An American dream that’s never been sold. The smile on his face is just his last disguise. We’ve got trouble in paradise. There’s a scream inside that shouts: Here I am ! Some people say: We’ve got to do what we can. Me I don’t know you see I’ve been there myself once or twice. Trouble in, paradise. Trouble in Paradise — Huey Lewis and the News
There were so many users for our Foreclosure finding service (provided by Foreclosure Radar) that we have devoted a navigation tab to make it easier to find.
The housing bubble news recap on the weekend is supplemented by the new Housing Bubble newsfeed added to the sidebar.
We are planning an IHB Block party for mid November, but we haven’t finalized the date yet. Do you have any preferences for night of the week?
The real estate industry believes the FHA is vital to the housing market because its insurance enables people with modest incomes to buy homes — many of …
It was also heavily involved in mortgage securitization and derided fears of a housing bubble as “excessive.” This morning we pointed to an item by New York …
‘Strong liquidity, low supply, strong external demand and aggressive mortgage lending are creating ideal conditions for another housing bubble in Hong Kong …
Make a globe large enough to walk in, cover it with sections of the newspaper’s house sales section, and go trick or treating as the housing bubble! 10. …
The recently expired housing bubble is a perfect example of the triumph of faith over reason. Soaring home prices in 2005 represented a little “froth,” not …
Around major changes in market direction (the peak of the housing bubble, for example), there is widespread agreement about what future prices will do …
Such numbers rival or exceed the property price increases seen during the recent US housing bubble period. And in some neighborhoods, particularly in Seoul, …
Christopher Thornberg, a Los Angeles economist who was an early predictor of the housing bubble, said several factors converged last month to give home…
New York Daily News – Robert Gearty – 22 hours ago
In one scam, a property appraiser, Quentin Tucker, inflated the value of a Brooklyn house by submitting photos from other houses during the loan process, …
Not surprisingly, real estate agents in some areas say most clients are using FHA loans rather than those from banks. We see possible lessons in all this …
Beds 2 Baths 2 baths Size 1,241 sq ft ($383 / sq ft) Lot Size n/a Year Built 1981 Days on Market 2 Listing Updated 10/8/2009 MLS Number T09108509 Property Type Single Family, Residential Community Out Of Area Tract Ti
NOT A SHORT SALE OR A REO!!! HIGHLY DESIREABLE 1 STORY, GROUND LEVEL, END UNIT HOME IN WOODBRIDGE SOUTHLAKE COMMUNITY. IT HAS 2 BEDROOMS, 2 FULL BATHS, AND IS 1241 SQ FT. THIS SINGLE FAMILY ATTACHED HOME FEATURES VERY LARGE BEDROOMS, 2 CAR GARAGE, AND ELECTRIC STOVE AND OVEN. THE HOME HAS BEEN VERY WELL MAINTAINED, AND IS IN A QUIET AREA WITH A NICE BACKYARD FOR SITTING AND/OR GARDENING.
ALL CAPS
Three exclamation points!!!
{book2}
This property really is not a short sale or REO. In fact, there is a single loan on the property for a total of $74,500. Hurray! After a week of HELOC abuse, it is nice to see there are still sane people in the world.
I
am here to instruct you on the homebuying process and guide you on your
journey. I want you to be financially stable and prosperous, and I want
you to have a comfortable home. I began writing about real estate
because I wanted to save people from financial ruin as the real estate
bubble popped. Now, I help people like you through the homebuying
process because I want them to have sound financial advice and accurate
market analysis–two things in short supply in the Realtor community.
The only way I can ensure buyers understand the market and purchase the
right house for their circumstances is to guide them through the
process. I rely on like-minded agents I trust to treat clients with
caring, honesty and respect.
I will not be working with you
directly during your homebuying adventure because helping buyers obtain
real estate is a time-consuming business, and I have another full-time
job as a land development consultant. However, I am the navigator on
your journey, and I am always available by email to answer your
questions and address your concerns. The agent(s) with whom you will be
working are trained to do things the IHB way.
I want you to
have peace-of-mind. I want you to know your guide on your
homebuying journey is interested in your happiness and financial
well-being. I promise that you will be given our honest opinion,
factual market analysis, and you will not be pushed into buying
anything. This will be one of the largest and most important purchases
of your life. I want you to make the right one. I will not permit you
to be pushed or manipulated by distasteful sales techniques, and I
would rather forgo a commission than see you buy the wrong house at the
wrong time.
