Foreclosures climbed in January Foreclosures picked up in January, yet another sign that the nation's huge glut of delinquent homes may soon start making their way onto the market.
The number of homes hit with a notice of default, auction sale, bank repossession or some other foreclosure filing in January rose 3% since December, but it was still significantly lower than it was a year ago, according to RealtyTrac.
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Home prices at lowest point in more than 10 years The National Association of Realtors reported that the median home price in January fell 2% from December to $154,700. That's the lowest price reading since November 2001, before the run-up in home prices that became known as the housing bubble.
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Multi-million dollar foreclosures Even these mega-mansions in some of America's wealthiest neighborhoods are not immune to the housing crisis. Duh
… she and her husband bought a four-bedroom home on a manmade lake in 1999 for $374,000. They spent $100,000 installing a pool, a hot tub, a basement bar and home theater.
When her husband lost his job as a sales executive at a consumer products company in 2007, the couple moved into a house that Ms. West had inherited from her mother in St. Augustine, Fla. They put the Dacula house on the market for $599,900.
They rejected several offers that they considered lowballs. “Everybody kept saying ‘Oh, it’s a great house, it will sell,’ ” Ms. West recalled. A contract for $447,000 fell through when the buyer could not secure a loan. Last month, the couple signed a contract for $360,000, effectively erasing previous gains and their large investment in improvements.
Existing home sales during the housing bust were actually 14.3% worse than previously reported, a revision to Realtors' group numbers shows.
On Wednesday, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) revised home sale counts back to 2007 due to flaws in their original data analysis.
In 2007, there were actually just 5.04 million existing home sales, 11% less than the 5.65 million originally reported. Even worse were 2008 and 2009, when there were 16% fewer sales than originally reported. Sales in 2010 were 15% lower.
And why did it take them 3 or 4 years to figure out their “error” – this is another big chink in the NAR’s already crumbling credibility and, of course, it doesn’t do much good for Realtors either. Thanks NAR.
According to an article from Nick Timiraos on WSJ.com – Home prices and mortgage rates have fallen so far that the monthly cost of owning a home is more affordable than at any point in the past 15 years and is less expensive than renting in a growing number of cities.
That may be so, it may be cheaper, but, as the article also points out there are other important considerations that are preventing people from jumping on the it’s agood time to buy a home bandwagon.
New Canaan, Connecticut; RESALE value wasn’t what Rodney and Beverly Hawes had in mind when they built a giant “sports barn” behind their pondside home here. The only audience they were looking to please consisted of their 25 grandchildren.
The three-level barn is actually more like a resort, and its 10,000 square feet are filled with fun. In addition to his-and-hers bunkrooms, a full kitchen and a bar, the Haweses put in a basketball court with a scoreboard, a bowling lane and an electronic golf simulator. The movie theater has leather seating for 30. The stage is equipped with professional lighting and sound systems, operated from a balcony above.
The barn thrilled the grandchildren — but the market hasn’t known quite what to do with it. The Haweses’ property, which also includes their seven-bedroom house, a guest cottage, a pool, an outdoor kitchen and a stocked trout pond, has yet to find a buyer after two years.
“With Obama in charge of things, frankly, we might as well get on with life,” Mr. Hawes said, alluding to the president’s call for higher taxes on the wealthy. “Otherwise, we’re going to end up giving it to the folks in Washington anyway.”
sniffle, sniffle, no one interested in their obscene indulgence, what’s the world coming to. It’s enough to almost make me side with Obama.
As most of the country struggled with the widening recession in 2008, Paul Parmar, a private-equity investor, said that as one of the super rich, he was continuing to support the economy by spending on luxury cars, homes and jets, without worry about the cost.
In April 2008, he was quoted in a newspaper interview as saying the downturn didn't affect him at all "on a spending level." He said he had recently acquired a $110,000 BMW for his girlfriend, and a Bentley for himself.
Now Mr. Parmar has joined the many homeowners who have faced foreclosure on their properties.
His 32-acre classical-style compound in Colts Neck, N.J., which features a private lake, outdoor pool with beach, an oversize indoor pool and two bowling lanes, has gone through foreclosure proceedings and is scheduled to be auctioned off by the Monmouth County Sheriff on Oct. 31.
