A wave of housing foreclosures set for this fall

Real estate is still the best investment by far, in my opinion. There's only so much turf in this world, own a piece of it and you really have something. The trick is to buy a GOOD piece and don't finance it with money you'll never have.

It hurts me to say that the feds may have to step in on this one. Forclosure prevention is in the best intereset of the country. Do you think the bankers want to be holding on to tens of thousands of potentially unmarketable homes? I don't.

Some quick creativity is called for here. Someone think of something. Someone DO something. Someone can be a real HERO here.

My plate is full.

Luv to all!

Gary

There will be less foreclosures than you might think, a lot more foreclosures than normal...

...AND the government should stay the hell away from everything possible!

Actually, it was Canon that used the tag "Image is Everything"...Andre Agassi, another Vegasite.

As a real estate professional in Vegas since 1973, I've done very well in our residential market. The feeding frenzy of the last 10 years or so is most definitely over. This is a good thing. Time to separate the wheat from the chaff. A good house cleaning (pun intended) is in order. The market is a harsh mistress...

While I am a 'land guy' at heart, the best buy I've made recently was 2,500 shares of Akamai at 12.69.

YMMV.

"Under All is the Land"

V.V.

Housing and real estate is clearly the investment with the highest investor "visibility". People are tired of low/no returns in the stock market and most can still remember the $4 trillion dollar loss taken by investors in the post 2000 stock market crash. The Dow is about where it stood seven years ago. Real estate, on the other hand, is something tangible and if in the proper location -- not Cleveland, for example -- it will have an excellent chance of bringing returns to the owner.

Oh, and yes AKAM (Akamai) has had a wonderful run ( as well as great technology) in the past few years but it is one of the few that survived the dot com era. Where is SunMicrosystems, Enron, Inktomi, etc. now, I ask rhetorically?

Option ARMs, where 80 percent of the borrowers are making only the minimum payment, will contribute much to the wave of foreclosures. Waiting to buy, at least with San Diego County real estate, will be purchasers who had been priced out of the market. We are already seeing eager buyers for excess real estate inventory that is appropriately priced.

I HAVE A 4 YEAR OLD HOUSE ON A SALTWATER CANAL IN PALM COAST FL. AFTER 5 MONTHS ON THE MARKET NOT ONE PERSON EVEN LOOKED!1!!!
DON!T TELL ME THEIRS NO HOUSING BUBBLE!!!!

RD, Maybe you are standing on the housing bubble? How much have you reduced the price so far? Were you long term owner for the four years or recently speculating?

there is a real estate bubble, and it is breaking not only because of option-arms. three beach towns in n.c., carolina beach, surf city, and kure beach, are down in sales volume by 70%, 73% and 80%. a large number of these homes are owned by builders and speculators, who never refinanced their constructions loans. they are now begging the banks to take the homes back through short sales. prices are dropping to the point of negative equity, where the houses won't appraise for enough to get longer term refinancing on the loan balances.

people with option arms, if qualified, may get lucky and may be able to refinance at lower long term rates. if the u.s. goes into recession, rates will come down, as long as other currencies don't gain on the dollar. regular arm loans, without teaser rates, may actually come down even lower than when they were originated. unfortunately, prices are also coming down in many regions of the country.

Your conclusion that land is finite and so housing prices are more inclined to resist depreciation is fundamentally inaccurate. There have been studies done that show no correlation with resources. The three "i's" have it: inventory, interest rates and most importantly, incomes.

You only have to look at the real estate bubble in Japan, which has greater land and resources limitations than us, but where values in most of the major cities fell 65% from their highs. Good luck writing opinion pieces. Get your masters in finance and research this stuff on a daily basis, and then we'll talk.

"there is one inescapable truth: real estate is a finite resource. We can't build more of it at will, and as the population grows, real estate will continue to increase in value."

The nation of Japan sustained 14 consecutive years of declining real estate prices. US population density is lower.

If you allot a 6-foot by 2-foot by 2-foot space for every human on planet earth, we fit in a one mile cube. I would not want to be n the bottom.

Jenson Hagen, Kevin: excellent posts!!!

brian, in the late 1990's, hong kong real estate prices fell approx. 50%. this should prove that studies are not necessary to illustrate, that finite resouces are not enough to stop real estate price deflation. the u.s., by the way, is not hurting for land on which to build. 51% of the continental u.s. land mass houses only 3% of the population. nebraska has been losing population since the 1920,s.

Rich, you left the following comment yesterday:
'There is a real estate bubble, and it is breaking not only because of option-arms. three beach towns in n.c., carolina beach, surf city, and kure beach, are down in sales volume by 70%, 73% and 80%. a large number of these homes are owned by builders and speculators, who never refinanced their constructions loans. they are now begging the banks to take the homes back through short sales. prices are dropping to the point of negative equity, where the houses won't appraise for enough to get longer term refinancing on the loan balances."
Where did you obtain these figures? I work for a local newspaper, and I'd like to do a story on it. Thanks!

barbara, you can obtain those figures from the new hanover county mls, for carolina beach and kure beach, and from the pender county mls, for all of top sail island, which includes the towns of surf city, topsail beach, and north topsail beach.

One note to add to the discussion. Japan's economy is not as diverse, global, open and sustaining as the economy of the U.S. Also the U.S. population is expected to grow signifcantly through foreign immigration. There is somewhat of a reverse migration back to the inner cities through gentrification and redevelopment. These may have a significant positive affect on real estate values in certain locations going forward. Real estate values are still driven primarilly by local supply and demand and the purchasing power of the local demographics.

Thank you Rich! I will work on it.
Barbara