Many of you already know me. Some of you have been reading my writing for years at the Irvine Housing Blog,
and many have met me in person at our IHB block parties. You know the
person I am and what I have done for the community. I want you to have
the best representation possible, so when the time is right for you, I
hope you contact us. We are here to serve.
Larry Roberts — Irvine Housing Blog
Credentials:
Master of Science in Land Development – Texas A&M University 1994
Bachelors of Science – University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point 1992
I
have always worked in real estate. For a while, I wanted to be a golf
course architect, but I have spent most of my career as either a
development project manager or a land planning consultant. I design
master-planned communities, plan subdivisions and lay out commercial
centers. It is great fun.
I originally had a real estate
salesperson’s license in Florida 15 years ago, but I never saw myself
as a sales professional — until now. Right now, I perceive a need in
the community to have real estate brokerage services be provided in a
different way. I am dismayed by the practices of the real estate sales
community, and I want to change it. I am still idealistic enough to
think change is possible.
For those of you who follow my
writing on Irvine Housing blog, you know first hand the depth of my
knowledge on residential real estate. Many of you have read my book, The Great Housing Bubble. You probably also know that I publicly predicted the deflation of the
housing bubble, and I worked tirelessly to dissuade people from buying
homes during the market’s decline. I did none of this for money; I
wanted to serve the community. I still do.
Your
next email will be from Shevy Akason. I trust you will be as impressed
with him as I am. When I first met Shevy almost a year prior to
launching Ideal Home Brokers, I was dubious that any real estate sales
professional could be trusted to put the needs of their clients above
their own needs. When I learned that he was giving up potential income
by advising clients to rent rather than own during the deflation of the
bubble, I was intrigued. When I saw his passion to help people and his
genuine concern for their well being, I knew he was the right person to
lead the Ideal Home Brokers sales team. He is a good man; you are safe
with him.
If you have any questions or comments, please email me at larry@idealhomebrokers.com. I am here to serve you.
Thank you again for allowing us the opportunity to present ourselves to you. We look forward to working with you.
Sincerely,
Larry Roberts
When you are ready to buy or sell a house, we are here to serve you.
We all complain about the prices in Irvine — which are ridiculous and will continue to fall — but many of these overpriced properties are very attractive homes and beautiful places to live.
Pretty woman walkin down the street Pretty woman, the kind I like to meet Pretty woman, I dont believe you Youre not the truth No one could look as good as you Mercy
Today, as we look over this beautiful Irvine home, I thought I would tell you the history of Irvine home prices in pictures.
The Home Price Story
Once upon a time, a prospective homeowner sought his dream home. It is a fearful and daunting task.
After much deliberation and bidding wars which forced him to overpay, our intrepid home owner paid a price in the clouds, but he is happy and enjoying life.
A wicked recession hits and the support for this homeowner’s resale home price begins to erode.
After a time, there is no support, and all the sustains prices is the air from The Great Housing Bubble.
{book3}
Everyone in the industry thought it would go on forever…
Beds: 4 Baths: 5 Sq. Ft.: 4,600 $/Sq. Ft.: $402 Lot Size: 10,277 Sq. Ft. Property Type: Single Family Residence Style: Contemporary Stories: 2 View: Pool Year Built: 1999 Community: Northwood County: Orange MLS#: S588025 Source: SoCalMLS Status: Active On Redfin: 8 day
One of the finest homes ever to be offered in the prestigious community of Rosegate. Built by Taylor Woodrow, this spectacular former model home creates an atmosphere of casual elegance while providing ultimate privacy. Designed with an easy flow through out the home, this versatile floor plan will suit any lifestyle. Appointed throughout with the finest of upgrades, no detail has been overlooked. In addition to four bedrooms there is an office on the main level and a bonus room on the upper level. Soaring ceilings and plenty of windows allow for an abundance of natural light throughout the home. Fireplaces are found in the family room and formal living room as well as the master bedroom. Enjoy the ultimate in outdoor living. Oversized lot with salt water pool and spa, covered loggia with custom kitchen, built in barbeque, ceiling fans, heaters, mist system and fireplace. Outdoor shower completes this amazing resort style backyard.
One of the finest homes ever to be offered… Give me a break.
