I reread the article a couple of times. Couldn't believe the frankness of the first stanza - shocking to see the MSM report any semblance of the truth - especially funny since when I pulled the article up, there's a big KB Homes advertisement on the top banner. Too funny.
But then you really get into the meat of the article, and you could just hear Catherine Reagor's editor over her shoulder saying "Cat, no, we just CAN'T be that strong. Water it down a bit - give us some wiggle room. We have a BUSINESS to run here don't forget (nudge nudge)."
Also, as HP'ers know, I've been very critical of this reporter's work - calling it frankly lazy, as she rushes out to get Real Estate Industrial Complex quotes, and never adds a disclaimer or even questions the quote. Here's some doozies from the piece and my commentary:
"economists say it looks as if the slide will continue for at least the next six months, possibly pulling down home values as much as 10 percent before it's done" - WHO, CAT? WHAT WONDERFUL STABLE OF SOURCES DO YOU USE TO MAX OUT AT 10%? L-A-Z-Y.
"No one is calling for the Valley's housing market to crash as it did in 1990" - WRONG - HOUSINGPANIC WHICH YOU READ IS CALLING FOR A CRASH CAT.
Valley home values will drop a little," Sullivan said. "Look at demand and supply. - OK CAT, HERE WAS YOUR BIG CHANCE. DEFINE "A LITTLE". ASK A FOLLOW UP QUESTION. REPORT FOR GODS SAKE.
A drop in home prices alone won't be a crushing blow to the Valley's housing market. - UH, CAT, NICE THROW-AWAY SENTENCE FROM YOU HERE. IS THAT YOUR OPINION? THEN SAY 'THIS REPORTER BELIEVES'. AS YOU KNOW, HP BELIEVES THE DROP IN HOME PRICES IN PHOENIX WILL DEAL A DEVASTATING BLOW TO THE VALLEY'S HOUSING MARKET AS WELL AS THE VALLEY'S TOTAL ECONOMY.
"The only people who will really be affected are those who purchased last year, when there was fluff in the market," said Elliott Pollack, - FOLLOW UP CAT! THE ONLY PEOPLE? OK, I GUESS THE ILLEGAL MEXICAN LABORERS WON'T BE AFFECTED, EH? I GUESS THE TENS OF THOUSANDS TO LOSE THEIR JOBS WON'T BE AFFECTED? I GUESS EVERY HOMEOWNER IN PHOENIX WHO LOST PAPER WEALTH WON'T CARE EH? I GUESS FOLKS WHO CASHED OUT THEIR EQUITY AND NOW HAVE CRUSHING DEBT AREN'T AFFECTED? WHAT A JOKE
I could go on and on, and maybe I will on another post. I'm happy to see the article written, but I continue to be saddened by the poor reporting skills of Catherine Reagor and her Arizona Republic editors
June 22, 2006
Breaking down the Arizona Republic piece a bit more
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WE are over 50 000 houses on the market today!!!! in Phx.
Found the Article to BS.
In December 2006 I paid 1 pound of gold for my house. Now it is worth 1 pound 12 onces.
Housing is strong really strong here in Arizona
Gold today is still about $50 an oz more than it was in january, are you saying Arizona housing has doubled in price in the last 6 months?
Phoenix foreclosures are about to increase.
http://tinyurl.com/create.php
Fear grips Phoenix housing market.
http://tinyurl.com/erfpx
Watch for the invisible owners!
Phoenix foreclosures are about to increase.
http://tinyurl.com/hel8l
Reagor isn't the only one. Nine out of ten of my google alerts have articles where the reporters interview real estate/industrial complex members when exploring the down side that we are now in. Result: rosy forecast, what bubble? soft landing, needed correction, etc. I would like to see the bubble over and done with, but I believe it's going to be painfully long and slow slide.
In December 2006 I paid 1 pound of gold for my house. Now it is worth 1 pound 12 onces.
Wow, that was some stunt. A house you bought in the future is worth less than it is today. Well, that's what Keith has been saying all along, although why you used your time machine to buy a depreciating asset is beyond me. Oh well, to each his own.
Some whiner sent a letter to the editor complaining the market is bad enough, the paper did not need to make it worse!! Guess the truth doesn't matter??..
Hmm wonder if it was a realtor....
here's today's az rep letter to the editor supporting them in printing the story
http://tinyurl.com/kq9ga
A duty to report full story
Jun. 22, 2006 12:00 AM
A letter writer complains about a negative news piece concerning the real estate market and its potential effect on the economy ("Real estate reports hurt economy," Letters, Tuesday).
I say The Arizona Republic has not only the right but the duty to report such stories.
I have no sympathy for the agents, brokers, builders or the slew of investors who have invaded and profited enormously from the real estate boom in Arizona. Like the dot-com boom, what goes up must come down.
