The 25,000 number is the bottom line. No realtor spin can cover up that massive number.
However, "Rolodex of Realtors" Catherine Reagor of the Arizona Republic tries her best, running to her buddy, the Realty Executives president, for some lame spin, and also offers great advice herself that "now may be the time to buy".
Does the Arizona Republic have any editors? Or did they fire them all to cut costs?
With 25,000 spec homes, now may be the time to buy
Catherine Reagor
New numbers are in on the fallout from the investor home-buying spree in metropolitan Phoenix.
As many as 40 percent of the contracts on all the new homes in the Valley during 2005 and early this year have fallen through. That translates to 25,000 spec homes, according to a new survey from housing analyst RL Brown.
Many new-home deals fell apart because buyers couldn't sell existing homes. But there also were many investors who pulled out of new-home deals after seeing they couldn't flip the homes for hefty profits.
Speculators had a big hand in hurting the resale market, too. Many snatched up existing homes last year and are now trying to sell them for a profit. Those extra homes for sale, by many people who never lived in them, have created a glut in some areas of the Valley.
When the incentives on new homes start to drop and new-home prices stop their drop, then it's a good sign the home-building market is rebounding. So if you are looking for the best deal on a new home, it might be now.
Realty Executives President John Foltz said many of his agents ask where all the home buyers are in this "buyers market."His answer: "They're living in overpriced listings."
December 04, 2006
Ponzi Scheme Arizona: 25,000 unwanted spec homes reported in Phoenix by "Rolodex of Realtors" Catherine Reagor
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27 comments:
catherine reagor proves yet again what a complete tool she is.
i love the logic of the REIC twit from realty executives, too. "honey i spent 500K on our new house, but saved 500K too. that makes it free, right?"
i am convinced i live in the stupidest city in the union, with the absolute worst city paper in print.
i'd move, but i cannot sell my house. :)
Phoenix, the last American repository for mediocrities, bottom-feeders and losers who can't make it anywhere else.
The scum..the Horror, the Horror.
25,000 vacant specs? I wonder how long the majority of them have been on the market?
Keith,
What's your impression on the vast amounts of fortune-seekers moving into greater Phoenix based on your previous residency there and your recent visit?
What are these people really in search of? What's the actual motivator besides the fuzzy never existant "American Dream?"
Do these mooks truly believe it exists?
Seeking the truth.
Are the various kick-backs at closing, whether cash, cars, vacations or ganite counters and pools...taxable? Does anyone know the IRS policy on all this?
truthsquad - I think it's the same human behavior seen with the 1800's gold rush.
People who didn't make it in life - didn't get good educations, don't have real careers, people who believe in "get rich quick" vs. hard work, they move to Vegas and Phoenix.
Phoenix has a fake economy built on selling homes to each other. There are two or three Fortune 500 companies left there, and not a lot of "real" jobs.
But lots of money now sloshing around due to the 52% rise in property values in 2005. Realtors, developers, mortgage bankers etc are out spending massive amounts of cash. Times are still good in Phoenix.
But it's all going away. All of it. There won't be many employed mortgage brokers, builders or realtors in 2008. Easy come, easy go.
A fake town with a fake economy with fake people. I loved Phoenix when I moved there in the mid 1990's. Easy way of life. Great cost of living. Good Fortune 500 Headquarter jobs.
And then everything changed.
Keith,
Are you sure it's that bad. DAMN I feel good selling my Goodyear shitbox for only a 35K profit in June of 06. Now I feel much bettter!!!!!!
I live (rent) in a pseudo-upscale community, (non-gated), in North Scottsdale were large homes on min. 1 acre lots list from appx. 900k and up. Yesterday, Sunday, I took a 30 minute stroll from my home and came across at least 10 open houses (resales). Visited about 7 of them, and was the only “shopper”. Brokers were telling me how this is a desirable area and a good buy. Meanwhile I can drive 15 minutes in any direction and find hundreds upon hundreds of new homes for sale in so called ‘”upscale” developments. IMO, its only going to get worse, (for the sellers).
