Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Made you look!



Some auction properties are getting people excited when they see the extra low prices listed. Of course, these are the minimum bid amounts for the action and don't reflect what the homes will sell for.

Short sales can also trick you and get your heart pumpin' a bit. You see the prices and get excited. But will the lenders actually let the properties go when they are listed at a very low price.

Here's a couple of examples in Orangecrest.

18996 Alderbrook is in the new Centex/Fox development. This home is a 4 bedroom/2.5 bath and is 2700 sq/ft. It sold new in Nov 2006 for $480k. It's listed as a "pre-foreclosure" short sale for $190k (That's $70 sq/ft). That is a 290k loss or a 61% loss if you prefer it in percentage form.. Do you think there is any chance a bank would go for this? Of course not. They bank will take it, list it for $359k. It will sit for 6 months and they will end up selling it for $250k or less.

In the same tract there is another shorty short sale at 9372 Golden Lantern (was that a super hero? the green lantern's ex?) This 3 bedroom/3bath home is 2384 sq/ft. This one is listed for $215k ($90 sq/ft). Again, there is little chance the bank will go for this sale.

I'm really not sure what these people hope to accomplish. I have a feeling that these homes will probably end up being worth around what they are listed at. I think it will take a couple of years though and I doubt the banks will be too interested in speeding up the process.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's the thing...I don't see why banks just don't drop the prices now. They know the median income person can't afford a $350,000 home and they won't approve most people to by that home, so what are they waiting for?

This whole overpriced home thing is a joke.

Unknown said...

I completely agree with you. They should drop the prices.


Michael

Anonymous said...

But two minutes just went by, and there are a couple more suckers born.
And this is just common teaser BS marketing. Next thing will be Cal Worthington saying he can sell you this home for $99 down and $99 per month, cause I carry my own paper.

Anonymous said...

Just be patient you all.....

Reid said...

Hey Golfer,

I just stumbled across your blog yesterday. I laughed out loud when I saw the word, "realtard".

My wife and I are desiring to buy our first home. I already have a lender lined up and all but are concerned about the market.

Two Questions:
1) If we wait longer for the market to drop further, how will the market return back to an upward trend? Will it stiffle for a couple of month with really no decrease/increase in values and then slowly start to rise? Or will it shoot upward really fast and put us in a bad situation where prices increased too fast?

2) Short Sales - are they worth looking at? The Alderbrook home is fairly nice and listed for a bargain. Who set this list price? The bank? If so, why so low if they will not accept it as you suggest? If it is the seller setting the price,I understand: They are trying to get ut from under it and are crossing fingers that the lender allows the sale.

Thanks in advance!

Reid said...

one more,

What online searching site do you recommend for the best and most comprehensive listings?

BrianH said...

The Perfect Lender my ass. Leif or Michael, you are nothing but a lead generator and you sell leads to crooked hack mortgage shops to rip people off. I figured the likes of you would be out of business by now.

People like you should be drug out behind the woodshed.

golfer_X said...

The market will probably decline for another 2 or 3 years. There are a lot of foreclosures in the pipe. Those will keep the prices moving downward until they are worked out of the system. Most experts seem to agree that won't happen until 2009 at the earliest (Personally I think 2010). the IE has already seen the median price drop about 30% in the last year. I think there is another 30% still to go from today's median. But if you can find a home you like, AND you can get a smokin deal, AND you can easily afford it, AND you plan on staying in it, then I don't see any reason not to buy it. I would not buy though unless the price was very very good (like 50% off peak). The market will not take off again anytime soon. You don't need to worry about that. It will probably be very flat for 5 year at least once the prices settle.

Right now there are a lot of shoppers that have seen the declines and think this is their chance to get a deal. It's not, the deals will be much better this winter after the spring and summer seasons selling seasons are over. The spring season so far has been a bust. I doubt summer will be any better. There a currently a lot of sellers hoping the spring and summer season sill save them (banks are thinking the same thing). So far this is the worst season on record and there is no indication it will get any better. once the hope of the spring/summer sale fades the big price cuts should start again. Late this year there will be some decent deals. There are some now but they tend to attract a lot of attention.

Redfin, Trulia and Ziprealty are the most common real estate sits. I like Redfin because it's easier to search using the map.

