Wow, im watching a program on the news talking about how bad the realestate is in phoenix, says that in the next wile 51,000 homes in atleast arisona will be forclosed or otherwise sold due to the crashing dollar and intrest rates. taking advantage of this situation many canadians are moving in and buying property for a complete fraction of the price.
the program was showing people chartering flights just to see more property faster, they were aslo showing streets of houses with forclosed or for sale signs.
It's really bad in places where people feel like they need to live well beyond their means.
You buy the most expensive house you -think- you can possibly afford, buy a couple brand new cars, use credit cards to buy all the furniture, electronics, appliances, decorations, clothes, etc you can handle... maybe have a kid or two...
THEN YOU REALIZE SOMETHING...
You owe a HUGE amount of money to your creditors! So what do you do???? You borrow every dime you can on your house to pay off the bills... only to RUN THE CREDIT CARDS BACK UP, putting you in a place where you owe more money on the house than it's worth AND in the same place you were with the plastic before you got that huge loan!!!
People THINK they need all the latest, greatest gadgets, newest cars or gas guzzling 4x4 trucks/SUV's, etc. Maybe they DESERVE those things, I don't know. But, what happens, is that no matter what, they keep spending money they don't have... and WONDER HOW THEY GOT IN THAT TERRIBLE POSITION!!!!!
Sure, sometimes shit happens. Somebody falls ill, somebody loses a job, etc. That's not who I have a beef with. It's the ones who just spend money they don't have just to 'keep up with the Joneses' and live a lifestyle of 'status'. Champagne tasts on a beer budget just doesn't last forever.
Around here it's the people that want ranch's & new duallies with the soccer mom driving a new Escalade & kids in private schools. Then all of a sunned the market drops on whatever business dear old dad is in & it's time for the gavel. Common sense ain't so common
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If you didn't build it, it will always be someone else's
Well, I here in Phoenix, and it is bad. I don't know about whole streets with foreclosures on them, but there just might be. There are a lot of houses up for sale and few selling. About two years ago we had a real estate boom and the market went crazy. Now those people owe more than the current market will bear. My own home has lost about 25% of it's value in the past year, I'm lucky that I don't owe that much on it. There is definately some deals on repo's if you have the money to invest.
Joe
3-'63 Fairlanes
'72 Gran Torino Sport (Q code)
'79 F-150 4X4
Here's my take on the situation here in California, where it's hitting really hard...
4 or 5 years ago, the housing market for buyers was HOT, the interest rates were near the Prime rate and the new houses being build were sitting at around 300K for a new single family dual level good size home.
One year or so into this there were so many houses being sold that the Prices began to SOAR to the $500,000 and up range for a home that was only worth $250,000 just one year before.
Then the selling of houses and building of new houses slowed for a couple months, and the Banks and Mortgage companies began offering up home loans with Interet rates BELOW the prime rate because they weren't selling as much (the prices of the average california single family was well over $400,000), This started another massive buy up and build up of homes, where the new home buyer can buy a home for little to zero down and finance it at something like 3% interest, not for the full term though.... People were buying like crazy thinking that if they kept the house for 6 months to a year they could SELL at almost DOUBLE their buying price because that's what happened during the entire last 2 years..
Then people REALISED finally that the houses they were buying for $500K and $750K and $350K were actually only worth about $200K, just like they were 2 years previous...
In the last 8 months the average newly built or purchased home value here in my area had dropped by nearly 30%
Anyhow... In a nutshell californians saw the prices going up so they kept buying, the prices kept going up.. Then it topped off and people stopped buying... This made the market for those $500K homes go to the shitter, and now they're only worth about $325K when some retart paid $500K 18 months ago... Add not many can keep up with a new house payment of $3,000 to $5,000 per mont, therefore the banks are taking it back and foreclosing...
If I had more time to think about it I could have written this more understandably...
But I saw this housing BLUNDER coming 5 or 6 years ago and nobody in my neighborhood listened to me:(
The wife and I took a walk around the neighborhood last night and saw an inordinate amount of houses for sale, even though Spring is usually the start of real estate season. I'd guess some of it is due to folks in over their head. Exactly as stated, I can only surmise there are a LOT of folks that don't live within their means.
I switched companies back in October, basically going from a company full of prissy little assholes, to a nice place with more down to earth folks...doing the same job. My salary stayed about the same, but there was a HUGE difference in the types of houses/cars/clothes that people buy at the new place. Simple, at the old company everyone is a "consultant" and tries to act the part..drives a BMW or Acura...and have to get granite countertops so they won't be embarrassed when they have people from work over to the house. I think yuppies are the worst offenders.
