Time Running Out For First-Time Homebuyers
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
By Chris Levister –
The clock is ticking for first-time home buyers scrambling to take advantage of an $8,000 tax credit set to expire November 30 – unless Congress decides to extend it.
This week, the White House said its economic team is evaluating the credit’s impact on home sales and will make a recommendation to President Barack Obama.
The National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders have launched marketing campaigns touting the credit and have pushed Congress to keep it going. But some lawmakers are balking at the cost, which may hit $15 billion – more than double the amount projected in February’s economic stimulus bill.
Unlike the home buyer tax credit Congress enacted in July of 2008, this allowance does not have to be repaid.
The federal tax credit covers up to 10 percent of the home price, or up to $8,000, for first-time buyers. Combined with low mortgage rates and falling prices the incentive is drawing first-time buyers like Alisha Baeza 30, and George Gonzalez 29 of San Bernardino.
In June Baeza used the tax credit to buy a 3-bedroom 2-and-a half bath home with a pool for $248,000. She enlisted veteran Spellacy Associates realtor Alice Wilson, and a San Bernardino program aimed at first-time home buyers. City staffers helped Baeza save money, lower her debt and arrange for a down payment.
“I started thinking about buying a home almost 2 years ago and at the time I couldn’t afford it,” recalls Baeza, a dietary manager at Saint Bernardine Hospital. Alice kept encouraging me - ‘you need to be a home owner’. Then she told me about the city program. It worked out great because they advanced the 20% down payment.
Baeza admits qualifying for a loan in the midst of a recession-caused credit crunch and wading through the mounds of required paperwork was no fun. “It was grueling – but worth it. I say to young people - go do it.” Her boyfriend George Gonzales an anesthesia equipment technician also saw his fortunes change after recently qualifying for a home loan. This weekend the couple went house hunting.
“Five years ago I couldn’t afforded a home. My credit wasn’t that good and home prices were outrageous. I figured I’d never own property,” said Gonzalez.
“When I got approved I jumped for joy, called Alisha and said come on let’s go celebrate. Now I tell people go fix your credit, save some money and see what you qualify for.”
Housing experts say first-time homebuyers snapped up three out of 10 homes sold in July. That’s about 10 percent below the average for the previous six years, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Alice Wilson says it’s a new era in home buying and home sales will struggle to rebound without a tax credit extension.
“Prices and home values are falling, banks are holding on to their wallets and there’s not a lot of housing inventory out there. That’s kept many would-be buyers on the sidelines,” she said.
She said with or without a tax break, consumers in this economy are looking for a bargain much like they are with retail sales and auto sales.
“Banks are being extra cautious, worried about the still-dire unemployment situation. The turn of the year isn’t likely to yield much good news on the job front so I don’t see a full-blown recovery on the horizon.”
Realtor Jeanine, Alice’s daughter, says while the tax credit has succeeded in energizing buyers and helping clear a glut of lower-priced homes, including foreclosed properties that are dragging down home values, buyers expecting to find a plentiful home inventory will be disappointed.
“For every decent home on the market – there are at least four or five people sometimes more bidding on it. A home can fall out of escrow and a week later its back in – with another buyer.” The problem is made worst said Jeanine because many banks are reluctant to put foreclosed properties back on the market. “Simply put, it’s very hard out there.”
The best approach is honesty said Alice.
“We tell prospective buyers with bad credit and or unstable employment. It’s just not going to happen.”
“The good ole days are behind us. Get your house in order before you dip your toes into the market,” added Jeanine, “Its bitter medicine. We’re just praying people don’t get discouraged.”
Couldn't have said it better....
Showing posts with label buyer's market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label buyer's market. Show all posts
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
You Have Less Than Four Weeks To Find A Home
September 8, 2009
First-Time Buyer Hoping To Get The $8,000 Tax Credit? You Have Less Than Four Weeks To Find A Home
The federal government is offering first-time home-buyers a tax credit of 10% of a home’s sales price up to $8,000. To qualify, you must close on a home by November 30th; if you close on December 1st, you’re out of luck.
If you’re a first-time buyer in Southern California, you have a little less than four weeks left to find a home, make an offer and negotiate terms if you hope to close in time to get the $8,000 tax credit.
Close By November 13th
In a normal month, about 20% of closings slip from the last week of a month to the next. This number will almost certainly be higher in November due to the expected rush of buyers trying to get the tax credit and because November 30th falls on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
If you’re hoping to get the tax credit, you want to make sure you’ve closed before the week of Thanksgiving because it’s not a full work week:
•Thursday, November 26th: Turkey day. A day to give thanks and watch the Detroit Lions go for six Thanksgiving Day losses in a row.