The Business section of today’s New York Times has an article on a new travel web site called Oyster.com that is a welcome change and I think is going to be a big hit. Their whole thing is that instead of relying on the overblown descriptions and retouched photos provided by the hotels promotional department and web sites, Oyster relies instead on 45 full-time reviewers who stay in hotels incognito and post their own reviews and photographs.
“Oyster is meant to be very simple, easy, straightforward and truthful, where what you see is what you get,” said Elie Seidman, chief executive of Oyster. What a novel idea.
And this is really cool, - a regular feature, Photo Fakeouts, contrasts promotional photos from hotels with photos taken from the same perspective by Oyster reviewers.
Check it out, I think the world is ready for this and Oyster is gonna kick some big time travel industry butt
I don’t know if this is actually true, and I hope it is, but it sounded so positive & promising I had to pass it on anyway. 5 bright spots in real estate recession
The real estate market meltdown was much more severe and has lasted much longer than even the most bearish housing market observer would ever have predicted. Rather than values taking a dip, they've taken a double dip in many places; and the housing sector drama has infected the job market and the entire world's economy.
Yet, there are some very shiny silver linings to this whole mess -- a handful of ways in which our mindsets, habits, behaviors and approaches to money, mortgage and even life decision-making -- have been changed by this real estate market debacle. As I see it, here are the five best things about this otherwise terrible housing recession:
and ps - (this is from Inman News- a real estate industry news and info site) I’m always skeptical of RE industry sites, since so much of what’s on them is self serving propaganda & bs. But Inman seems pretty straight.
And it seems that a group of investors, including a couple from Groupon, are planning to buy the jewel of Michigan Avenue. It’s a gorgeous building and perfectly sited at the Chicago River & Michigan Avenue.
My first time ever in Chicago, in 1978 ?, I was there for a job interview and had a very memorable lunch at the Wrigley Building Restaurant. And as a result of that lunch I ended up taking the job and spending more than 20 years in Chicago - a lot of business got done over lunch in those days. And from my new office I looked across Michigan Ave at the Wrigley Building – what a great sight morning til night.
Falling home prices have been the norm for some time. Now, a momentary respite is at hand.
Home prices on a monthly basis rose in both April and May, according to the Case-Shiller Index, a widely followed measure of housing prices. Tuesday's release of the index for June is expected to extend that run to a third gain. This should provide the battered housing sector with some hope.
The 57,000-square-foot Los Angeles mansion built by the late television producer Aaron Spelling closed Thursday for $85 million, or 43% off its asking price.
Candy Spelling, the seller and Mr. Spelling's widow, had been one of a select group of wealthy homeowners who sought to hold firm on their lofty asking prices despite the housing market's sharp decline. That group has steadily dwindled. Ms. Spelling's estate has been shown since 2008 and was officially listed in March 2009. From WSJ.com
From the New York Times By DAVID STREITFELDand MEGAN THEE-BRENAN Published: June 29, 2011
Despite Fears, Owning Home Retains Allure, Poll Shows
Nearly nine in 10 Americans say homeownership is an important part of the American dream, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. And they are keen on making sure it stays that way, for themselves and everyone else.
I’ve had my fill of them lately. A few months ago my gmail account was hacked and I lost all my saved emails – a couple a thousand of them, both personal & business. But thankfully I was able to recover my gmail account.
Then more recently, and for no apparent reason, I had a bout where perfectly legitimate emails were ending up in my spam folder. Which of course I didn’t discover until way too long after the fact. So if you emailed to inquire about me representing you in a mega $$$$ deal and I didn’t reply, it wasn’t me, I swear.
Dear Email Client, There was a failed attempt to login into your account from a blacklisted IP. Kindly login below Click Here<
and when I clicked Click Here I landed here;
on a page that looks exactly like a legitimate Google sign in page, except for the address in the address bar, which- you probably can’t read - reads ; http://www.clubvanvrijdenkers.nl/logo/gmail/signon.html (whatever the hell clubvanvrijdenkers.nl/… is)
I read this article early this morning and was seething, so (*&)(*%^*&(&*%^ angry that I couldn’t put it on the blog without making a complete ass of myself. That our Justice Department could actually put Charlie Engle in jail while that fat +%)*^@ cat Angelo Mozilo and his ilk go scot free is the height of hypocrisy.
