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NAR: Speculation Accounts for 40% of 2005 Home Sales


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2006 Apr 5, 8:24am   15,218 views  153 comments

by HARM   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

bidding war!

Second homes 40% of market
Updated 4/5/2006 3:10 AM
By Noelle Knox, USA TODAY

Americans snapping up second homes — as investments or vacation properties — accounted for four out of every 10 sales of existing homes last year, a record that helped drive the real estate market to new highs, according to a report being released today by the National Association of Realtors.

Nearly 28% of homes bought last year were for investment purposes, and an additional 12% were vacation homes, the figures show. Most of the buyers were baby boomers in their top earning years, looking toward retirement and hoping to build wealth or find a more desirable place to live.

This is up from 2004's already record-breaking 36% figure. This is a NATIONAL statistic, mind you, so we can safely assume that it is even higher along the Bubble coasts --probably much higher. On top of that juicy little tidbit, we get the following information from Ben Jones as to how exactly those Sub-prime issuers of IO/neg-am mortgages still manage to book all those "record profits" we keep hearing about:

Majority Of S&L Profits Neg-AM, ‘Non-Cash’

“A survey of top option-ARM lenders’ 10-K filings by American Banker shows that much more data is now available, including figures on topics to which regulators and investors are paying close attention: deferred interest and related negative amortization.”

“All the leading lenders in this niche provided evidence that principal-balance growth on such loans surged last year as many borrowers made only minimum payments. In their 10-K filings released last month, Downey along with Washington Mutual Inc. led the pack in giving details about option ARMs.”

“Salient figures in the Downey 10-K: Ninety-seven percent of the $133 million of deferred interest outstanding came from loans with balances above the original principal amounts, and the company generated 62% of its profits from noncash income from deferred interest.”

Let me see if I get this straight: The big neg-am (aka "option-ARM") lenders are deriving close to TWO-THIRDS of their reported "profits" by booking "deferred interest" on negatively amortizing loans WITHOUT ACTUALLY RECEIVING A PENNY. They're just assuming they'll be receiving all that "deferred interest" (the extra interest that gets tacked on to the loan principal when homedebtors make the minimum payment), whenever Mr. & Mrs. Specuvestor decide to sell. And of course they'll definitely be able to sell for much more than they paid, so why wait til then? Why not just go ahead and book all that guaranteed "profit" right now?

Wow. And I thought the Feds were good at "creative accounting". 8O

(begin sarcasm) Pardon me, but where was all that evidence about housing prices & lender profits actually reflecting demand? I seem to have misplaced it. Maybe Juku/MP/JohnJacob/etc. has the data. Oh, sorry... I forgot --they don't actually USE data. (/end sarcasm)

Discuss, enjoy...
HARM

#housing

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82   LILLL   2006 Apr 6, 3:48am  

John M
Last weekend I found out my previous home(that I sold last Aug.) was up for sale for 200K more than I sold it for...don't feel bad...don't look back! The cap gains law DID affect my choice to sell and I do agree...that law was put into place when being a millionaire meant something. When I had bought , rennovated and sold previously, the law was not in place. When I moved into the neighborhood in 1997, my neighbors thought I paid too much for the house at 325K. Little did we know that in 5 years our hood would become a million $ neighborhood. The smallest house goes for about 850K. Just crazy!
DinOr
Yes! The art of negotiation! Now that's something I'll need to educate myself in. I've done ok...but I only know enough to be dangerous!
I'd love to see a thread on negotiation 101. :P
This is how I plan to profit on the crash. No gold or stocks. I've tied some $ up in CDs..primarily to STOP me from even THINKING of buying now. The market here is 'frozen' according to the realtor representing my old house. I have to sit on my hands to wait till there is a significant fall with significant panic before I jump. Heck...I'm the cat watching the canary...poor birdie! :twisted:

83   DinOR   2006 Apr 6, 3:54am  

Randy H,

I like the "escalation of commitment" as well. It takes the sellers focus off of price and price alone and brings them meandering down this trail of minutiae that you are starting to control. A big part of closing (no matter what side of the transaction you're on) is to let the other party have some dignity! Especially in the "Age of Zillow" the seller can say "Well, that's true, we did sell at X but the buyer let us spend the summer/fall/holidays here and they didn't nit pick us to death". It can be hard to generalize but look at the sellers age/situation and try to imagine the "give" that will appeal to them the most.