•Friday , November 27th: Los Angeles & Orange County offices are closed.
•Saturday & Sunday, November 28th & 29th: The banks aren’t open so you can’t close.
•Monday, November 30th: The last day to close and qualify for the first-time buyer tax credit. It’s going to be a goat rodeo.
To give yourself the best chance of getting the tax credit, plan on closing by November 13th. If you run into any problems during closing, you’ll have more than a week to work things out and still qualify for the tax credit.
Get An Offer Accepted By October 4th
Right now, it’s taking our clients in Southern California an average of 40 days to close once they reach initial agreement on terms. This means if you want to close by November 13th, you need to get an offer accepted by October 4th. That’s 26 days away.
For more information, check out the Home Buyer Tax Credit FAQ from the IRS and get all the details about the tax credit from the agency giving the credit. Also, check out the report that this program may be extended.
Find A Home You Like
Don’t rush into a purchase. Make sure you’re buying because you’ve found a home you want to live in, not because you want the $8,000. You don’t want to end up in the wrong house in the wrong neighborhood with the wrong commute just for a few thousand dollars
First-Time Buyer Hoping To Get The $8,000 Tax Credit? You Have Less Than Four Weeks To Find A Home
The federal government is offering first-time home-buyers a tax credit of 10% of a home’s sales price up to $8,000. To qualify, you must close on a home by November 30th; if you close on December 1st, you’re out of luck.
If you’re a first-time buyer in Southern California, you have a little less than four weeks left to find a home, make an offer and negotiate terms if you hope to close in time to get the $8,000 tax credit.
Close By November 13th
In a normal month, about 20% of closings slip from the last week of a month to the next. This number will almost certainly be higher in November due to the expected rush of buyers trying to get the tax credit and because November 30th falls on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
If you’re hoping to get the tax credit, you want to make sure you’ve closed before the week of Thanksgiving because it’s not a full work week:
•Thursday, November 26th: Turkey day. A day to give thanks and watch the Detroit Lions go for six Thanksgiving Day losses in a row.
•Friday , November 27th: Los Angeles & Orange County offices are closed.
•Saturday & Sunday, November 28th & 29th: The banks aren’t open so you can’t close.
•Monday, November 30th: The last day to close and qualify for the first-time buyer tax credit. It’s going to be a goat rodeo.
To give yourself the best chance of getting the tax credit, plan on closing by November 13th. If you run into any problems during closing, you’ll have more than a week to work things out and still qualify for the tax credit.
Get An Offer Accepted By October 4th
Right now, it’s taking our clients in Southern California an average of 40 days to close once they reach initial agreement on terms. This means if you want to close by November 13th, you need to get an offer accepted by October 4th. That’s 26 days away.
For more information, check out the Home Buyer Tax Credit FAQ from the IRS and get all the details about the tax credit from the agency giving the credit. Also, check out the report that this program may be extended.
Find A Home You Like
Don’t rush into a purchase. Make sure you’re buying because you’ve found a home you want to live in, not because you want the $8,000. You don’t want to end up in the wrong house in the wrong neighborhood with the wrong commute just for a few thousand dollars
Thursday, September 10, 2009
“Not now” doesn’t mean “never”
Home ownership is just not a realistic option for everyone right now, despite what may look like once-in-lifetime mortgage rates. If you fall into this category, don’t despair. Your financial circumstances could change, the economy is still very much in flux, and remember that the current mortgage crisis involved a lot of home buyers getting in over their heads. When it comes to a major purchase like a home, timing is critical.
"I like this idea of waiting to time a home purchase to when you are ready...Of course sales agents will tell you practically anything to get you to buy but ultimately you make the decision...So dont feel like this opportunity to purchase a home will not be there when you are ready..that's simply not true."
I would say planning and preparing yourself are the first steps...and then maybe soon you call me..I'm here to help.
"I like this idea of waiting to time a home purchase to when you are ready...Of course sales agents will tell you practically anything to get you to buy but ultimately you make the decision...So dont feel like this opportunity to purchase a home will not be there when you are ready..that's simply not true."