DOB: Mar 18, 1997 Missing: Mar 14, 2011 Height: 5'2" (157 cm) Eyes: Hazel Race: White Age Now: 13 Sex: Female Weight: 95 lbs (43 kg) Hair: Brown
Missing From: TUCSON AZ United States
Ashley was last seen at home on March 14, 2011. She may be in the company of an adult male. She may still be in the local area or she may travel to Utah in a 2000 silver Hyundai Elantra with Utah license plates Z754UV.
ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT National Center for Missing & Exploited Children 1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST)
Pima County Sheriff's Department (Arizona) 1-520-351-4900
here’s the latest in a growing series of articles that attempt to answer that question but may, in fact, only cause more confusion, From WSJ.com > Why 2011 May Be the End of the Housing Crash
which could just as easily been titled > Why 2011 May Not Be …
With the National Association of Realtors reporting that home prices rose in about half of U.S. metropolitan areas in the last three months of 2010, it’s easy to think that that the housing market is showing some signs of recovery. “Home sales clearly recovered in the latter part of 2010,” Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s ever-optimistic economist says in a statement.
But the proverbial grain of salt is in order, given many other sources report prices continue falling. The Journal recently reported that home values declined in all of the 28 major metropolitan areas tracked during the fourth quarter when compared to a year earlier, and repeat-sales indexes such as the S&P/Case Shiller index have shown that prices declined in October and November.
and a couple of reader comments from the WSJ article sum it up nicely;
Charlie wrote: For thirty years,”There has never been a better time to buy a home” has been the NAR mantra. Only “journalists” are paying the NAR any attention. Why?
kilgore wrote:
Someone at the WSJ really ought to do a lengthy analysis of Lawrence Yun’s and David Lereah’s incredibly irresponsible/profoundly damaging statements on the state of the housing markets over the past 7 years. I can’t think of a less credible organization.
It’s laughable, but the NAR continues to parade around as if it’s (still) the trusted source for real estate information in this country. (it never really was the trusted source, it was just the only source available, but they did a damn good job of abusing that privilege – and so those days are now long gone) Like the Detroit auto industry, peddling their junk to the American people for the 30 years leading up to their collapse, and all the while waving the flag and chanting BUY AMERICAN. What traitors.
From Inman News™ CoreLogic: NAR methodology appears to inflate home sales by 15-20%
Statistics published by the National Association of Realtors appear to overstate sales of existing homes by 15 to 20 percent, mortgage and property data aggregator CoreLogic says in a new report that concludes home sales fell more sharply last year than previously thought.
A NAR spokesman said the CoreLogic claim "is premature at best," and NAR will be making some benchmark revisions to its historic sales data later this year.
NAR's figures -- based on data collected from multiple listing services and large brokerages -- show sales of existing homes fell 5 percent in 2010, to 4.9 million. But CoreLogic, which collects public sales records from county recorders and courts, estimates that home sales actually fell 12 percent, to 3.6 million.
MELISSA CALDERONE was ready for a fresh start when she made plans last year to move to Florida from New Jersey. Recently remarried, she signed a contract in mid-March on a house to be built in Windermere, Fla., by Pulte Homes, the nation’s largest homebuilder. The neighborhood had good schools for her three children and two stepchildren. It was also close to where Ms. Calderone’s parents lived.
Her local bank approved her for a mortgage. But then a Pulte Homes saleswoman told her that she would get a $4,000 credit toward closing costs if she took out a loan with the homebuilder’s banking unit instead. Ms. Calderone, 38, agreed. She deposited $20,000 in earnest money and set aside $80,000 more for a down payment on the $347,000 house. Her closing date, documents show, was scheduled for late summer, about six months later.
Then her troubles began. Although she had been “preapproved” by Pulte, the company ultimately denied her the loan. Then, contending that Ms. Calderone had defaulted on the purchase agreement by failing to close on time, Pulte kept her $20,000 deposit. The house went back on the market.
Our recent brush with frigid weather withstanding, it wouldn’t merit even a mention compared to what people in the rest of the country have had to endure.
Brett Arends of Wall Street Journal looks at whether the weather is going to drive more sun seekers to live in the warmer climes of the south and southwest.
This is Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, heading north for the burbs. What fun, eh. For about 20 years I made my way to and from along Lake Shore Drive, often in weather just like this. And at the time it seemed so normal.
I like Robert Schiller. He works hard at understanding the market and thinks seriously about what he says. And unlike the various real estate schills out there, the clowns who’ve always got a good yarn to spin, no matter what, Schiller calls it like he sees it.