I don't mess with short sales. They are a hassle and 9 time out of 10 the bank rejects the offer. Most of the time there are two lenders to deal with and getting both to agree is just about impossible. I prefer to lob low balls at REO properties. So far no luck but then again my low balls are LOOOOOOW. The funny thing is one offer I made 4 or 5 months ago is now higher than the home is listed for. Ha, good thing they did not reply to my offer.

Anonymous said...

What X said!

There are about 30000 homes for sale in the IE. About 2000 a month are selling and about 2000 a month are coming on to the market. Only the VERY best priced homes are moving. The rest are overpriced most of them vastly overpriced. At some point those homes will either be re-priced correctly [probably due to foreclosure] or they will be taken off the market. When those 30000 homes are re-priced the prices will tumble as all those homes compete for a few buyers. Right now everyone is trying to get the 2000 homes that are priced well. The rest are just taking up space.

Anonymous said...

Look! This is the BEST picture of a house that a realtard has ever taken:

http://www.redfin.com/stingray/do/printable-listing?listing-id=1440991

Aside from that, do you think that price is a typo? I've been watching this neighborhood for over a year now. That house started at $499,000, then sat at $439,000 for about six months and just yesterday, the picture changed and the price went to $319,000.

Could it be that a bank has wised up or do you think they're going to try to auction this POS. It is TRASHED inside. No flooring, half of everything is missing, plumbing not working, pool half finished and the half that is finished is crappy work, hole in the ceiling where the owner meant to put in a sky light but didn't.

Anonymous said...

The end of that link after the question mark is:

listing-id=1440991

Anonymous said...

Butterbutt, errr monkey... to me that house is worth around 225K, if it was in move in condition. Sounds like you would have to sink at least 50K into it if you do the most of the work yourself, and more like 100K if you hire it done. If you bought it for asking price and then sunk a 100K into it, you could have bought a McMansion somewhere in the IE.

Anonymous said...

Code, I'm not interested in that house. It's trashed. Sorry if it sounded that way. It would have to be, like you said, 225K before I'd consider it....but, I probably still wouldn't consider it because the hubby refuses to do any renos.

I *am* interested in the neighborhood though, so I've been watching the prices for a long time now. I was just wondering if it's possible that a bank figured out that they aren't going to sell their POS for 2005 prices or if they're just trying to get attention for an auction.

Anonymous said...

Off Topic...I wrote on this blog a while back about incorrect "Homes Sold" prices being listed by the Press Enterprise (Zillow had the same incorrect $$). They listed homes in the 92508 zip on average streets as being sold at $850,000 plus. Even at the top of the market, these homes were never that price.

Anyway, PE told me they purchase their info from First American CoreLogic. I contacted them over 1 month ago and they just got back to me. They showed me copies of grant deeds for the properties I listed and the homes were sold at lower prices. They said the newspaper made a mistake. The thing is , Zillow has the same incorrect prices.

My concern is that people will think these homes are going for that much and , therefore, see nothing wrong with paying $500,000 ( thinking they're getting a deal). Ok, they're stupid people, but still...

Does no one else have a problem with this or am I being touchy? Is this fraud?

Freaking lower the prices.

Anonymous said...

Here's your chance to rip into the Zillow guys/gals. :)

http://blog.redfin.com/orangecounty/2008/03/the_zillow_zestimate_test.html#comment-5904

golfer_X said...

That Victoria Woods house is quite a wreck. I doubt they are trying anything funny with that asking price. It looks like they have just come to the realization that it's never going to sell unless it's cheap. If it's a bad as you say it would take at least $100k to fix and probably $150k if done well. The 1/2 finished pool would probably have to be ripped out if it's as bad as you say. they are probably hoping for a contractor to buy it and fix it up. A contractor could probably get it fixed up for $50k doing the work himself. But he would still have to sell it for over $400k to make any money after the fees come out. Even fixed up getting $400k would not be easy and in the 6 months that would take who knows what is going to happen. The only thing you know with some certainty (like 99.99999%)is that the prices are not going to go up. I doubt this will go to auction. There's probably some desperate carpenter out there that will buy it as soon as he thinks he can make some money on it.