The only sympathy I have is for the hard-working Arizonans who cannot afford a single-family home thanks to the feeding frenzy of the past few years. -Tim Haggerty, Cottonwood
send your letters to the az republic here
http://tinyurl.com/hjhyr
Region's housing market deflates
By NOREEN SEEBACHER
noreenseebacher@aol.com
FOR THE JOURNAL NEWS
Original publication: June 22, 2006)
It's over.
The crazed phase of frenetic home buying in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties has screeched to a halt — leaving some industry experts wondering if the sound they hear now is the housing bubble bursting.
"The market isn't soft. It isn't even slow. It's dead," said Liz Rosenblatt, an agent with Fuerst & Fuerst Inc., a real estate firm in New Hempstead.
Scott Stiefvater, a broker-owner at Stiefvater Real Estate Inc. in Pelham, said prospective homeowners are still looking at properties. "They just aren't buying," he said. "I'm getting a little worried."
After nearly seven years of unprecedented strength, the housing market has taken an unexpectedly steep slide, real estate professionals throughout the Lower Hudson Valley concur. It's gone from multiple offers for more than asking price just hours after properties were listed for sale to no offers at all, even after price reductions.
In Wesley Hills, for instance, Rosenblatt recently dropped the price on a four-bedroom, 2.5-bath raised ranch to $495,000 from $545,000. "There still aren't any offers," she said.
Christine Garafola, an associate broker at Coldwell Banker Gumbo Realty in Armonk, dropped the price on a four-bedroom, 2.5-bath center-hall Colonial in Mahopac from $949,000 to $889,000 in less than three months. The owner still isn't getting what he's asking.
Stiefvater said potential buyers are looking for value but skeptical of bargains. He cited an impeccably maintained four-bedroom, three-bath Cape Colonial recently reduced to $659,000 from about $700,000. "The current list price is below market value. But now buyers think something is wrong with the house," he said.
Both P. Gilbert Mercurio, chief executive officer of the White Plains-based Westchester County Board of Realtors and Westchester-Putnam Multiple Listing Service, and Ann Garti, chief executive officer of the Greater Hudson Valley Multiple Listing Service in Goshen, said sales are down and inventories are up.
The number of homes on the market in Westchester and Putnam counties has swelled from about 1,000 at the end of the first quarter of 2005 to about 1,500 at the end of the first quarter this year. In Rockland, inventory soared from 734 at the end of the first quarter of 2005 to 1,325 at the end of the first quarter this year.
Real estate brokers have concerns because inventory continues to grow, at an average pace of five to 10 listings in most communities each week. Stiefvater said there usually are about 25 homes for sale in Pelham. Now, he added, it has climbed to more than 80. In Clarkstown, Rosenblatt said, there usually are about six residential properties for sale. "Right now, we have about 45," she said.
Despite the higher inventories, Mercurio said prices, overall, are at least stable and, in some cases, up slightly from a year ago. "By no means has the market collapsed," he said. "We perceive it as a return to what we have historically considered a normal market."
The problem, real estate agents and sellers agree, is that normal feels uncomfortably slow — at least in comparison to the pace of sales and price appreciation during the past few years. Garti said, "It only takes one or two years of a superheated market for people to forget that what they are experiencing is not normal. What is happening now is a leveling off."
Data for the second quarter won't be available until July, but signs of a slowdown already were evident in the first-quarter numbers.
In Westchester and Putnam, for example, the report released in April shows that there were 1,823 closings in the first quarter of this year, down 9 percent from a year earlier. Single-family home sales fell 14 percent, compared to the first quarter of 2005, while co-op sales slipped 5.7 percent in that same period. Only condominium sales were strong, posting a gain of 3.8 percent.
In Putnam, first-quarter home sales were 11 percent lower this year than 12 months earlier, the report continued. Rockland had a more modest decline in the first quarter, when 323 homes and 134 condominiums were sold, compared with 325 and 136, respectively.
Real estate agents and brokers speculate that second-quarter statistics will show an even steeper decline in sales.
Nationwide, the National Association of Realtors projects that sales of both new and existing homes will drop significantly this year. David Lereah, NAR's chief economist, expects new home sales to drop 13.4 percent and existing home sales to drop 6.8 percent nationwide in 2006. But he said neither buyers nor sellers should panic.
"In recent years, we were occasionally challenged to find appropriate superlatives to describe surprisingly high home sales," Lereah said. "Now the housing market has cooled, but 2006 is still expected to be the third strongest on record."
Lereah said the economy actually would benefit from the slowdown in the housing market. "We need a solid housing sector to provide an underlying base to the economy, and slower appreciation will help to preserve long-term affordability," he said.
At least some homeowners, however, are panicking. Worried that increased supply will lead to rapid price deceleration, they are rushing to put their homes up for sale. Some of them think the market will only get worse, real estate agents said.
