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Agreed. In Orange County, our year-over-year sales figures are still below 2007's figures (which were pretty anemic as well), but the month-over-month figures from March to April did show a 20% jump. This was driven solely from the foreclosure and short sales from the subprime towns.
F-ing WaMu just reduced my HELOC available amount because their F-ing AVM came in $10K lower than the original appraisal when the line was set up. Contacted the "Service Excellance" dept which has been known throughout the years as "Office of the President" or "Quality Assurance". Basically the 'last ditch place to whine and moan' for customers. Explained that all my accounts and loans + the business accounts I control will be closed over the next few months due to this. Anyways... the stupid part of this is my fiance still works there and warned me about this. I figured, I have a 750+ FICO score and more cash on deposit than the the line of credit is plus pretty much every account, service, and loan they offer. Basically, I am there picture perfect 'best customer'..... that have to take that into consideration.... right? Well, I gave my former employer too much credit is seems. So, if you have a WaMu HELOC and have ANY plans of using it.... get to a branch today and get the cash out right away.... but it might be too later anyways. As for my condo's value... I bought it because of the long term growth potential for this immediate neighborhood. It seems I am right. Tons of new projects right near us as well as run down buildings getting renovations done to them. Will suck if I try to sell now but in the long run, should make my place more valued.
Chad - I thought you had moved to SoCal. Did you buy this place before you left? Are you renting it out?
Based on WHAT exactly? All the non-compelling anecdotal evidence I've seen suggests that prices continue to fall here in Chicago. Example #1: a buddy bid on a condo...originally listed at $710K. Buddy thinks about bidding $650K, waits 2 months, then bids $625K. Offer accepted immediatelyExample #2: wife and I looked at, oh, about 30 places in the past month. 28 of the 30 are still on the market (and majority have languished for at least 3 months), 12 of the 28 have seen $40-50K price declines. Yet still haven't sold. So where are prices up and what is your source of data?
Based on the Cubs and White Sox leading their respective divisions?
Based on the Cubs and White Sox leading their respective divisions?
that's probably more compelling than some of the garbage i've read in this thread.
Same thing just happened to me, though my HELOC is thru Bank of America. Opened a letter and it said my HELOC was reduced to 15,500 from $50,000. Blew me away. I have $14,000 borrowed on it right now, used it to pay off some other junk. Doesn't really matter to me personally, since I had no plans to use it and in fact was thinking of taking some cash and just paying it down to $0 anyway, but I was surprised nonetheless. I have to think I'm at the top of their list when ranking credit risks, so this must be happening to EVERYONE, which maybe says alot about BofA right now.
No, I think you may have been confused about when I almost bought a property in SoCal but I am still in Chicago. I am hoping to make the move to SoCal in the next couple of years and actually hope to rent this condo out to my fiances brothers when we do to hold it longer for the expected value that it will gain in the long run. Due to some... creative... builds into the condo, I would not rent this out to just anyone... too much of a opening to get sued.
Around me it does not seem too bad nor too good. A unit in my building finally sold but at a pretty good discount. The building kitty corner from us has not even begun renovation on what we expect to be a 12-14 unit conversion and supposedly they have already sold 4 units at healthy $ amounts for this neighborhood. I think it really depends on where and what and how much you are talking about. Some areas have so much new construction that the developers are selling new units at huge discounts while previous owners can't give away their places because no one wants a used higher priced condo. Over all, the Chicago market did not experience the same up's that other markets did and now the good side is that it should not experience the same low's. I am hoping for the Chicago 2016 Olympics bid to be won. That will be a help to real estate in the area as well... a nice prize for dealing with the horrible traffic due to all the freeways being worked on in prep for the bid.
It is a fairly industry wide thing among the big banks. They are running FICO's and AVM's to do 'risk management' which their underwriting failed to do in the first place when they were all scrambling to get market share and make the biggest splash in Q earnings reports and loosened and loosened underwriting standards.
/hijack alert/Don't get me started on the freeways here. I really hope that Chicago loses the 2016 Olympics bid, because I can't imagine this city being any more hosed than it already is./end hijack/Yeah, the Chicago market definitely didn't experience the overall highs of, say, Southern Cal. That said, a bunch of places in the city are in bubble mode and have been for awhile. The wife and I do pretty well....yet there are few 3 BR 2 BA places in desirable city neighborhoods that we can afford. To me, that screams bubble. But hey, it's just anecdotal evidence - and I hate anecdotal evidence.chad - your overall point is 100% valid. Even if the market here is overvalued, the drop will be muted vs. Florida, Southern Cal, Nevada, etc.
I am from L.A. and the traffic is KILLING me right now. Honestly, the Olympic bid will be a very good thing for the city. Right now they got all the road contruction going on at the same time to get it ready for the bid but in the end it will be good. The amount of cash infusion and development that will happen if Chicago gets the bid will be a great help to the city in many ways. Away from that, yes, I agree... there are certainly areas (as in pretty much almost any market that was not the last 5 years or so) in Chicago that are going to be worst off than the 'general' Chicago market. Overall, I do not see the Chicago market having anywhere near the same pains as markets like So Cal, Florida, Las Vegas, etc.
That's why I find it strange. Even if they've finally run some overdue risk analysis, it is alarming because the wife and I have credit that has to be near or at perfect. Moreover, our debt to income ratio is not large at all. If they are reducing mine, they are reducing EVERYONE'S, and to me that's alarming. Getting in bed with Countrywide a few months ago may be biting them in the butt right about now.