I would say planning and preparing yourself are the first steps...and then maybe soon you call me..I'm here to help.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
I didn't write this but it's relevance is paramount...
http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/news/la-fi-cover3-2009may03,0,7623052.story
House hunting? It's not a buyer's market everywhere
Potential buyers visit a home in Eagle Rock. In desirable areas, bidding wars are common. “The biggest problem,” says real estate agent Phyllis Harb, “is that people are overreacting to housing statistics, thinking they can come in and make an offer 20% below price.”
The median price in Southern California may have plummeted, but in more desirable neighborhoods, home buyers are still engaging in bidding wars.
By Chip Jacobs 6:15 PM PDT, May 2, 2009
The confident smile Sam Rivero wore as he hunted for his first house had a lot to do with the buzz thumping in his ears. Ever since home values began sinking, pundits have touted the juicy opportunities for aspiring buyers priced out of the market before, and the young business-development executive heard that cue like a sonic boom.Out he ventured into Mount Washington, Glassell Park, Eagle Rock, Montecito Heights and other desirable middle-class communities northeast of downtown Los Angeles, searching for a bargain in the $400,000 range. Candidates came and went, and Rivero, who is getting married, was upbeat. Considering the pulverized housing values, with the median price of a Southland home today -- $250,000 -- at half of its 2007 level, the properties should come gift-wrapped, right?
As the Glendale resident and his fiancee, a makeup artist for the television show "Entourage," discovered, the supposedly wondrous buyers' market seems more consumer myth than easy pickings.They bid $50,000 over asking price for a "great" four-bedroom contemporary in Valley Village, only to lose out to one of the 16 other offers tendered, Rivero, 33, said. A North Hollywood house he had been eager to see attracted so many people walking around with sales fliers that he couldn't find parking and drove off from the "vultures" who got there first."Every open house I've been to has been a zoo," said Rivero, who has examined 35 properties during the last three months. "If you follow what the [general] media say, you'd think sellers are desperate to sell a house, but when you get there it's totally the opposite."So what's going on?Real estate brokers and investors say would-be buyers misunderstand how the drop in housing prices has affected desirable neighborhoods. Just because an abandoned house in a troubled part of San Bernardino County might be going for $200,000, it doesn't mean you can get a nice place in Sherman Oaks for that amount -- or even twice that amount.House hunters are trying to pounce on deals from sellers they expected to be frantic -- if not curled in the fetal position. What they're finding instead are bidding wars as low interest rates and pent-up demand in traditionally stable or chic areas have kept prices up -- not as high as the market's peak, but not nearly as low as they had hoped."The biggest problem," said agent Phyllis Harb, "is that people are overreacting to housing statistics, thinking they can come in and make an offer 20% below price."As sales figures and home buyers' anecdotes are underscoring, when the residential real estate bubble burst, it set off several distinct sprays that created false hopes and confusion.Though nearly 20,000 homes in Southern California sold in March, a 52% jump from a year earlier, a sizable number of those transactions occurred in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, where foreclosures exploded. In the region overall, foreclosure sales accounted for 55% of March's deals.Bank-owned or not, the cheaper properties are dominating the sellers' block in the notoriously expensive L.A. County real estate market. In March, 2,871 homes under $300,000 were sold compared with only 734 a year earlier, according to real estate information firm MDA DataQuick.At the higher end, just 202 homes priced above $1.2 million changed hands last month, compared with 354 in March 2008.Houses priced from $400,000 to $800,000 represented less than a quarter of the market in March, down from about 45%, meaning fewer offerings for would-be buyers in that mid-market or pickier sellers, according to DataQuick.Mark down Nicky and Bunny DeMarinis as frustrated. They offered about $1 million for a 3,300-square-foot traditional in the Los Feliz area. Though it boasted a magnificent view, the house was an ode to passe, with cheesy frescoes, gold trimming and 1970s-era kitchen appliances, they said. For all the updating it required, the owner came down only a fraction from his $1.7-million asking price and passed on the DeMarinises.The couple, who own Nicky D's Wood-Fired Pizza in Silver Lake, have seen about 50 houses so far. They don't know where to vent their anger: lenders demanding higher down payments and less-favorable terms, talking heads distorting the market with oversimplifications or listing agents itching for bidding wars."You get out there and think you can grab something at a fantastic price, but that's not the case," Bunny DeMarinis said. "Each time we look at a house and see these inflated prices and our offer is rejected, we feel rejected too. We had an unrealistic portrait of what was really happening. It's disillusioning."It's becoming a populist theme among potential local buyers and