Peter Bell, broker-owner of Balch Buyers Realty in Mamaroneck, said most sellers are willing to negotiate and are eager for offers. "Last year, only about 10 percent of all homes in this area had been on the market for more than three months. Now, at least a third have been on for more than three months. Since more properties are on for a longer periods, you see more price reductions to more reasonable levels.
"Sellers are also entertaining lower down payments and more contingencies in the contract, including delayed closings to allow time for the sale of the buyer's home," Bell said.
One sign of the slowing market is the return of bridge financing, or short-term loans that allow a buyer to close on the sale of one home while waiting on the sale of another. During the heyday of the sellers' market, buyers could comfortably sign contracts to purchase a home before they even put their own property on the market, because they knew it would sell in a matter of days.
Now, as David Moore, a mortgage broker with Concorde Funding in Greenwich, explained more buyers are experiencing a time lag between the purchase of one property and the sale of another. If they have an existing home equity line of credit, they may be able to tap the equity in their existing homes to finance the purchase of another.
However, Moore said lenders would not approve home equity lines on homes that already are on the market. In those cases, the owners may need to get a bridge loan for a term of three to 12 months.
Moore said another option for buyers is a double decker or piggyback loan. The buyer obtains one mortgage for 80 percent of the cost of the property and a second mortgage for an additional 10 percent to 15 percent of the cost. "This way, when they sell their original home, they can use the proceeds to pay off the second mortgage," he said.
In a slow market, Moore said, the key to making deals is creativity.
San Diego at 22,300 = RECORD
Yes - the population adjusted record was hit on Tuesday. . .and it is still climbing. . .where will it end 25K? 30K?. . .took a drive up to La Jolla yesterday, and the way up through Mission Beach, Pacific Beach is littered with For Sale signs - many with "price reduced.". . .interesting that La Jolla didn't have a lot of for sale, but those homes don't turn over that much.
First you build the inventories, then you have the massive sale, it happens with all retail garbage, and that is exactly what a home is, in the 4th quater, when the recession is in full swing, you will start to see the mother of all sales.
Hot off the Dow Jones:
Freddie Mac: 30-yr mortgage averages 6.71% vs 6.63%
THAT will finish it off. . .
Yes, the housing bubble is a product of the creit bubble, when the credit bubble ends, so too will the housing bubble.
A little OT but speaking of credit bubbles; how do you think the biggest, most reckless borrower in existense is going to fare over the next few years, with growth slowing I assume tax revenue will follow. The non social security/medicare part of Uncle Sam's budget will be half interest payments in a few years. I would like the fed's to pare back some programs but that amount debt service can't all be covered by cuts.
The massive speculatory bubble and its demonesque offshoot, the Real Estate bubble are nearing its end.
Rising inventory, sales falling, credit expansion over. The end has come. The cycle is reversing itself.
Matter of fact. I would love to see data 3 months from now, October 22nd. The carnage will mostly likely be high as the bubble will most likely have just popped. The financial chaos will be bad enough. Makes for good drama. But bad for peoples health.
so Phoenix inventory as it stands at 10:35AM is 49,999.
Bubble Markets Inventory Tracking
CNBC is airing a live special report on the Housing Crisis tonight at 8:00 P.M. east coast time. Wonder if they'll come clean or just try to spin it. This should be very interesting.
reagor is a lot more honest than the san francisco chronicle's kelly zito,who has an article today (try sfgate.com) on the may dq news report for the sf bay area,with a chart.she claims to quote from the dq news report...and i invite one and all to google dq news,read THAT report,and then read ms zito's article.any resemblance is purely coincidental.the santa rosa press democrat's coverage was if anything more deceptive...without the blatant lying.....you can email ms zito,or her editors at sf gate...i did.
It's comical. She notes that presently in Phoenix 1 in 3 dollars are generated in the real estate industry. Just a
paragraph or so before that she says the market won't bottom out as it did in the 90s because the economy outside of real estate is good. Well sweetie THERE IS VERY LITTLE ECONOMY OUTSIDE OF REAL ESTATE IN PHOENIX.
What infuriates me about the housing situation, more than anything else, is that one can lay out all of the facts....not opinions, but actual statistics...about the turn in the housing market and the economy, and yet so many people still think it will be a soft landing. I don't know how in the hell these people are coming to that conclusion.
Massive overbuilding, rising mortgage rates, leveling or declining home prices, rising inventory, increasingly negative savings rates, longer days on market, lower housing sales, less orders for new homes, higher % of people taking out ARMs and option ARMs, spiking cancellation rates, lower job creation, higher layoffs, higher foreclosure rates, higher credit card debts, sharply declining builder confidence, decreasing index of leading economic indicators, housing stocks 30-50% or more off their highs, coming off the largest price increase in real estate history...THESE ARE ALL FACTS.