84   Peter P   2006 Apr 6, 3:57am  

How about asking the seller to pay 3 points and other closing costs?

3% of 1M is only 30K but that will drop your 30YR FRM interest rate to below 6%. The seller can have some dignity and your payment will be considerably lower.

85   DinOR   2006 Apr 6, 4:02am  

Peter P,

Excellent suggestion! In OR what we are finding (and I think George may have mentioned this is FL as well) is that you can offer full price (I can't believe I said that) but the seller pays everything. Sometimes I've heard of cash back at closing, flooring allowance (wink wink) and even trips. Personally though I think we can do alot better by moving the "line of scrimmage" substantially back by a low ball offer to begin with then loading them up with demands and then backing off those demands that don't really matter to us anyway.

86   LILLL   2006 Apr 6, 4:05am  

DinOr
Good stuff...escalation of commitment...It s about getting them to spend enough time with your offer going through the details instead of instantly disreguarding it as lowball. Brilliant!

87   DinOR   2006 Apr 6, 4:18am  

Linda in La La Land,

The gentlemanly term you describe above is attributable to Randy H. Me? I call it sex. It's a shame more of us don't. Not the "Hey, I bought a bunch of drinks here!" type stuff. I'm talking about the way business used to be done! Everyone makes their list of causes for the HB but right after the 1997 legislation is the cryptic (and lost world) of negotiating. In the 90's when things were rockin' and rollin' people were getting ESOP's and bonuses so they would go and look at a home and say, Yeah, we can afford that. Without so much as a wimper! Then we wonder how sellers got so bold. O.K, so now I'm doing some serious revisions to the list but I DO feel it's a very important factor.

88   HARM   2006 Apr 6, 4:19am  

I’d love to see a thread on negotiation 101.

I'll second that!

DinOR: Fantastic tips on negotiating give-and-take. It's obvious you've learned this from first-hand experience, which makes it "real life" and all the more valuable.

George: Great tips on whom to target. Totally flies in the face of typical "target the deperate/pre-foreclosures" advice, and I completely see your logic here.

DinOR & George homework assignment:

1. Email Patrick (p@patrick.net) and ask him for thread moderator rights
2. Get familiar with WordPress administration tools (it's easy -- just go to main page patrick.net/wp, look on right-hand side, find "Site Admin" link under "Meta").
3. Author a new thread on Buyer Negotiation 101 (DinOR) and Types of Sellers to Target in a Falling Market (George).

89   StuckInBA   2006 Apr 6, 4:22am  

Why do we need a new thread on investing 101 ? THIS IS THE THREAD !

Great stuff guys. Thanks a ton for sharing these tips, strategies to complete strangers ! Sometimes even friends don't disclose all the tricks they know.

90   HARM   2006 Apr 6, 4:30am  

Why do we need a new thread on investing 101 ? THIS IS THE THREAD !

Actually, we need more contributing moderators here. 90% of the threads here are posted by the same 4 people: myself, Peter P , Randy H (who's now busy with his own site), Surfer-X & SQT. Occasionally, there a few others contribute (San Francisco RENTER, brightc, matt_walsh, Girgl, etc.) but it's not enough --yet.

We need new moderators with fresh perspectives/experiences. If 10% of regular posters contribute one thread a month, that's still a big improvement over today.

91   HARM   2006 Apr 6, 4:35am  

Harm, what is the normal lag time between your blog news and when Fox News runs the story? The other media outlets never run this stuff and Fox is behind you by about 3 to 4 days on average by my count. Any idea?