a contentious topic on websites devoted to the post-bubble market.Real estate investor Burt Slusher said home shoppers should disregard the broad trends and focus instead on nuances and inventory in finely drawn areas.Take the 40% jump in L.A. County home sales in March compared with a year earlier. In studying the data, Slusher said, he found that a large batch of those deals transpired in Palmdale, Compton, Inglewood and other communities that suffered as a result of "treacherous subprime mortgages."People interested in properties in coveted niche markets such as Pasadena, Culver City and Santa Monica have read or heard too much about frenzied activity in the bottom of the market, he said, without comprehending that it held little relevance for them.Slusher's advice is to muster patience, because he believes there's still an over-inventory of mid- and upper-priced properties that will drive overall prices down into 2011."Buyers hear about foreclosures and bank sales and a bad economy and think they can offer a beer price for a wine home," Slusher said. "But the market is not a homogenous place, where everything is the same."In classic economics, buyers should have a decided advantage in neighborhoods in which supply dwarfs demand. Where there's typically a six-month inventory of houses for sale in coveted Beverly Hills, Pacific Palisades and West Hollywood, for instance, there's a year to two years' worth today, agent Christopher Hain said.Hain has a theory about why all that supply hasn't translated into blocks full of delirious new homeowners. He calls it the "sucker syndrome," in which buyers are nervous about overbidding when nobody truly knows whether Southland home values have reached their bottom.Said Slusher, "Nobody wants to be the sucker who paid too much, so they combat that fear by offering unrealistically low amounts. But if you're trying to time the bottom, you're going to end up with junk. It's always the best houses and cheapest houses that sell first."More should be known about the market for more-expensive properties when "jumbo" loans -- ones exceeding $417,000 -- become available this summer, according to DataQuick. In a sign of how locked-up conditions are, jumbo loans represented 40% of all Southern California purchases in 2007. In March they accounted for 10% of the activity.On a recent Sunday, an open house for a vintage 3,159-square-foot Craftsman near Occidental College in Eagle Rock drew 105 people in the first hour despite sweltering temperatures, a Lakers playoff game and a list price of $699,000. Never mind the hilly curb appeal or the aroma of freshly baked cookies that listing agent Tracy King baked. There was plenty of head-shaking among would-be buyers about the absence of bargains.Jose Mares, 38, a Huntington Park police officer, said he'd been searching for eight years for a house. To him, the dark-shingled house needed too much renovation to justify the tab. He thinks he knows why it's priced where it is: There's not a glut of quality competition close by, and the owner and listing agent know their edge."Some want to charge $550,000 for a starter house," Mares said.King, the agent, said she'd heard earfuls about that, and noted that this was not your father's housing crash. Today, everyone is savvier, able to analyze properties with a few keystrokes or see a street view using Google.Instant information, though, also means fiercer competition and fewer hidden gems. As an example, King cited a 1,625-square-foot, midcentury-style fixer-upper in La Crescenta priced at $299,000. Forty people were standing on the front lawn within an hour of its listing, she said. Ultimately, there were 80 bids, 15 of them exceeding $400,000. The winning bid was $480,000."What I'm seeing is that perceived bargains are going in multiple offers for more than the asking, and buyers are very disappointed," King said. "Real estate is hyperlocal, so a [regional] $250,000 median price is meaningless here."Predicting where values are headed is hardly a science either, no matter what the cable-TV experts or the galaxy of websites with every imaginable statistic say. For one thing, people selling costlier homes tend to have deep pockets buffering them from needing a fire sale to stay afloat. If they don't like the bids, they can pull their property off the market.Banks are an even bigger X factor, and not just because of their stricter lending requirements and bailout havoc. USC real estate professor Tracey Seslen said she'd heard that lenders were carefully timing the release of homes they'd repossessed to avoid further flooding the market and driving prices down more. Those institutions also know that a fresh avalanche of foreclosures from people with resetting loans may be looming."So the banks are playing this game too," Seslen said. "They're keeping prices artificially high."Rivero, the soon-to-be-married business-development exec, wishes that weren't so, and hopes his tenacity pays off."We've learned not to get our hopes up because it sets us up for heartbreak," he said. "What's driving me is that I actually want a house."
MY 2Cents
this is not the bottom line...the fact is "you can't beat the house...I mean bank"
House hunting? It's not a buyer's market everywhere
Potential buyers visit a home in Eagle Rock. In desirable areas, bidding wars are common. “The biggest problem,” says real estate agent Phyllis Harb, “is that people are overreacting to housing statistics, thinking they can come in and make an offer 20% below price.”