These owners are leveraged, but not to the degree their buyer likely will be. Do you think there are many people making $350K+ in this economy?
.
And so concludes another week at the Irvine Housing Blog, chronicling the Irvine home market since September of 2006.
When a mortgage holder gets behind on payments, they often “cure”
the deficiency — well, at least they used to. The cure rate in early
2007 was 45%; It recently fell to 6.6%.The
cure rate is the ratio of the number of loans cured divided by the
number of delinquent loans in the system. It is a measure of the
percentage of loans each month that leave Shadow Inventory. It is a
direct measurement of one of the methods of exiting the system — the
other being foreclosure. When a property goes delinquent, what isn’t
cured is a foreclosure.
Cure rates are very low right now because there is so much shadow
inventory in the system that has no chance of curing. This makes the
denominator of the calculation larger than it should be (Loans Cured /
Total Delinquent) because delinquent loans are not becoming REO on
time. There are about 15,000 loans in Preforeclosure Inventory that
should be REO but due to foreclosure moratoria and other policies,
Shadow Inventory (Preforeclosure Inventory plus REO) has been growing.
This is consistent with anecdotal reports I have heard.
Today, I want to take a closer look at cure rates and relate the micro-economic decisions of individuals to the macro-economic statistics.
Cure Rate and Equity
Defaults are loan disease. There are many causes of the disease, from unemployment to loss of market value, but there is only one symptom that lenders care about — defaults. There are two important dates concerning defaults; (1) the date when lenders consider a borrower to be a default problem which is 60 days after payment was due, and (2) the date when the Notice of Default is permitted to be filed which is 90 days after payment was due.
The lenders do not control the first date — when the borrowers actually quit paying — but they do control the second date — when they file a notice of default. What is customarily a 30 day gap has extended by months. Part of our famed Shadow Inventory is trapped in this moratoria gap.
Patients who are in good health cure from disease better than those in poor health. Borrowers whose finances are strong — have equity — will cure at better rates than those who are underwater or facing a rental savings enticement. Many who see better futures in different circumstances will walk away from the debts and succumb to the loan disease. In borrowers terms, the cure for loan disease is to quit paying.
Curing Default
There are many factors that influence who will cure their loan and who will not. One of the most important of these factors is their equity position.
When people have equity in their homes, they cure at very high rates. Either the loan officer will modify the loan, or they will force sale. The owner generally will choose to sell and obtain their equity to live on. If you have a borrower in default with a low Loan-to-Value (LTV), they will cure either by loan modification or open market sale at nearly 100% rates.
As LTVs get higher, percent equity or Equity Position gets lower. As the equity position gets smaller a number of negative factors work together to lower cure rates quickly:
Lenders feel less security extending credit.
Loan modifications are more difficult to obtain.
Success of loan modifications declines.
It becomes more difficult to sell, particularly when equity falls to zero.
Absent faith in appreciation, borrowers have little incentive to cure.
If savings by renting is reasonable, borrowers have incentive not to cure.
The combination of these factors means that cure rates fall off to nearly zero as homeowners go underwater. (BTW: We will have stories of people who bought in 2006 who paid their mortgages for 25 years to get back to the value they paid. These loan (lone?) survivors will be like the Japanese WWII veterans who come out of the jungle after all these years, and they are still fighting the war.)
The equity position changes as prices change. The more prices fall in a market, the more people default and fail to cure. This adds inventory which further depresses prices; a downward spiral ensues. Have you taken a careful look at the Case-Shiller Index for Las Vegas? You see exactly what happens when you hit the downward spiral.
If there is a reason for lender collusion to withhold inventory, it is their collective fear of recreating Las Vegas in every market in America. They have not begun to face the staggering losses they will take in Orange County.
Default Rates
Default rates would also graph very much like cure rates because the same reasons that people may not cure a loan are also reasons they may wish to default. Going underwater and having rent savings available will push and pull people out of their homes. Financially, it is often the right thing to do.
This means that house prices get a double whammy; when property owners go negative-equity, they (1) default and (2) fail to cure. They become ruthless incurable defaulters adding inventory to the downward spiral — like today’s featured property owner.