Wow, Bap33, I had no idea that Fox News was tracking this or any other bubble blogs. Is Rupert Murdoch a Patrick.net lurker? ;-)

92   DinOR   2006 Apr 6, 4:36am  

Harm,

I e-mailed Patrick so I should get a reply here shortly. Negotiating 101 huh? I actually got my start doing collections for my old man when he ran a counter top business in Western Springs, IL. There's a trial by fire.

93   tsusiat   2006 Apr 6, 4:38am  

I contributed one once ;>

94   Randy H   2006 Apr 6, 4:42am  

HARM,

Don't you already have the power to promote moderators? I think you might.

95   Garth Farkley   2006 Apr 6, 4:46am  

It sounds a lot smarter coming from Randy H:

One simple, non-speculative way to benefit as the market crashes is to buy a home. As prices come down, and sellers start to panic, you have the maximum leverage as a buyer. ***

go around low-balling sellers until you find one desperate enough to take your solid bid.

***I wouldn’t try to time the absolute bottom of the market. My reasoning is that you have more buyer-negotiating power on the way down than on the way back up. For most regular folks negotiating has more of an effect on their outcomes than ultra-precise-timing.

The Farklese translation:

I’m going to wait and watch and shop for value. I know my next home could drop a bit after I buy, but I’ll own it a long, long time.

96   HARM   2006 Apr 6, 4:48am  

Thanks, tsusiat. Sorry if I missed anyone --all are encouraged to post, even if you can only do so on an occasional basis. Fyi: If you currently post annonymously, you'll have to register(login) before you can request thread authoring/moderating rights.

Randy H, you may be right. Forgot about our new "spam & troll-quashing" powers ;-). Will have to look into that.

97   HARM   2006 Apr 6, 4:59am  

DinOR/George,

If Patrick doesn't get back to you today, let me know. It looks like Randy H, myself SQT & Peter P now have rights to promote you to author level.
Make sure you register first: http://patrick.net/wp/wp-register.php

98   Garth Farkley   2006 Apr 6, 5:08am  

DinOr says:

A big part of closing (no matter what side of the transaction you’re on) is to let the other party have some dignity!

I completely agree. Unless it's a trustee's sale you have to get the seller to say "yes." They won't do that unless they see something in it for themselves.

A lawyer I knew told me that Art of negotiating is to take the other lawyer in the back room, bend him over the table, and then he's thanking you on the way out.

99   Garth Farkley   2006 Apr 6, 5:14am  

I think this thread already got hijacked back in to the "Time to Buy" thread.

Or maybe it's the "How to Buy Thread."

It all sounds quite Trollish. Surfer-X, save us.

100   DinOR   2006 Apr 6, 5:22am  

"one of the internets most infamous housing bubble sites"

Are we? How do we rate? I mean overall. I won't stop until we are the standard by which all other bubble believers are measured!

101   HARM   2006 Apr 6, 5:27am  

DinOR, if you Google "housing bubble" today, we are the #1 hit.

102   HARM   2006 Apr 6, 5:28am  

Hmm... maybe Rupert Murdoch DOES read this site.... 8O

103   DinOR   2006 Apr 6, 5:29am  

HARM,

You know something? You're right! It's leverage time baby!

104   Garth Farkley   2006 Apr 6, 5:39am  

I won't get semantical about whether a home is an "investment." It's definitely an investment of time and money.

The thing about "investing" in a home is that each piece of RE is unique. A home is not a fungible commodity. Investing in a particular painting or sculpture is an apt analogy. That's why the courts can order specific performance when a home seller breaches the contract. If you dishonor a contract to sell corn, the buyer's remedy is just money damages--the difference between the contract price and the going rate for that commodity at the time of sale. If you can prove that an RE seller breached his contract you may have a remedy in equity to compel the sale.

That's also why shopping and negotiating is so important. And why the role of macroeconomics--the direction of the market in general--plays a lesser role. As long as you have a good sense of the comparable value of the house you buy, and you buy it for a good value, you can get near "the bottom." You are not timing the market, you're timing the market for that unique house.