The median price in Southern California may have plummeted, but in more desirable neighborhoods, home buyers are still engaging in bidding wars.
By Chip Jacobs 6:15 PM PDT, May 2, 2009
The confident smile Sam Rivero wore as he hunted for his first house had a lot to do with the buzz thumping in his ears. Ever since home values began sinking, pundits have touted the juicy opportunities for aspiring buyers priced out of the market before, and the young business-development executive heard that cue like a sonic boom.Out he ventured into Mount Washington, Glassell Park, Eagle Rock, Montecito Heights and other desirable middle-class communities northeast of downtown Los Angeles, searching for a bargain in the $400,000 range. Candidates came and went, and Rivero, who is getting married, was upbeat. Considering the pulverized housing values, with the median price of a Southland home today -- $250,000 -- at half of its 2007 level, the properties should come gift-wrapped, right?
As the Glendale resident and his fiancee, a makeup artist for the television show "Entourage," discovered, the supposedly wondrous buyers' market seems more consumer myth than easy pickings.They bid $50,000 over asking price for a "great" four-bedroom contemporary in Valley Village, only to lose out to one of the 16 other offers tendered, Rivero, 33, said. A North Hollywood house he had been eager to see attracted so many people walking around with sales fliers that he couldn't find parking and drove off from the "vultures" who got there first."Every open house I've been to has been a zoo," said Rivero, who has examined 35 properties during the last three months. "If you follow what the [general] media say, you'd think sellers are desperate to sell a house, but when you get there it's totally the opposite."So what's going on?Real estate brokers and investors say would-be buyers misunderstand how the drop in housing prices has affected desirable neighborhoods. Just because an abandoned house in a troubled part of San Bernardino County might be going for $200,000, it doesn't mean you can get a nice place in Sherman Oaks for that amount -- or even twice that amount.House hunters are trying to pounce on deals from sellers they expected to be frantic -- if not curled in the fetal position. What they're finding instead are bidding wars as low interest rates and pent-up demand in traditionally stable or chic areas have kept prices up -- not as high as the market's peak, but not nearly as low as they had hoped."The biggest problem," said agent Phyllis Harb, "is that people are overreacting to housing statistics, thinking they can come in and make an offer 20% below price."As sales figures and home buyers' anecdotes are underscoring, when the residential real estate bubble burst, it set off several distinct sprays that created false hopes and confusion.Though nearly 20,000 homes in Southern California sold in March, a 52% jump from a year earlier, a sizable number of those transactions occurred in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, where foreclosures exploded. In the region overall, foreclosure sales accounted for 55% of March's deals.Bank-owned or not, the cheaper properties are dominating the sellers' block in the notoriously expensive L.A. County real estate market. In March, 2,871 homes under $300,000 were sold compared with only 734 a year earlier, according to real estate information firm MDA DataQuick.At the higher end, just 202 homes priced above $1.2 million changed hands last month, compared with 354 in March 2008.Houses priced from $400,000 to $800,000 represented less than a quarter of the market in March, down from about 45%, meaning fewer offerings for would-be buyers in that mid-market or pickier sellers, according to DataQuick.Mark down Nicky and Bunny DeMarinis as frustrated. They offered about $1 million for a 3,300-square-foot traditional in the Los Feliz area. Though it boasted a magnificent view, the house was an ode to passe, with cheesy frescoes, gold trimming and 1970s-era kitchen appliances, they said. For all the updating it required, the owner came down only a fraction from his $1.7-million asking price and passed on the DeMarinises.The couple, who own Nicky D's Wood-Fired Pizza in Silver Lake, have seen about 50 houses so far. They don't know where to vent their anger: lenders demanding higher down payments and less-favorable terms, talking heads distorting the market with oversimplifications or listing agents itching for bidding wars."You get out there and think you can grab something at a fantastic price, but that's not the case," Bunny DeMarinis said. "Each time we look at a house and see these inflated prices and our offer is rejected, we feel rejected too. We had an unrealistic portrait of what was really happening. It's disillusioning."It's becoming a populist theme among potential local buyers and a contentious topic on websites devoted to the post-bubble market.Real estate investor Burt Slusher said home shoppers should disregard the broad trends and focus instead on nuances and inventory in finely drawn areas.Take the 40% jump in L.A. County home sales in March compared with a year earlier. In studying the data, Slusher said, he found that a large batch of those deals transpired in Palmdale, Compton, Inglewood and other communities that suffered as a result of "treacherous