The New York Times Eighteen months after the recession officially ended, the government’s latest measures to bolster the economy have led many forecasters and policy makers to express new optimism that the recovery will gain substantial momentum in 2011.
Economists in universities and on Wall Street have raised their growth projections for next year. Retail sales, industrial production and factory orders are on the upswing, and new claims for unemployment benefits are trending downward.
And not a moment too soon. If things do improve then consumers moods and attitudes will also improve and there should be less uncertainty. And that is bound to have a positive effect on our real estate market here in the Foothills.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The American Dream is still alive and kicking, including within immigrant and minority communities, according to a survey from mortgage giant Fannie Mae.
The housing crisis hasn't quenched the homeownership thirst, the company found. More than 51% of people said the bust did not change their willingness to buy a home and an additional 27% said it actually made them more likely to do so.
‘It's an unsettling time to be shopping for a home. Home values have yet to stabilize in three-quarters of U.S. metropolitan areas. Alarm about so-called robo-signing of foreclosure paperwork has raised fundamental questions about who owns a property's title. And, while unlikely, two bipartisan commissions have suggested capping or killing the previously sacrosanct tax deductibility of mortgage interest.’
‘Seeing so many foreclosures hit the market, and watching what has happened with prices, has ingrained a bargain-basement mentality in many buyers, say agents.’ From Businessweek.com >The Next Home Buyers: Ozzie & Harriet
‘The U.S. housing market is showing signs of falling deeper into a slump that could weigh on the nation's economic recovery.’
"The housing market is stuck at the bottom, and we've been stuck there for months," said Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight. From WSJ.com > Slump in Housing Prices Deepens
Mike Larson, a housing market analyst for Weiss Research, said that positive and negative forces have been offsetting each other, leaving a market in limbo.
"You have low home prices and interest rates on the one hand, but trouble getting financing on the other," he said. "And unemployment remains stubbornly high." From CNNMoney.com>Existing home sales slow down
Millions of foreclosures and weak demand from buyers are forcing home prices down in most major U.S. cities.
Prices are falling even in places like San Francisco and San Diego, which had posted strong increases just a few months ago. Analysts say many markets won't improve until they see fewer foreclosures and more job gains. From Yahoo News! >Home prices falling faster in most metro areas
You may have heard that my GMail account was hacked yesterday. The hacker sent out a couple of hundred scam mails to people in my contact file asking them to send me money. The scam was that I’d lost my wallet and passport and was stranded in London with no means to get home and not even two pence to rub together to get a bag of fish n’chips. see> I’ve been HACKED
The response was overwhelming. From the crack of dawn to late into the night I got emails, text messages and phone calls from friends, family, colleagues and clients from all over the country, and the world, checking to see that I was OK and not, in fact, stranded in London. Everyone was pretty sure it was a scam, but they wanted to know for sure sure. So aside from the inconvenience for them and for me, I heard from a lot of people I hadn’t been in touch with in years and got to talk with a lot of old friends. And it turned out to be a very nice day after all.
With Veterans Day coming up, Brandon Fisher from the VA Benefit Blog.com put together some information on VA home loans that he asked me to post.
The VA Home Loan Brandon Fischer
As conventional loans become increasingly difficult to obtain, many veterans are finding themselves being denied the dream of homeownership. However, the VA loan program, in spite of the mortgage crisis, remains one of the most progressive and flexible lending programs available to veterans. Since 1944, the VA Loan has helped more than 18 million veterans and active duty service members achieve homeownership and continues to do so today, providing high quality benefits that save borrowers money while enhancing the quality of their lives.
Why Should Veterans Choose a VA Loan
The VA home loan program was designed specifically for veterans. To honor a veterans time of service, the Department of Veterans Affairs guarantees part of each VA loan. This VA guarantee allows VA-lenders to provide borrowers with the flexible loan terms and benefits they wouldn't be able to find with a conventional home loan.