Now, Surfer-X shield your eyes, that's also why a qualified and honest real estate broker may be worth the "investment" in his fee. Buying RE is tricky. Sure, Zillow is cool. But I wouldn't buy anything in a strange market without a local expert, and a lot of professional help. I nearly screwed the pooch on my own sale by not recording the transfer of my sole ownership to my wife before closing (to get the full $500). My real estate agent/CPA saved me a lot more than the 6%.

105   LILLL   2006 Apr 6, 5:44am  

Newsfreak
It is my understanding that both agents actually represent the seller's interests...even if its a buyers agent. This is the myth of the buyers agent...they're still there to SELL. It's illegal to do something that could 'kill the deal'....correct me if I'm wrong....I'm not an authority.

106   Garth Farkley   2006 Apr 6, 5:44am  

Skibum

I will just refer you to the congressional transcripts:

Surfer-X: "Mr. Farkley, please tell teh members of this committe, are you now or have you ever been a Troll?"

Farkely: "On the advice of counsel I refuse to answer."

107   Peter P   2006 Apr 6, 5:52am  

Surfer-X: “Mr. Farkley, please tell teh members of this committe, are you now or have you ever been a Troll?”

Troll: You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?

108   Garth Farkley   2006 Apr 6, 5:56am  

Astrid:

Absolutely right. I hold no brief for price-fixing.

109   Garth Farkley   2006 Apr 6, 6:10am  

The difference between "investing" in art and real estate is that everybody thinks they understand real estate.

Lunch is over. That was delicious, thanks. Time to go work for the Man.

110   surfer-x   2006 Apr 6, 6:35am  

that’s also why a qualified and honest real estate broker may be worth the “investment” in his fee.

In california the person you mention is currently in the Bahamas with Santa Claus, Elvis, Jimmy Hoffa, The Easter Bunny, and....... Jim Morrison.

111   Peter P   2006 Apr 6, 6:55am  

They also must disclose all offers to the sellers, even if they find them insulting.

Really? :D

112   Michael Holliday   2006 Apr 6, 7:12am  

Rand H.:

Thanks for the info.

I'm thinking maybe buying the worst house on the best street, fixing it up, and settle for a few grand profit, i.e. $10-$20K a pop.

Do one every two months wouldn't be too bad, no?

Think it's doable in a sinking/sunk market?

113   Randy H   2006 Apr 6, 7:12am  

Garth Farkley,

Sorry if the title of my thread "Time to Buy" was a bit provocative. My intention was to get people thinking about their own personal decision scenario. I personally think we've seen the macro peak and that macro sentiment has turned.

But, as the bubble deflates real-estate will become more and more local and there will be lots of "wild west" (thanks George) type of stuff going on. This means some neighborhoods will stagnate, some will bump up and down wildly, some will drop like a rock. It won't be so much of a balloon deflating (which does so pretty evenly), but more like a giant tin-foil ball being crushed (very lumpy).

Given all of that, each person's individual decision about when to buy will be different. People with lots of HaHas -- like those who sold recently (of which I fully disclose my own position) -- may wish to buy before the bottom since they can go in with lots of equity, reasonable fixed payments, and a hope of having their pick of homes that were out of reach a year ago. Others will want or need to wait until closer to the bottom. Some will want to wait until it's passed the bottom and shows signs of heading back up (Zephyr posited such a formula, but he's a RE investor/landlord).

Almost everyone who reads this blog is here because they want to buy not because they want to sit around and cheer the death of US real-estate (but I'm sure we have at least one who would love to see all US RE nationalized...)

114   LILLL   2006 Apr 6, 7:16am  

Giant ball of tin foil beig crushed

Interesting analogy

115   Randy H   2006 Apr 6, 7:21am  

Michael Holliday,

I’m thinking maybe buying the worst house on the best street, fixing it up, and settle for a few grand profit, i.e. $10-$20K a pop.

Do one every two months wouldn’t be too bad, no?

Think it’s doable in a sinking/sunk market?