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The eyes are the groin of the face -- Dwight Shrute
That being said, this "competition" amongst Americans is sort of what drives our work ethic if you think about it. I realize Ed is doing his little passive anti-American thing again, but the culture of the US is different then other countries so you can't just take a snapshot of the situation and make an assumption.
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The eyes are the groin of the face -- Dwight Shrute
Gary's response was accurate IMHO over what is going on.
I work in the Development field, in a Survey office for a Civil Engineering firm.
We do mostly new neighborhoods/new development. A little commercial.
It's pretty tough here northern VA.
The lending practices have also tightened up and it's very hard for someone with good credit to now get a loan.
We have many, many jobsites that have new spec homes that aren't selling, and you drive through older sections of the same hood', and there are many houses vacant and for sale.
It has gotten to the point after mulitple layoffs here that many of us are now getting our hours cut.
No work to be done, they waited to long to try and diversify, and I've put my name out there, hoping for something better, but I'm not getting much for a repsonce.
The whole housing thing, as stated above, is based on stupidity, greed, and image. If you live above your means sooner or later it will catch up.
The US economy has, for the most part, been good since 1984. Now it is sagging but that's still a 24 year run. Most people under 40 don't have any idea what a slow economy is and how to handle it.
I wouldent call this "passive anti american" this one was asking for some actual inside being there information confirming or debunking what the news was saying. In this example the news seemed almost far fetched but i know some people here live in the area and may have a better idea whats going one.
the other topic was as i might think similar to an argument betwean two lawyers in a court room, both pushing with theyre extremes "nail him to the wall" and "he dident do it" hopefully coming to terms in the middle where you should.
Greg you are right about people not knowing what to do in a poor economy.I guess people thought the good times would continue forever.The more experienced among us remember the the turbulence during the seventies.Fourty and under you have no conception of what a poor economy is.
The problem cause is simple - lenders suddenly decided that there was money to be made by giving loans to people that would have ordinarily been disqualified or forced to a higher interest rate or bigger down payment. Instead, they went the other way and helped people with edgy financial status go way in over their heads, selling them mortgages that would kill them when the payments jumped (lots of adjustable rate loans). Now all involved want to be saved from their own stupidity. With my tax dollars.
Tax notices just went out in this area - the central appraisal district says home values here have gone up 8.21%. We're not following the national trend, although sales are down.
Hold on a minute Falcon67, it's not always that simple. People do fall on hard times and get run over by things beyond their control. I, like you, have little or no sympathy for people who use homes as gambling chips trying to make a killing. If you gamble you can and will lose. Sucks to be you! However, if you get "sold" something you really should not have bought by some real slick mortgage wizard, shouldn't he be partly to blame? I mean look at it this way, most people can not pay cash for things they buy. Most people have to finance large purchases. Most people do not look at whether they can afford that car or that house they look at how much it will cost per month. This is really reflected more in vehicle purchases. 6 and 7 year loans for cars just to make the monthly payment fit the buyers budget. But there is little or no difference in the mortgage business. Don't be concerned with how much it will cost in the future, how much can you afford now. You can always sell it in the future right?
Well the future is now. Millions of jobs have been lost. 2 income housholds have been reduced to 1 and that 1 has been forced to take pay cuts. Gas and food are skyrocketing. Insurance costs are way up. Taxes are up. Bills are higher. All of this with no chance to increase wages to keep up. So now the standard of living is being forced down and it is all to easy for many of you to place the blame on the person who is losing it all because he must have lived outside his means. Give me a break. You could say he should sell his house and what, move into an apartment? The house won't sell for what is owed on it. Now what? Is it still his fault? Really?
Our government doesn't want to use your tax dollars to help him out, they just want to print or borrow more money and run up the deficit to try and help. I can't wait to get my $300.00. That is really going to go a long way! Yeah right.
If our government really wanted to help our economy they would wipe out all of the regulations on oil and gas discovery and refining. They would open up Anwar and the continental shelf off of the east and west coasts and make it a national priority to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. They would bring our troops home and stop spending trillions of dollars to protect someone elses oil. They would station the troops along our borders to secure them and our ports and airports. They would start programs to fund rebuilding the roads and bridges and underground infrastructure of our country and that would put people back to work who would then start to be able to afford their mortgages and buy new cars and support our economy and the worlds. Tell me how that doesn't make more sense than the course our government is on. People are having a hard time. Really? Well throw them some crumbs to shut them up. Are you proud to say that is what our once great and caring society has come to? Until it has a direct effect on your life and your budget you look the other way and say that it sucks to be them. I hope not.