And what do the housing bulls submit as a response?
"We're going to have a soft landing!"
"Just wait until the fourth quarter!"
"Housing is always a good investment!"
"There is no housing bubble!"
THESE ARE ALL OPINIONS.
A professor once told me in 1999 that the lowest scores on the SAT were from people who declared journalism as their chosen field of study. The previous distinction went to those seeking an elementary education degree, which had held the title for many years.
And we wonder why the majority of people in this country are so stupid.
The CNBC special was great.
It will be one more pin to burst the bubble.
CNBC has been totally sour on RE all week and now this caps it off.
Next step- it's all over the regular news.
I subscribe to this newsletter just to keep and eye on sales in my area, I thought you would all enjoy this piece. He refers to it as "Silly Arizona Republic article last Sunday on real estate market
".
http://www.arizonarealestatenotebook.com/
June 20, 2006
Here is an excellent review of U.S. housing booms and busts from the FDIC.
They define a bust as a 15% decline in prices within 5 years. With that criteria, they only found...
... two major episodes of home price busts. The first began in the mid-1980s in the "oil patch" cities of Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and some of the western states. This episode includes the most severe price declines of our entire sample, with nominal prices in one city falling by as much as 40 percent over a five-year period. Another episode of large nominal price declines occurred in selected metro areas of the Northeast and California beginning in the early 1990s.
Nevertheless, the unnamed analysts in Catherine Reagor's article below predict a 10% decline this year alone which, given that the median home price increased January through May this year, really means a greater than 10% decline in 7 months.
I don't buy it.
The median home price may be down a bit in December compared to today but that 10% figure is just silly. It would be an interesting example of how newspapers work except that I'm sure the article needlessly scared many people.
Posted by John L. Wake at 01:22 PM | Permalink
Locally, new home builders need to cut back on construction and let the market catch up with them.
Nationally, builders are discouraged.
Rising mortgage rates, deepening affordability issues and the retreat of investors/speculators from the marketplace have prompted single-family home builders to further adjust their perspectives on the new-home market, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) for June, released today. The HMI declined four points from an upwardly revised reading in the previous month to hit 42 for the latest report, its lowest mark since April 1995.
Posted by John L. Wake at 11:16 AM | Permalink
June 19, 2006
Reagor's article seems to have worried a client of mine. I bet a few Realtors got a few emails about it.
The part were she really lost a lot of credibility with me was this.
If prices fall 10 percent this year, as analysts predict, the median price of an existing Valley home would dip to around $238,000.
That 10% decline was the main point of the article. In fact, it was the subheading "Home prices may dip 10% as fear grips Valley market." That subheading was just irresponsible.
A 10% decline this year is simply not in the realm of possibility.
Reagor used a different data sourse in her example but if you use Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS) data you'll find that the median home sale price in January 2006 was $255,000. In May 2006 it was $259,900, an increase of $4,900. So, in the first 5 months of the year the median price went up, not down!
So to get a 10% decline this year, the median price would have to fall to $229,500 or a fall of $30,400 from May's median home price.
A price decline of $30,400 in 7 months would be a real estate bubble of biblical proportions. The median home price wouldn't go down by $30,400 by year's end if Roosevelt dam broke.
Who were those "analysts," anyway, who predicted a 10% decline this year?
(Did I misread her article? Did she mean it other than the way I took it?)
Posted by John L. Wake at 10:37 PM | Permalink
June 18, 2006
Father's Day morning, this morning, I went out and met some clients to write up their offer on a home.
I felt very "fatherly" going out and working a bit on Father's Day. I really enjoyed it and I felt good about it.
It seems working makes me feel "fatherly."
Posted by John L. Wake at 07:39 PM | Permalink
Catherine Reagor of the Arizona Republic has a well researched article today, How low will it go?, but it is unjustifiably pessimistic.
If prices fall 10 percent this year, as analysts predict, the median price of an existing Valley home would dip to around $238,000.
She mentions a lot of experts in her article but not which one gave her this gem of a quote.
Right now, the median home price in the Valley is higher than it was in January, see the chart I posted on June 16th. The median home price may fall a bit by the end of 2006... but by 10%?!... that's just silly.
The money quote for me was from Elliot Pollack, an economist I respect.
"There was never the demand for more than 45,000 to 50,000 new homes in Phoenix last year," Pollack said. "It could take six to 18 months before the market absorbs the extra homes and gets back to normal."
If the home builders only need 6 to 18 months to get their inventory into line, the entire Arizona residential real estate market is golden.
It looks like the economy will be great for the next year or more. If a recession hits after that, the Arizona real estate market should be well positioned to handle it.
Posted by John L. Wake at 03:04 PM | Permalink
June 17, 2006
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