And yes, as Keith noted, its all fake, fake, fake.
I was out there a year or so ago. When I would ask people what they did almost everyone of them was "real estate" related. When I ask them questions regarding the growth of the local economy being almost solely based on real estate, what would/is going to happen when it slows down? This is what came to mind:
Homer: Okay, boy. This is where all the hard work, sacrifice, and painful scaldings pay off.
Employee:Four pounds of grease ... that comes to ... sixty-three cents.
Homer: Woo-hoo!
Bart: Dad, all that bacon cost twenty-seven dollars.
Homer: Yeah, but your mom paid for that!
Bart: But doesn't she get her money from you?
Homer: And I get my money from grease! What's the problem?
The horror
the horror
TIME OF THIS POSTING : 2:52 PM PHX
THIS FREAKING SITE IS 7 HRS AHEAD!
it's based out of London - duh!
Keith said, "People who didn't make it in life - didn't get good educations, don't have real careers, people who believe in "get rich quick" vs. hard work, they move to Vegas and Phoenix."
And then said, "I loved Phoenix when I moved there in the mid 1990's. Easy way of life. Great cost of living. Good Fortune 500 Headquarter jobs. And then everything changed."
So you were one of those people when you moved to Phoenix in the mid 90s? And they you say you liked it and then it changed?
Did you consider the fact that maybe it was you who changed?
Why do people move to Phoenix? Travel around the USA and you'll understand why. Too many places that are too expensive (California for example) or no jobs (the rust belt) or the weather (Phx looks good in January if you live in Buffalo). A change, family, a job offer. Why does anyone move anywhere?
I first went there in the 70s because a friend I met in College in California lived in Mesa and thought it wasn't a bad place. Didn't acutally live there until Uncle Sam sent me there to Luke AFB in 1982. The day we arrived in August it was 120 degrees and my wife, who just moved down there from Vancouver BC thought she'd arrived in HELL. Not because the area was ugly but it was so hot after coming from BC.
We were transfered to Germany after that and then Florida and you know what, she returned on her own because she found something spiritual, healing, living in the desert. I returned from Saudi Arabia to join her because that is what husbands do.
So having a much longer frame of reference than Keith on living in Phoenix, yes the city has changed. It has tripled in size. Many things are better, roads, freeways, skyline, more diversity, better resturants, etc, and things are worse, more traffic, more crime, more air pollution, the loss of all the cotton fields etc, but that is what we as Americans DO to our communities, we ruin them while we try to make them better.
There are plenty of places in this country that never change, been to Monterey of late? No different than in the 70s except you pay $1,000 a sq ft to live there.
There have been many civic leaders who have debated the power of the REIC's power and promotion of urban sprawl all in the name of profits and jobs. What changed? Speculators. When the parasites from California and Vegas came in like locusts and drove up prices with no regard to the working people of Arizona, that is what changed,but then they have been doing that for the past 40 years.
Everywhere Californians have taken their home inflation with them they ruin great places where people use to be able to buy a descent house without becoming indentured to a mortgage they can't afford.
24,000 unwanted homes? I think they'll be bought and lived in eventually. Hopefully Phoenix will learn from this orgy and put into effect controls to prevent it from happening again. If they had growth boundries and required even 10% of all permits issued to have to be in urban renewal they'd have added 30,000 new residenced in the inner city over the past five years.
I left Phoenix because I changed and the type of city I knew Phoenix could be wouldn't happen in my lifetime.
I feel sorry for the honest hard working people who have real jobs and happen to live in the City of Phoenix. But, even a city with a relatively good economy can fall into this mess.
The Jacksonville economy is based on what most would consider "real jobs" such as shipping, transportation, military related, manufacturing with a few fortune 500 headquarters located in town. Blue collar and mostly lower paying, but relatively stable compared to most cities. Stated unemployment is less than 3%. The RE market is taking a real butt kicking here. There's over 20k homes for sale in a city that is a little less than 1/3 the size of Phoenix. Nothing is selling and there are entire suburbs that look like RE FOR SALE sign factories. It really is sad.