Lots to be alarmed about. The housing crisis is no where near finished, despite the "recovery" stories we're hearing from the RE bulls.ALT A Option ARMs are going to start resetting in mass soon. Gonna get even more ugly in SoCal.
Actually, I don't think the BofA acquisition of Countrywide has gone through. The last I saw was a potential change in the terms to make it more favorable and a note that BofA still has easy outs.ETA: Also, as someone mentioned before, I think the HELOC letters are mainly because of the risk. With foreclosures going way up, I think Banks may just be closing things off in areas (Ohio and Illinois are two we have seen from posters in this thread) were the risk is high. If someone has 50k left in their HELOC and they are about to go belly up on the loan, why not take the 50k out and then foreclose? Not the most ethical, but that is what the banks are worried about. People with great credit are taking a dump on their credit if they are upside down on the house, so I don't think the credit rating matters.
You are correct, but it's possible they are trying to hoard cash in front of the actual deed going down.
I should have specified that my comments were for SFHs (in the city) and not condos. Condos are a different animal.My info comes from both anecdotal evidence and published data my wife read and relayed to me. I will try to remember to ask her tonight for the source.Michael J Fox said:
The ARM's resetting may actually be a good thing or neutral depending on the product and index. I have not paid much attention to indeces like COFI that most ARM's are tied to, so I do not know where they are but they do tend to trend in similiar fashion with the Prime.tommyGunZ said:
It is not the CFC deal that BAC is doing this. It is a risk management tool written into most HELOC contracts and everyone is taking significant losses right now. It is simply a way to mitigate the losses they are taking. BAC is trying to get CFC to write off everything it can now before the deal is complete. As for WaMu, I am pretty sure that this is a company wide policy for all of it's HELOC's. They are running both FICO and AVM's for possible re-setting of line amounts.
In CA, I read a stat suggesting that a ridiculously high % of people in Option ARMs were making the minimum payment, meaning they weren't even paying the monthly interest in full. Negatively amortizing an asset that is down 10-20% in the past year is disastrous.
Option ARM's are different from ARM's as you know. I do agree with you though, being with WaMu who is one of the leaders (or use to be at least) in Option ARM lending, I can across many, many, many customers who were paying the min payment and had no clue what they were actually doing. I had many a discussion with them about how that was adding principle to their loan and not paying anything down. That they need to pay on the other options or at some point the min payment will be taken away from them anyways.
While the Charlotte market may be holding steady on the price front, sales were down last month 31% year over year. Personally I would not be a buyer in this market unless you were getting a deal below market value.
Is this a case of Charlotte being late to the party, or have recent gains been slow and steady, and not the speculative bubble other cities have faced?
ABSOLUTELY. Anyone buying at 'current' market value is a moron.
Everything I read was slow and steady. It has definitely slowed down, but there have been at least 4 closes in the past month, so still moving, not stagnant. Still a good amount of people moving into town from up north. It seemed slower over the winter and seemed to pick up a bit in April.I think I just read an article which listed final sales price to listing and most of the areas around Charlotte were in the 97%+ range. Probably a month out of date, but definitely not like the bubble areas. You can still get a very nice house not far at all from downtown for a very reasonable price compared to where I came from outside of DC.
People want to buy here, but they're stuck with homes in other markets they have to dispose of first. The mortgage crisis has hit starter home neighborhoods in some of the less desireable areas. Prices have dropped there and if the continue to fall then pressure will be exerted on the surrounding areas. Our market was increasing at less than 5% from 98 until Katrina hit. That spurred a couple of years of double digit increases as new home prices finally went from $80 /sf to $100 /sf and used homes followed. I expected a 5% to 10% slump in prices with the top shelf product holding steady, but oil and raw material prices definately will prevent a significant draw back beyond this.
Got it. Thx for clarifying, makes a bit more sense.My boss is trying to sell his house in Lincoln Park right now. He paid $600K about 4 years ago, listed at $1.25M, now has dropped down to $1.15M. No hits yet - a bunch of people "have looked", but no takers. My guess is that he ends up at about $1M, still WAY above what he paid only a few years ago.
that's way low for the average LP house--what's wrong with it?
Exactly."Why leverage yourself on one horrible depreciating asset when you can double up and lose twice as much equity!"
transactions are up the past month or two, but that's a given due to seasonal trends. also, there is a significant boost coming from bank REO sales - i think something like 39% of sales in San Diego last month were REOs.
The numbers are very similar in Orange CountyThis might be the first time in 32+ months that the County year-over-year monthly sales figures have not declined. But as the chart in the link shows, it's really distressed, low-end properties that are pushing the market. The high end inventory continues to accumulate.
Are you buying or selling, Terry?
Drinking, Paulie. 40's.
Don't like it unless you have a tip that it's about to rapidly appreciate and you can move it quickly. The money flow on land goes one direction and that's outbound. Now if you've got money to burn and need a place to hunt or fish I can see the draw, but you'd see be better off leasing. Better to be invested in something that will generate some revenue.
yeah, I hear what you are saying, but I'm talking about long term investments - 20 year time line. I suppose the market probably outperforms land in the long run though, so the $$ is probably better put somewhere else.
And 2 
for avoiding your SoCal purchase.
