patrick.net

Home prices in the SO-CAL area are on the move up, it might be in part the continued lowering of interest rates and the holding of thousands of REOs still waiting for the market. There are plenty of home flippers still at work in this market. Averages can't tell you what going on.

The Professor says

Housing inventories are at record lows, mortgage rates are at or near record lows, consumer confidence is rising steadily, underwater mortgages have fallen dramatically, foreclosures and short sales are shrinking and prices of these homes are rising steadily. Add in the fact that the Gen Xs and Gen ys are finally leaving their parents' homes and you will find that prices are rising steadily in almost every major market area.

Slightly rewritten to be closer to reality.

Housing inventories are at record lows, mortgage rates are at record lows, consumer confidence is still relatively low, banks are still playing games with foreclosure and short sale data and prices are barely holding steady. Gen X and Y's are without work and have no desire or means of entering into the real estate market. Shared renting is the new norm and will be for at least a decade for many.

who's Keith Kurow? never heard of him.

looks like anyone who can write 2 paragraphs can be an "analyst" these days.

Darrell In Phoenix says

Rental rates are falling. And so are prices. Yep. Even in the bay area.

The cost of shelter, which includes rents, rose 0.3 percent, the most in more than four years. Rental vacancies have declined in recent months, pushing rents higher

http://www.insidebayarea.com/financial-markets/ci_22001696/us-consumer-prices-tick-up-rental-costs-rise

those houses are generally empty for a reason

Darrell In Phoenix says

Rents are falling.

Nope they are not. LOOK AROUND.

Darrell In Phoenix says

And worse yet(for you anyways), another 35 MILLION housing units have just started to empty as boomers head to the grave.

Not necessarily. Most boomers will leave their homes to their children. Their children will then be faced with a decision.

1) try and sell it
2) try and rent it out
3) move into it
4) do nothing, and let it rot into the ground (or revert to the lender)

So all things being equal, only a fraction of the 35 million houses will become inventory – and even then it will be a process that plays out over decades.

The oldest baby boomers are just now turning 70. The youngest are only 48.
The average life expectancy in the US is 78.2 (75.6 yrs for men, 80.8 yrs for women)

The inventory will not flood the market all at once, and who knows where house prices and inventory levels will be ten or fifteen years from now.

Darrell In Phoenix says

Kevin says

ou're arguing that 30%+ of all houses are empty. You are either just making shit up, or are you confusing the term "owner occupied" with "occupied" (hint: non-owner occupied means "rental")

Learn math. There are 130million houses in the US... and growing. 20million are empty.

And worse yet(for you anyways), another 35 MILLION housing units have just started to empty as boomers head to the grave.

Ah, right, I was looking at outdated data that said there were about 105M. The CB says 132M.

But your vacancy rate figures are still pure bullshit:

http://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/qtr312/q312press.pdf

~3.8M empty rentals
~1.7M empty non-rentals

Retiring baby boomers will sell their homes and move into apartments. Unless they burn the house down or die it will have zero impact on vacancy rates.

Fwiw, I do agree that rents were rising during the past two years.

In Los Angeles, they actually did push too high. This creates all sorts of problems...namely people who don't pay and must be evicted, unauthorized subleasing which creates crowded buildings and increased chance of damage, etc

Rents hit a wall in September and have been declining since. I signed a new lease at the end of October and already regret it. I knew rents were starting to decline but was fearful that there wouldn't be many places available when my lease expired in January. Boy was I ever wrong. Last week, after nearly two years of 100% occupancy, my building advertises four units on Craigslist. And now all sorts of nearby units available, at prices from over two years ago as well.

I'll be VERY surprised if we don't see a 7-10% decline in rents in Los Angeles by the end of 2013.

Darrell In Phoenix says

The truth? 20 MILLION empty housing units.

Wow, a 10 million drop since... well, your last made up figure.

Darrell In Phoenix says

Hello my realtor friend..... and we know what you realtors are about...... "bigsby". lmao

It's a new construction pimping life for Darrell.

Darrell In Phoenix says

Bigsby the realtor and his imaginary contracting business..

Who's claiming to be a contractor? You. And at $60/sqft no less. "Darrell", the garden shed new construction pimp.

Darrell In Phoenix says

And realtor bigsby backpedals furiously.

Did you really think we've believed you?

Wow, I'm a man of many talents. First I was apparently a realtor, now according to "Darrell", I've become a contractor. And all based from Kuwait. Long distance construction and home selling indeed. It all sounds nearly as impressive as your nationwide garden shed construction empire.

Darrell In Phoenix says

You're no man... that we're certain of.

Oh, Darrell, you've hurt my feelings.

Darrell In Phoenix says

Substantiate your bidding, estimating and construction experience...."bigsby".

Sure... when you can demonstrate where I claimed any.

Darrell In Phoenix says

Bigsby says

Sure... when you can demonstrate where I claimed any.

You don't have any idea

How anyone can claim that building costs average $60/sq ft? You're right, I don't.

robertoaribas says

Where I come from, being called a liar is serious

Are you from Saudi Arabia? What if I call you a Dog Fucker?

Darrell In Phoenix says

And here we are with another misrepresentation. But we're not surprise.

The truth? 20 MILLION empty housing units.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0984.pdf

I posted data that was current as of Q3 2012. You posted data from 2010.

I win.

Darrell In Phoenix says

Yes "kevin" you get to be right.

But the truth remains.

Yes, it does. The *exact same source that you used* says that total vacancies are under 6M vacancies as of two months ago (we'll have even more up to date figures in January).