Er, okay, I can sell my house (paying fat realtor fees) buy a more expensive house (paying second set of fat realtor fees) and save 10%.
OR, I can wait another year or so and save 20%, 30%, or more... Catherine is a dimwit, but even she can't possibly believe this is the bottom - it's just getting warmed up.
BTW, here in Boise there are acres and acres of $800k - $1.2M "custom" homes on miniscule lots with views of each other and drainage culverts. These subdivisions are maybe 25% occupied, 50% vacant (never lived in) and 25% under construction. On weekends there are open house signs everywhere, but not a SINGLE realtor in any of the homes! Just walk in, marvel at the horrific lack of quality and take a card (with requisite headshot) on your way out.
There are so many houses for sale, there aren't enough realtwhores to even try to sell them to you.
Absolutely amazing.
People move to Phoenix because they're losers and can't cut it anywhere else, not because of the "spirituality" and "healing" of the desert!
You sound like a bimbo Scottsdale realtor....
Is it time for Phoenix to displace Las Vegas as the "Utopia of Clowns"?
As many as 40 percent of the contracts on all the new homes in the Valley during 2005 and early this year have fallen through. That translates to 25,000 spec homes, according to a new survey from housing analyst RL Brown.
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how many are retirement homes from boomers from the different parts of the country?
Pavlov's House said...
I was out there a year or so ago. When I would ask people what they did almost everyone of them was "real estate" related.
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The problem is that the US hasn't had a significant depression in a long time. It's a natural course. If Greenspan, et al keeps pilling bubbles on top of bubbles, nothing grows.
Fellows, the spirituality retreats are in Joshua Tree and Mohave desert regions in Cal and the intra-state border regions, not Phoenix/Scotsdale. Those are the areas where one has both mystical and dehydration experiences and real estate in Mohave Desert is pretty affordable if you're into that Peoti/Soma Jim Morrison vision quest type of thing.
KEITH! Haven't you noticed? Inventory is DOWN over the last 2 month.
er... "months"
Two stupit questions:
1. where is it written that the "American Dream" = "Home Ownership". I vaguely recall some stuff about political freedoms, search and seizure and Congress in the Consitution and Declaration, but nothing about ARMS, mortgages, or getting rich quick through flipping properties.
2. I understand why Californians flee California for places like Boise, as California is a hell of Californian proportions. But when the Californians migrate to Boise, Phoenix, etc., why do they insist on re-enacting the failed Californian policies that made California unliveable in the first place? The same can be said for New Englanders infesting NoVa.
Thak God I chose to move to Russia.
As usual, RL Brown is an idiot. The numbers I have seen put speculative inventory numbers closer to 5,000 homes, which is comparable to where the market was in 2000 to 2003.
RL's lame assumption that 40% cancellations automatically creates 25,000 speculative homes does not take into account that many of the homes being sold are standing inventory homes that fell out of contract. Builders are putting the biggest incentives on these homes. So I guess if none of the speculative homes were sold, then you might have 25,000 homes right now, but his logic is off. Even though the market is crappy, there are still close to 3,000 new home sales per month in Phoenix. That eats through the inventory homes.
The last I checked Housing Prices are FLAT in PHX...
For those of you who can't spell ECON-101, it means housing prices are NOT going down, even with inventories UP!
So, there is NO panic in PHX except this stupid blog HYPE!
PLEASE STOP THIS BS CRAP ABOUT HOUSING COLLAPSE! STOCK MARKET IS DOING GREAT! SO DOES HOSUING IN USA!
TO ALL YOU FOREIGNERS WHO CALL ELEVATORS AS LIFTS, GO BACK TO WHERE YOU COME FROM OR STOP THIS BS BASHING ON USA SOIL!
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