VA loans also have high loan limits, which is highly beneficial for veterans in the state of Arizona where the average cost of a home is $150,000. Eligible VA borrowers can secure loans up to $417,000 in most areas of the United States, and loans of up to $1,094,625 for those wishing to purchase in more expensive real estate areas. In addition to providing flexible loan terms, competitive interest rates, and high loan limits, VA home loans benefits also include:
The VA home loan program has no income or credit requirements allowing nearly all veterans the opportunity to obtain a VA home loan. In fact, the program is so dedicated to providing military personnel with a home loan that 80% of those who qualify for a VA loan would not have been able to secure a conventional loan. To begin the VA home loan application process, veterans and all other military members must meet one of the following initial requirements:
Served 181 days on active duty or 3 months during war time
Served 6 years in the National Guard or Reserves
Be the spouse of a service member killed in action
Veterans and active duty service members who meet the initial guidelines must also present a Certificate of Eligibility. If potential borrowers do not have their Certificate of Eligibility, a VA-approved lender should be able to aid borrowers in obtaining their COE.
Although the VA home loan program has no credit requirements, most VA-approved lenders will require a credit score of at least 620 to secure financing.
When I got home this afternoon I found a Fed Ex envelope from Chase Mortgage inviting me to re-finance my existing 6+% Chase mortgage to a 4.5% Chase mortgage – with no fees, no closing costs, none at all, not a red cent, and no appraisal, and no application other than a few questions over the phone. (this, of course, is something that I’ve been meaning to do but kept putting off because, like everyone else, who wants to go through the rigmarole of applying for a new mortgage) So talk about ‘too good to be true’.
But what the hell, I called anyway. And after about 2 minutes talking with Stu, the Chase guy, and confirming the terms and answering just a few questions, I was on my way to a new mortgage at about 1 3/4% less than my existing mortgage - with nothing more to do but sign on the dotted line in a few weeks.
And when it was all done and I thanked Stu, he said no, no, thank you for being a good customer of Chase, you earned it. He said, this is one for the good guys – I swear that’s what he said - the people who pay their bills on time.
Sound familiar. There’s a very good piece in today’s Wall Street Journal about the upper and ultra upper end of the real estate market. More upper than we generally get here in the Foothills but, apparently, subject to the same kind of holdout mentality.
Some of the nation's wealthiest home sellers refuse to lower their asking prices. 'I feel the property is worth every penny.'
More than four years after the housing market peaked, many of the nation's wealthiest homeowners are slashing prices in earnest.
Then there are the ultimate holdouts: a rarefied slice of extremely wealthy sellers who are holding the line on today's deal-making, price-slashing mentality. Even as their properties have lingered on the market, these sellers haven't budged on initial asking prices, some of which were set in the waning days of the housing bubble.
With housing prices off about 28% from their peak in 2006 according to Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Index, some real estate agents say waiting is a risky strategy. "Everyone, from bottom to top, got hurt in the financial panic, and it's reflected in the high-end of the housing market being frozen," says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics. He adds that price declines, originally confined to the bottom of the market, have begun migrating upward.
"We've never been in a more price-sensitive market," says Janet Owen of Sudler Sotheby's International Realty, who recently got the listing for the Chicago mansion of J.P. Morgan's Jamie Dimon. Originally listed for $13.5 million in 2007, the home as of August was listed at $6.95 million. It went into contract in late September. "The smart sellers respond to the market," Ms. Owen says.
While many home sellers can be slow to adjust to the market, the very wealthy can be the slowest of all. "That stratum of the population is not impervious to what's happening in the market, but they operate by their own set of dynamics," says Sam Khater, senior economist at real-estate research firm CoreLogic.
Still, it's a rule of thumb that the longer a listing lingers, the less desirable it often seems to buyers. For some of these holdouts, brokers have masked length of time "on market" by avoiding officially listing them or yanking them on and off multiple-listing services. Drew Mandile of Sotheby's International Realty, who represents Mr. Saperstein's equestrian estate, says he and his colleague "go dumb" any time a prospective buyer asks how long the property has been for sale. Now that, does sound faintly familiar.
or as New York Times reporter Joe Nocera so kindly puts it, “You have to wonder sometimes what they’re smoking over there at the National Association of Realtors”
That’s because Lawrence Yun, chief economist and head mouthpiece for the NAR, in his latest pronouncements, continues to sing the same old song the NAR has sung since day 1 of the real estate bust. He continues to spin fairy tales about the housing market that everyone else has, long ago, stopped listening to and believing in. The only thing the NAR has truly succeeded at, is in marginalizing the NAR, and in turn Realtors® across the country, in their/our own industry.