I agree that people hit bad times and bad times can be now. Just to flesh it out a bit, My feeling is that predatory lending practices got us here. And in the mean time, GB, Darth Cheney and the gang fixed the bankruptcy laws so as to trap people that get squeezed in times like this. Nice double blow, courtesy of the gubbermint. I'd be less likely to balk at individual assistance than I would for a single dollar to go to some place like Countrywide. FWIW - when WE were on hard times, there wasn't any agency or lender that offered a bailout or gave a damn otherwise.
As for oil, all the drilling won't fix the prices - demand is already down and supply up. Until someone threatens to shoot the commodity traders the price will remain high to line their pockets. Currently, any little disturbance on the planet gets construed as a possibly disruption of supply and is used as an excuse to jack the price up a little more.
Not one to rush to GW's aide here, but CONGRESS, (you know, those politico's in Washington who's voter approval ratings are generally in the mid to low 20% range) enacted the changes to the bankruptsy laws. As far as to drill or not to drill, if we'd decided to drill 25 years ago, the supplies wouldn't be so tight now 'cause that oil would have come on line. Bottom line, the world is awash in oil with new reserves being found all the time. There's no shortage of crude. There's a shortage of refinery capacity. Again, if CONGRESS hadn't enacted laws that tie suppliers hands behind their back so they could build new refineries, then we'd have all the capacity we need to refine all the oil we need.
As far as this so called credit crisis is concerned, it's not due to predatory lending practices. Full disclosure is required by law. It's right there in black and white and required to be in plain english for folks to understand. If they can't understand it, every state that I know of requires a lawyer be hired for all home closings. I have a hard time having sympathy for folks who put themselves in this position due to their own greed and mismanagement. I also have no sympathy for a federal government who put us in this energy situation due to THEIR greed and mismanagement. Seems pretty stupid to ask a federal government to fix something that they caused in the first place.
Sure am glad I moved out of KY, just to move to Ohio---the #2 state in foreclosures. By the way, there are over 2.8 million unsold homes on the market right now. That's about 3-4 years of inventory in "normal" times.
I just got back from a meeting where our President, who is a beer drinking CPA common as dirt kinda guy and about my age, said that he has been working with banks borrowing working capital for over 30 years and he's never seen it so bad.
For our company selling composite decking material, that may not be good as the money that drives our business comes from lines of credit or home equity loans that are very very tight right now.
The banks are scared and now do what they should have done years ago and are very tough on anyone looking to borrow money...me, you or a mega-billion dollar company. It makes no difference as so many companies and individuals are leveraged way past their heads that many could go down with a slight upblip in interest rates.
So because of greed, stupidity, living beyond one's means and the feeling that the economy can only go up and credit is unlimited, we face a real danger of some pretty big companies going down with the little guy getting put on the street. Geez, that sounds so....Alan Jackson! But it can happen-stay tuned.
Now, for my county... Per capita income, $13,195/yr.!!! Recession??? We've ALWAYS been in a recession! LOL!
As of the census[2] of 2000, there were 15,446 people, 6,161 households, and 4,479 families residing in the county. The population density was 32 people per square mile (12/kmē). There were 7,360 housing units at an average density of 15 per square mile (6/kmē). The racial makeup of the county was 98.56% White, 0.22% Black or African American, 0.21% Native American, 0.23% Asian, 0.19% from other races, and 0.60% from two or more races. 0.67% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There were 6,161 households out of which 30.70% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 59.10% were married couples living together, 9.30% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.30% were non-families. 23.50% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.90% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.49 and the average family size was 2.91.
In the county, the population was spread out with 23.40% under the age of 18, 8.70% from 18 to 24, 26.60% from 25 to 44, 26.50% from 45 to 64, and 14.80% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 98.00 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.00 males.
The median income for a household in the county was $24,511, and the median income for a family was $29,280. Males had a median income of $28,738 versus $17,207 for females. The per capita income for the county was $13,195. About 17.80% of families and 22.60% of the population were below the poverty line, including 32.10% of those under age 18 and 15.50% of those age 65 or over.
Mine was on the market for 6 days, 4 offers and sold at full price.
However, we are in a very odd area, 8 military bases in close distance, best school system in the area, very nice subdivision, and my house can reach 3 of the bases without hitting a highway. In addition, spring/summer assignment cycle is in full bloom
In our case, the customers for the more expensive homes seems to shift downward and make ours in more of a demand than before.