People have historically succeeded doing that, and some will even in this market. The real test will be whether you have a visceral understanding of the neighborhood & market you do the rehabs in. I think your numbers are off (for CA anyway). You'd need to operate at a scale 10X that to make it worth while. Even then, the risk is enormous unless you're a craftsman already with the tools, knowledge, and passion to do home repairs and rehabs.

I picture the guy who owns a local construction company, has tools and supplier relationships, makes a good living doing commercial building already, maybe serves on the city council with his grade school buddy the realtor(tm) Mayor, and then does a few of these plays during the year in the neighborhood he grew up in. That might work. Flippers, not a chance. They'll get destroyed.

116   HARM   2006 Apr 6, 7:25am  

nomadtoons2,

Where do you live again? You and need to do some serious "dumpster diving" together! ;-) Seriously, your list just amazes me. I've seen people throw out perfectly serviceable stuff, but nothing anywhere near as nice as items you listed. Maybe the key is to focus only on super-rich neighborhoods.

117   HARM   2006 Apr 6, 7:37am  

and many don’t even need the logisitical help with contracts, etc., especially with a good RE attorney.

This raises a good point. If I can't trust my own Realtor to negotiate in my best interest and present me with accurate unbiased market information (and under the current system I certainly can't), then wouldn't I (as buyer) always want to retain a RE attorney --working solely for me-- to draft my offer, review contingencies, counter-offers, final sales contract, etc.?

Has anyone out there ever retained a RE attorney for this purpose?

118   edvard   2006 Apr 6, 7:56am  

Harm,
I live over in Alameda, and seriosuly- people throw away TONS of things here. The diffrence between here and say- berkeley or Oakland is that in berkeley, there's a lot of students that live there. Anything that gets thrown out that's good- it usually gets grabbed. I can recall guys in old trucks that drove around after the students moved out, just loading up on the stuff. here in Alameda, it's all old and rich people. So there it sits, and nobody picks it up. I also have the ability to fix almost everything. Like the lawn mower. It's a 2004 MTD 6 Horsepower, self propelled unit with a rear bag. It was on the side of the street with " free" on it. I pulled the rope, and it did start, but smoked like hell. I worked on small engines for my part time job in TN. I know the engine, a Overhead valve Briggs engine has a very low exhaust port, meaning when people sharpen the blade, the large muffler gets filled with oil, which makes it smoke like crazy, hence making the owner think they blew it up. I've picked up 3 or 4 of these and can get them completely cleaned up and resold on CL for $100-150 bucks.
Basically, people buy things more like solid items that can never fail or else they throw them in the trash. Everything is repairable, and that's howI usually find this stuff. Just very slightly broken or in need of some basic cosmetic cleaning, etc.

119   Garth Farkley   2006 Apr 6, 8:05am  

Randy H,

Provocative is good. You know I'm a Randolfe fan.

I just don't know any markup code for tongue in cheek. I'm only trying to lampoon the avid troll witch-hunters.

I mean I'm not coming out the closet or anything. Troll-curious, maybe. Troll, never.

120   FormerAptBroker   2006 Apr 6, 8:21am  

astrid Says:

"fatwallet.com has several really long threads about RE investing and that’s definitely the theme. The more successful investors always advise others to skip the realtor and go directly to a seasoned RE attorney."

Successful real estate guys will often go directly to the seller and try and make a deal without a real estate agent (If you are a successful investor you have a letter of intent and purchase agreement that you are familiar with and don't need an attorney unless there are some strange title issues).

When a real estate agent has an exclusive listing on a property successful investors will work with the listing agent NOT a buyers agent. If I have a $2mm listing I make $120K if I find the buyer and only $60K if I split the fee with a buyers agent. Listing agents do everything in their power to make sure investors represented by buyers agents never buy a single property...

121   SJ_jim   2006 Apr 6, 8:31am  

Hello,
So. San Hosebag inventory making big strides this week; currently much higher than the peak last fall. Driving around town with eyes open seems to confirm this.

Also, noticing some re-listings after (possibly) falling out of escrow...seems to be happening more with the cheapest of the cheap properties.

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