The NAR lives in it’s own little fairy tale of a walled garden. Believing until the very end, like GM and their Detroit cronies did, that they could peddle their crap and continue to hoodwink the American people as they have for decades. And then show up with hat in hand to those same people they cheated and lied to.
When the NAR spews this drivel it’s then re-packaged into little sound bites or, in RE industry jargon, scripts, for the rank and file, that’s Realtors® like me, to go out and preach this prattle to the masses -that’s you, Mr & MS home buyer/seller - so that the RE industry appears to be speaking with one nice happy positive voice. And no matter that it ignores the facts and is, over and over again, a bunch of misguided self serving baloney.
With that off my chest, here are two good articles from today’s New York Times on the current state of the real estate dilemma.
And, yes, given how the NAR has failed to level with and offer honest guidance to consumers, while continually lowering the bar, it’s no wonder that consumers have flocked to Zillow, Trulia and other unbiased and more transparent sources of real estate information. And unfortunately, the entire real estate industry marches to the tune set by the NAR. Worse yet, we pay good money to be a member of this clan.
Have you ever noticed how in the listing info, homes for sale are usually described in the most glowing terms. In terms that might lead one to believe that they are all perfect homes in perfect locations under perfectly sunny skies where everyone is perfectly happy and they are, the Best Priced…, the Best Value … with the Best Views …, and The Most Stunning Home in – fill in the blank. Yes, I too can exaggerate.
Anyway, those descriptions might lead you to believe all those wonderful things, except that we’ve all learned to take that stuff with a grain of salt or, at the very least, with a wait and see, I’ll be the judge of that, attitude. Hey, it’s advertising, caveat emptor.
But sometimes it’s more than just an amusing or annoying or exaggerated description. Because sometimes the description is so far off from reality that not only doesn’t it do the seller any good, it actually does them harm. While also wasting the time of a lot of buyers and their agents.
How. Take the most blatant, obvious example. A fixer-upper.
99 times out of 100, people are either in the market for a fixer-upper or they are not. There are fixer-upper people and there is everyone else. And everyone else wouldn’t touch a fixer-upper with a ten foot pole. So if you’re trying to sell one, you want to do everything you can to get the fixer-upper people in to see it. And don’t fret over everyone else. So please, do everyone a good turn and advertise your fixer-upper, or whatever it is you’re advertising, for what it really is.
What brought on this rant. Well, A couple of things. One, the other day I noticed a listing that really annoyed me. In one place it said; … It is so lovingly cared-for and is … blah blah
And just a little further down the page, it also said; Seller has never resided on the property and no SPDS are available. Home to be sold ''AS IS''. Uh, which is it.
And I also walked into a fixer-upper that was advertised as anything but.
Plus my recurring itch, that contrary opinions, that are neither positive nor glowing - about homes for sale, are not welcome. And this, in the good ole USA, in the 21st century.
says Douglas Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae.
From WSJ.com Housing Market Stumbles
The housing market, whose collapse pulled the economy into recession in late 2007, is stalling again.
In major markets across the country, home sales are deteriorating, inventories of unsold homes are piling up and builders are scaling back construction plans. The expiration of a federal home-buyers tax credit at the end of April is weighing on the market.
Chris Fountain, a Connecticut Realtor and blogger extraordinaire, talks about why sellers should listen and learn from “unvarnished” comments about their property rather than just getting pissed.
The economic recovery has been helped in large part by the spending of the most affluent. Now, even the rich appear to be tightening their belts.
“One of the reasons that the recovery has lost momentum is that high-end consumers have become more jittery and more cautious,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics.
Some of the savviest investors on Wall Street, including some who made billions on the housing bust, now are snapping up barren plots of land in places like Las Vegas and Phoenix.
Hedge fund Paulson & Co., which made a fortune wagering that the housing market was overvalued three years ago, is now making a bet that land is undervalued and that it can profit from reselling lots to home builders. The firm is bidding on some 8,000 residential lots in Arizona, Colorado and Nevada owned by home builder Tousa Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. Tousa has been operating under bankruptcy protection.
In the rocky suburbs of Las Vegas, meanwhile, Angelo, Gordon & Co. recently paid $35 million for land parcels zoned for about 2,500 residential lots. That is roughly half the amount the former owner sank into the property for roads, sewers and other infrastructure alone. At the same time, land investor SunCal Cos. is working with firms like D.E. Shaw & Co. to close a dozen land deals in Arizona and California.