Asking Price: $655,000
Income Requirement: $163,750 Downpayment Needed: $131,000
Beds: 5 Baths: 3 Sq. Ft.: 3,450 $/Sq. Ft.: $190 Lot Size: 8,191 Sq. Ft. Property Type: Single Family Residence Style: Contemporary Stories: 2 Year Built: 1998 Community: Walnut County: Orange MLS#: P702865 Source: SoCalMLS Status: Active On Redfin: 1 day New Listing (24 hours)
In CUL-DE-SAC. Largest plan in complex. Huge drive way! Over $200k in upgrades with brand new re-designed kitchen and state of the art appliances. Re-built bathrooms upstairs and downstairs. Newly built opened stairwell unlike any other in this plan. Combination of hardwood & 22 inch Italian tile floors downstairs and all mahogany wood upstairs. Crown molding throughout entire home. Bonus HUGE loft with custom sink area for entertainment upstairs! 1 Bedroom downstairs that can be office and 4 spacious bedrooms upstairs, perfectly situated; all upstairs bedroom has walk-in closets!
The owner of this property put $230,000 down. That must hurt.
(you should know better) Dream of better lives the kind which never hate (you should see why) Dropped in the state of imaginary grace (you should know better) I made a pilgrimage to save this humans race (you should see why) What Im comprehending a race that long gone bye
(Ill stop the world) Ill stop the world and melt with you (Ill stop the world) youve seen the difference and its getting better all the time (lets stop the world) theres nothing you and I wont do (lets stop the world) Ill stop the world and melt with you
I am experimenting with the post layout and information. I am only working with 3 inputs: asking price, previous sale price and
the date of previous sale, so there is a limit to what I can do.
I developed a template I use to compile the property data and display it consistently with the least amount of work. For over two years, I did every calculation by hand — that was stupid. Hopefully, there will be fewer post errors.
I am introducing a few new lines to the typical post analysis. Since the point of these posts is not always to display a shocking loss — it is hard to shock anyone who has been reading a while — I am showing the profit or loss from the transaction as part of the data. I may mention it again if it is integral to the story of the day, but the information will be there if anyone is interested.
I am also showing the percentage change during the period of ownership and the annualized rate of appreciation or depreciation as the case may be. This is calculated by (1) taking the annualized appreciation, (2) dividing by the total number of days of ownership and (3) dividing by 365.25 to convert to years.
I have been having an internal debate if it is better to calculate this based on the raw numbers or if the transaction costs should be included. The total gain or loss is net of commissions. The percentage change and the annualized appreciation is gross. This does overstate the actual return net of commissions and fees, but it is accurate to the numbers presented.
I am also thinking about tinkering with the income data. I can create a formula that changes the income requirement based on current interest rates and other assumptions. This may be more useful, and it will certainly be more accurate.
For instance, for this post, I have used an income requirement that assumes 28% of income will be going to a conventional mortgage payment at 5.25% interest rates. As interest rates go up or down, the income requirement will change accordingly. This should be a close approximation to traditional lending standards applied to current interest rates.
Let me know what you think.
Asking Price: $499,000
Income Requirement: $94,474 Downpayment Needed: $99,800
Purchase Price: $204,000 Purchase Date: 7/24/1998
Gain (Loss) after 6% Commission: $265,060 Percent Change: 144.6% Annualized Appreciation: 13.0%
Beds: 3 Baths: 3 Sq. Ft.: 1,340 $/Sq. Ft.: $372 Lot Size: 1,769 Sq. Ft. Property Type: Single Family Residence Style: Cape Cod Stories: 2 View: Courtyard Year Built: 1998 Community: Northwood County: Orange MLS#: U9003959 Source: SoCalMLS Status: Active On Redfin: 1 day Georgeous 3 bdrm, 2.5 bath home in prestious Northwood Pointe tract. Quiet cul-de-sac location. Dramatic high vaulted ceilings. French and dutch doors. Fire place and formal dining room. Large chefs kitchen. Custom paint and window coverings throughout. Surround sound and security system. Large master suite with large bath and walk in closet. Private brick patio. Completely finished garage with storage and work bench. Lowest priced 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath detached in Northwood.
I like the houses in this neighborhood, but the prices there are simply ridiculous.
I
Pretty woman walkin down the street
Late summer thread, on the internet
In 
If there is a reason for lender collusion to withhold inventory, it is their collective fear of recreating Las Vegas in every market in America. They have not begun to face the staggering losses they will take in Orange County.