticipate looking again in a month or two.  In the meatime we have spent far too much of our weekends being outbid by morons.

"The spring uptick in seasonal buying seems to be all aimed directly at REO property."

That seems to be what is happening here as well.  People are dying to bid on bank owned properties whether they are a deal or not.  It's like a fad or something.

don't worry callista, there will be just as many new foreclosures coming on the market this fall, without the springtime buyers...65% up year over year, still climbing basically everywhere.

Wow ghennis, looks like blood all over the US according to those heat maps

aapostrophe,

I don't know of any local Richmond blogs that track housing, but a good place to start is www.varbuzz.com

There are a few bloggers from around the state that participate there and you may find the name of one in Richmond on the author margin (right side).

I'd do some research for you but my hands are full for the next little while...it's busy around here.

Callista, you are exactly right.....bidding on foreclosures is now faddish...an agent came into the office today who is working for a broker who lists foreclosures exclusively.  He is, as you can imagine, really busy.

When everyone is talking about bidding on foreclosures we go right back into speculative purchasing from the lower end of the market.  Even though more are coming what we are experiencing in terms of foreclosures isn't the norm and when they dry up to more normal levels, whatever normal is going to be, I doubt that we will see such a real estate debacle again in our lifetime.

Princess,

Now is not the time to stop.

Most likely you now know everything about and every home in that neighborhood.

You know all about the bad REO`s, and their pattern of pricing.

I am sure you have walked through several Short Sales, soon to be REO`s.

Stay with it, don`t start all over in the fall. You probably know more about the market than most Realtors.

Tomorrow, the REO of your dreams may come on the market, offered at 300K, and you will know that is a great deal, because you know the current market.

You will know that the bank is pricing the home to receive multiple offers. You may offer 300K when everyone else is offering 270, 280, 290K.

More and More banks are pricing for multiple offers, they want the home gone. This is the new trend, and will not change.

We have know idea where rates will be in the fall. How many buyers are thinking the same as you?