subprime mortgages."People interested in properties in coveted niche markets such as Pasadena, Culver City and Santa Monica have read or heard too much about frenzied activity in the bottom of the market, he said, without comprehending that it held little relevance for them.Slusher's advice is to muster patience, because he believes there's still an over-inventory of mid- and upper-priced properties that will drive overall prices down into 2011."Buyers hear about foreclosures and bank sales and a bad economy and think they can offer a beer price for a wine home," Slusher said. "But the market is not a homogenous place, where everything is the same."In classic economics, buyers should have a decided advantage in neighborhoods in which supply dwarfs demand. Where there's typically a six-month inventory of houses for sale in coveted Beverly Hills, Pacific Palisades and West Hollywood, for instance, there's a year to two years' worth today, agent Christopher Hain said.Hain has a theory about why all that supply hasn't translated into blocks full of delirious new homeowners. He calls it the "sucker syndrome," in which buyers are nervous about overbidding when nobody truly knows whether Southland home values have reached their bottom.Said Slusher, "Nobody wants to be the sucker who paid too much, so they combat that fear by offering unrealistically low amounts. But if you're trying to time the bottom, you're going to end up with junk. It's always the best houses and cheapest houses that sell first."More should be known about the market for more-expensive properties when "jumbo" loans -- ones exceeding $417,000 -- become available this summer, according to DataQuick. In a sign of how locked-up conditions are, jumbo loans represented 40% of all Southern California purchases in 2007. In March they accounted for 10% of the activity.On a recent Sunday, an open house for a vintage 3,159-square-foot Craftsman near Occidental College in Eagle Rock drew 105 people in the first hour despite sweltering temperatures, a Lakers playoff game and a list price of $699,000. Never mind the hilly curb appeal or the aroma of freshly baked cookies that listing agent Tracy King baked. There was plenty of head-shaking among would-be buyers about the absence of bargains.Jose Mares, 38, a Huntington Park police officer, said he'd been searching for eight years for a house. To him, the dark-shingled house needed too much renovation to justify the tab. He thinks he knows why it's priced where it is: There's not a glut of quality competition close by, and the owner and listing agent know their edge."Some want to charge $550,000 for a starter house," Mares said.King, the agent, said she'd heard earfuls about that, and noted that this was not your father's housing crash. Today, everyone is savvier, able to analyze properties with a few keystrokes or see a street view using Google.Instant information, though, also means fiercer competition and fewer hidden gems. As an example, King cited a 1,625-square-foot, midcentury-style fixer-upper in La Crescenta priced at $299,000. Forty people were standing on the front lawn within an hour of its listing, she said. Ultimately, there were 80 bids, 15 of them exceeding $400,000. The winning bid was $480,000."What I'm seeing is that perceived bargains are going in multiple offers for more than the asking, and buyers are very disappointed," King said. "Real estate is hyperlocal, so a [regional] $250,000 median price is meaningless here."Predicting where values are headed is hardly a science either, no matter what the cable-TV experts or the galaxy of websites with every imaginable statistic say. For one thing, people selling costlier homes tend to have deep pockets buffering them from needing a fire sale to stay afloat. If they don't like the bids, they can pull their property off the market.Banks are an even bigger X factor, and not just because of their stricter lending requirements and bailout havoc. USC real estate professor Tracey Seslen said she'd heard that lenders were carefully timing the release of homes they'd repossessed to avoid further flooding the market and driving prices down more. Those institutions also know that a fresh avalanche of foreclosures from people with resetting loans may be looming."So the banks are playing this game too," Seslen said. "They're keeping prices artificially high."Rivero, the soon-to-be-married business-development exec, wishes that weren't so, and hopes his tenacity pays off."We've learned not to get our hopes up because it sets us up for heartbreak," he said. "What's driving me is that I actually want a house."
MY 2Cents
this is not the bottom line...the fact is "you can't beat the house...I mean bank"
Friday, May 22, 2009
multiple offer bonaza for short sales...!!!!
I can't believe this buyer's market has come down to a seller's market.Oh you haven't noticed that the banks are driving us agents crazy...I go to the MLS and pick 15 properties..7 of them have offers already but the bank has us all hostage...will it be the highest bidder?..or the one whose more credit worthy...? or the one with the biggest down payment?..heck if I know? What kind of criteria are we dealing with?...I rant and work my brain trying to figure what's best for my client...perhaps it is a "bankers" market.....
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