I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong with you. I give up.

Future rent increases seem contingent on tighter lending standards.

If it becomes harder and harder to buy a home without 20% down, for instance, there will be more renters.

robertoaribas says

patrick please block dumasses account

How about using the ignore link?

Or -- become a premium user ( http://patrick.net/premium.php ) and then you can moderate your own threads, and users you have on ignore cannot comment on your threads.

users you have on ignore cannot comment on your threads.

That's a cool feature, Patrick! I'll definitely sign up for the premium account!

Done!

> and users you have on ignore cannot comment on your threads.

But Patrick promised!

Do you even realize how dismal your odds of being correct when you go against the trend?

Just talked to my landlord yesterday. A call I initiated. He is open to a rent reduction and also asked me to consider buying the place. Seems like he finally is realizing there is more money in selling rather than collecting rents. I told him I wouldn't be a buying at today's appraisals.

So, I am probably going to lock in for another years of leases soon at a reduced rate. Probably down about $400. So, instead of $3000, I would be paying $2600. The selling price would be upwards of 1.1m. You do the math. Don't believe all the junk thrown on this site from the housing pumpers, do you own homework. There are great opportunities for those that don't want to just follow the herd.

RentingForHalfTheCost says

So, I am probably going to lock in for another years of leases soon at a reduced rate. Probably down about $400. So, instead of $3000, I would be paying $2600. The selling price would be upwards of 1.1m

I am sure that there are individual examples out there that can prove any trend wrong. Sometimes you are at the right place at the right time.

But let's stick to data that you can show. Links etc. Everything else is hear say.

You can tell us that you now rent a 2Mill house for $500/month. I can't prove you wrong.

Or -- become a premium user

He's waiting for the Government to subsidise his user account as well.

Why is it that when house prices drop, the media always reports this as a negative thing? (I think this article referred the declines of the past 5 years as "horrible") I would say the declines of the past five years have been "wonderful." What's negative about a young family being able to afford a home that they were previously priced out of? Nothing!

RentingForHalfTheCost says

I don't look at data from sources where their salaries depend on the trend going in one particular direction. Sadly, in real estate most of the information released to the public is from such sources. I have my personal anecdote and that is fine with me. I am really the only one I would trust with my hard fought savings anyway. You stick to your slanted data analysis, and I'll stick to my real life experiences.

In other words--I'll stick my head in the sand and ignore anything that disagrees with my preconceived notions.

Good luck with that.

ELC says

He's waiting for the Government to subsidise his user account as well.

Gold. I can't believe I missed this gem.

Patrick, this could be a new revenue stream.

tatupu70 says

RentingForHalfTheCost says

I don't look at data from sources where their salaries depend on the trend going in one particular direction. Sadly, in real estate most of the information released to the public is from such sources. I have my personal anecdote and that is fine with me. I am really the only one I would trust with my hard fought savings anyway. You stick to your slanted data analysis, and I'll stick to my real life experiences.

In other words--I'll stick my head in the sand and ignore anything that disagrees with my preconceived notions.

Good luck with that.

Yah, that is what it means. Trust is earned is the lesson here. No real estate organization has ever done anything to build my trust. So, I don't trust them or their reports. I do, however, trust my experience and judgement. Head in the sand or not. You can go on believing NAR like organizations all you want. You can even put your skin in the ponzi scheme and get burned. It really doesn't bother me. If anything, it gives me a good chuckle.

RentingForHalfTheCost says

You can go on believing NAR like organizations all you want.

I agree with distrusting NAR *opinions*. They are clearly biased. But distrusting *data* that is easily verifiable simply because the NAR compiled it is folly. You have to be able to separate data from opinion.

RentingForHalfTheCost says

I don't look at data from sources where their salaries depend on the trend going in one particular direction.

I would agree with that. However, given that the pleasanton data showed rent actually declining for several years, why do you find this data faulty as well?

This is another guy who has presented no data.

If you want to look at his data it costs $99.

From his interview he relies heavily on this phantom, shadow inventorty. The only thing he presents though is the difference between median hoising cost, and the cost per square foot.

This is pure speculation on this guys part with no analysis.

War says

Hows your construction biz

You're so nutty.

How's your construction business in all 48 States, at $60 per sq ft.

BTW, how does that compare to what this guy is saying about price per square foot?

War says

Just tell the truth Dave.

I always do.

My Bullshit Quotient is zero.

Now stop lying, get your personalities straight, and if you have data. bring it.

You reposted a comment you made before?

If you had any facts, figures, data, or disputes you'd post it.

The fact still remains you could have taken this opportunity to demonstrate some of your talking points, but you chose not to, so let me help you out.

What this guy is saying is that the price per housing unit should be more homogenous, nationally. He ignores some data like wages, and economic growth in a region, but he still has a point.

There is no reason for the number of housing units, which totals millions, that were built between 2003 to 2008 to be selling for the high prices they once commanded. We should see the price per housing unit fall like a rock.

His second point, which you could have seized on is the price per square foot.

You keep making construction cost claims across all 48 States as being some how equal, OK, there is some truth to that, so why do we have prices from $200 per sq ft to $600 per sq ft in the same area.

The only problem I see with this guy is he wants to charge for his data.

His analysis may be correct, but we won't know unless we pay him.

LiarWatch says

You walked way out on a limb and pretended to be something you're not.

What the heck are you talking about now?

Why waste your entire morning with typing gibberish?

You are the only one here that has pretended to be something you obviously are not.

Bring data.