Disney Targets the Affluent 6/23/2010 From WSJ.com The company is planning a luxury vacation-home development in Disney World in Florida on 980 acres. Vacant lots go on sale this week. Luxury homes are expected to be priced between $1.5 to 8 million $$. Disney believes the luxury market is on the upswing.
The housing market took a big step back in the month of May. There's no disputing that.
Strangely enough, investors briefly did their best Mötley Crüe impersonation Thursday morning and sang a happy tune called Home Sweet Home Builders.
So as perverse as it may sound, some bullish investors may have been buying on the notion that housing finally can't get any worse.
"This is probably about as bad as it gets -- we are far closer to the bottom," said John Norris, managing director of wealth management with Oakworth Capital Bank in Birmingham, Ala. "Housing numbers should stabilize going forward."
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- New home sales plummeted to a record low in May, the first month following the expiration of the homebuyer tax credit. This snapped a two-month streak of gains.
New home sales declined 32.7% to a seasonally adjusted rate of 300,000 last month, down from an downwardly revised 446,000 in April, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Sales year-over-year fell 18.3%.
This is the slowest sales pace since the Commerce Department began tracking data in 1963. The prior record was set in September 1981, when new homes sold at an annual rate of 338,000.
Before the recession, people simply looked for a house to buy. Later they got squeamish just thinking about buying. Now they are on a quest for perfection at the perfect price.
Exacting buyers are upending the battered real estate market, agents and other experts say, leading to last-minute demands for multiple concessions, bruised feelings on all sides and many more collapsed deals than usual.
It is a reversal of roles from the boom, when competing buyers were sometimes reduced to writing heartfelt letters saying how much they loved the house and how they promised to eternally worship the memory of the previous owners. These days, it is the buyers who are coldly seeking the absolute best deal while the sellers are left in emotional turmoil.
Major stock indexes ended the first week of June in the red. Investors hoping for a reprieve from the Dow's slide in May, the worst May since 1940, were sorely disappointed.
Brokers say the total number of Hamptons homes sold this year is roughly double what it was last year and that includes properties with eight-figure price tags.
So far in 2010, 14 Hamptons properties sold for at least $10 million each and more such deals are in the works right now, Hoffman said. In 2009, there were just 13 such sales for the whole year. "This year is really shaping up to be incredible in the $10 million-plus market," he said.
But Saunders said he's seeing the most activity for properties selling below $5 million. He attributes that partly to bankers choosing to make more modest purchases than they would have in the past. "There is significant populist rage out there against bankers," he said. "A lot of these bankers are under significant pressure not to engage in conspicuous consumption …
Yeah, keep it under 5 mil, that’s practically a hovel,
After a near-disastrous 2009, the luxury market appears to be making a comeback, driven by growing buyer confidence, improved financing conditions and more-realistic seller pricing. Despite the housing downturn, attractively priced homes in some of the nation's most coveted neighborhoods are selling, sometimes fast and sometimes with multiple offers. Nationwide, sales of homes selling for $2 million to $5 million in the first quarter totaled 2,461, up 32% from a year before, says CoreLogic.
That sales are up from last year shouldn't come as a big surprise. The shock of the financial panic in the fall of 2008 left many potential buyers too nervous to bid, and those who were willing to wade in found it hard to get financing. But a study for The Wall Street Journal by MDA DataQuick, a real-estate data provider, found that in some areas of the country, sales of homes over $2 million in the first quarter were actually on par with the levels of 2005, the peak year for existing-home sales volume nationwide.
In San Francisco, 49 homes sold for $2 million or more in this year's first quarter, according to the study, compared to 47 in 2005. In Manhattan, there were 402 sales of $2 million or more in the latest quarter, compared with 311 in the first quarter of 2005, according to the appraisal firm Miller Samuel Inc. Other areas with strong rebounds included New York's Hamptons, Menlo Park, Calif., and Beverly Hills.
Read all about it> Luxury Sales Bounce Back (if the linked page requires a subscription to read the entire article, just google the title - Luxury Sales Bounce Back - and follow that link)
If luxury home sales continue to improve in these other larger cities, in 4 to 6 months, we’ll begin seeing stronger luxury sales here in the Tucson Foothills. I betcha.
![[RICH2]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NY-BF778_RICH2_G_20111007205356.jpg)
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