EasyAl Posted January 1, 2003 Report Share Posted January 1, 2003 It's the strongest signal yet that the Bay State's housing market may be cooling: The average cost of an existing single-family home dropped to $335,813 in November, the third consecutive monthly decline, according to data released yesterday by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. The average has fallen $33,264, or 9 percent, from a high of $369,077 in July. ''The hot, hot, hot housing market has turned lukewarm,'' said Rosalind Levine, a Worcester realtor. ''Homebuying is on hold for some buyers because they're worried about holding onto their jobs,'' she said. ''The rest are refusing to pay overpriced home prices. We're finally seeing a buyers' market, for the first time in years.'' Home prices dip for 3d month: Bay State average down 9% from July high, to $335,813 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phatbubble Posted January 1, 2003 Report Share Posted January 1, 2003 I will continue to pay the mortgage on the home I have lived in for 12 years. The smart thing to do would be to get my equity out, but I'm just too lazy to move....I like most homeowners will simply sit and watch my equity shrivel and maybe disappear. doc, surprised to hear that go-ahead-and-park-your-truck-on-my-lawn sentiment from you. why not take out a home equity loan, plow it into BEARX, and then in 6 months retire the loan and keep the extra? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phatbubble Posted January 1, 2003 Report Share Posted January 1, 2003 by the way....excellent thread. some great, articulate posts. this IS a slow-motion train wreck. the market and the economy are separate, etcetera etcetera and all that.....but fundamentally, the 'real estate market' is not a discrete experiment under a bell jar and a heat lamp that's taking place in another building from the one called '0% auto financing' or the one called 'securities fraud' or whatever else. we're pretty much at the point of no return regarding the likely outcome of all this. the entire system is hollowed out. the only question of real merit is, at what speed does the slow-motion train wreck proceed? at the present speed? or does the frame-by-frame that allows people to stay in denial (THAT is the word you were looking for, susanj) start to speed up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assteroid Posted January 1, 2003 Report Share Posted January 1, 2003 Takachi, Condoleeza Rice is indeed a sharp cookie. In the African-American community she's regarded as an Oreo cookie surrounded by Nutbars! Hillary is a friendly fascist fruitcake like her husband, and no better than the current bunch of overt fascists, in the long run. Anyone with the nerve to run in 2004, scores brownie points for trying! I'm fudging by not limiting these comments to Political Stool. Sorry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hypertiger Posted January 1, 2003 Report Share Posted January 1, 2003 It will begin to quicken expoenentally soon... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Takachi Posted January 1, 2003 Report Share Posted January 1, 2003 I'm surprised that no one in these threads has recognized the potential for a mainstream revolt against globalism and lax immigration. As this thing unfolds I see a tremendous potential for reversal of opinion and a retreat to isolationism. Depending on who champions and how the media allows it to be approached, the result could be dramatic. Potential for a dark horse or 3rd party for high impact in 2004 is greater than it has ever been. Would that be a good thing? The forces shaping this thing are so bent, I don't see how, but that is our role, to be more than mere contrarians, to recognize goodness where it lays, and do our parts to promote it at the most basic grass roots level. Washington on foreign entanglements should be required reading by every politician! "Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! Is it rendered impossible by its vices? In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim. " Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brian4 Posted January 1, 2003 Report Share Posted January 1, 2003 OOOH!-How the festering rot and sea of slime keeps coming out and OUT! One of the paragons of virtue thru this whole mess to a lot us has been Bill Gross a man who speaks the TRUTH! Well maybe not-it seems Bill, his brother and the Tinman Jack Welch hooked up some years ago with BAC and C and DELL among others and formed something called IDEALAB-which has now dissolved into lawsuits and a plot line that would make J.R. Ewing blush-go to www.forbes.com and click on Angry Investors seek to liquidate Idealab-it's New Years day and another hero is found to have feet of clay-my, my, my what a start to 2003! Trade Safe! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkst27 Posted January 1, 2003 Report Share Posted January 1, 2003 SNOT Pimpco's Bill Gross Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrawDaddy Posted January 2, 2003 Report Share Posted January 2, 2003 (rumor) This just in: A prominent mortgage broker has cut the commission cap allowed to 'sales' in the refinance phone support center. From what I know, these people basically just walk the customer through the forms and make the majority of their pay on commissions. The last 3 years have been fantastic for those folks but the maximum payout available is to be cut nearly in half on in April or March. Since most of those workers are there for the commission and on salary this in effect could be viewed as a lay off of nearly 1/3rd the force in my opinion -- that's the result I expect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EasyAl Posted January 3, 2003 Report Share Posted January 3, 2003 Sir Prints A Lot said that one can not do arbitrage on real estate. I wonder if the story on converting commercial buildings into apartments can be charaterized as one form of arbitrage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assteroid Posted January 3, 2003 Report Share Posted January 3, 2003 E.Al, The landlord confidently asserts in the article, "Something'll come along, it always does". This kind of thinking drives me crazy. You'd think he was referring back as far as the Jurassic era, when California was only settled about 100 years ago. In fact the fellow is probably using his own limited lifetime as a measure of future events. This isn't a bubble, its more like a whoopee cushion, and its going to be embarrassing when all the exultant exhalations are revealed for what they really are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EasyAl Posted January 5, 2003 Report Share Posted January 5, 2003 Here is an article which mentions that People are moving out of Seattle area. In early 1990s, there were a lot of people moving out of California too. I wonder if it is happening in Sillicon Valley area. The vehicle registration records at DMV should gives fairly accurate number on this. But the data tend to be one year late. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldilocks Posted January 6, 2003 Report Share Posted January 6, 2003 Now I KNOW I am going insane..... EasyAl just made a funny...... LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EasyAl Posted January 6, 2003 Report Share Posted January 6, 2003 Here is a personal story on foreclosure: The Dempseys bought their three-bedroom, two-bath ranch-style house with the help of the Heritage Christian Center's first-time home buyer program. They are frugal people, people who don't believe in credit, don't buy new when used will work, who trust that God will provide. Their home, comfortable, with rugs on wood parquet floors and pictures of their grandchildren on the wall, is outfitted with furniture friends and neighbors gave them. "Do you know," Sharon says, indignant, "that this woman at the mortgage company actually told me, 'How did you get this house? I don't even know how you qualified.' I said, 'Do you know anything about God? That's how I got this house.' " But not long after they moved in, Robert's brother died. Then his father. They had to travel to the funerals. They fell behind in their $1,500-a-month mortgage payment and were put on a repayment plan. Things only got worse. Robert, who worked as a property maintenance man, was in a car accident that aggravated a back injury and damaged his knee. He can no longer perform physical labor. Sharon provided day care in their home. In the months after Sept. 11, some of her customers were laid off. She went from six children to four to two. Last fall, she had only one. The whole time, she said, she was telling her mortgage company that she was losing income. It refused partial payments. Every time the couple came up with enough money, it seemed another late fee had kicked in and they owed more. "It's like they wanted to take our house," Robert says. The Dempseys fell one, two, three months behind. That's all it took. A hearing was set, a sale date. Sharks, smelling blood, are leaping. Letters from lenders and real estate agents offering money and promises clog their mailbox. "We really care." "We can help." Don't sign anything, Crane warned. "They might start coming to the door," he tells them. "Some Realtors will have the audacity to ask you if they can come in and look around." "Do I have to let them in?" Sharon asks. "No," Peter says. "Absolutely not." "It's still our home," Robert bridles. Foreclosure's shadow darkens more lives Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EasyAl Posted January 6, 2003 Report Share Posted January 6, 2003 Your tax dollar is working to keep the real estate bubble going The monthly mortgage payment on Anthony and Sharon Vaughn's new $138,000, four-bedroom home is less than the rent they paid at the public housing complex they left last summer. Rent at their apartment at Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority's Carver Park Estates was $587. The mortgage for their Central neighborhood home is $577. The Vaughns benefited from a growing number of programs aimed at increasing homeownership for low- and moderate-income renters. The programs provided $50,000 in state and federal aid that lowered their mortgage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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