Not-so-good housing news

A friend of mine -- a freelance software consultant -- in February formed his own company to flip houses. He has yet to make his first flip.

When dopey amateurs start jumping in, you know the party's over.

Hey, FarmerJ, I got a sweet deal for you on a bridge downtown!

 

The day-traders from 2000.

Here's an incredibly long, but VERY interesting story on these toxic ARMs that have been peddled the last few years. I am saving my cash and will be ready to pick up another house in a year or two, when all these idiots are giving up their houses.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_37/b4000001.htm

 

Love that show, except the fact that HGTV pulls it's usual crap by not telling you what (or if) they sold the house and for what price.

We were lucky. We just sold our house -- one of FOUR on our block in our model on the market. A good thing, considering our new house is supposed to be ready next month.

In our area, there are more than 4,000 homes for sale, not counting the new homes popping up like toadstools because the assclown homebuilders never learn their lessons from the previous bust and continue to overbuild.

Of course if our brain-dead city council wouldn't keep issuing permits to anyone with a pulse or anyone who doesn't promise to put in the necessary infrastructure.

This is why the neighboring high school to our new digs has more than 4,000 kids crammed into a place with a 2,500-student capacity and the local elementary school has more than 1,500. That should be a proviso on ANY new construction: that you take care of the necessary infrastructure before we issue you any new permits.

Rant over.

 

When I first moved to this state, some friends of Ms. Slappy told me I could live in their second house as long as I liked.
Long story short, they lost the house.
People who bought it at auction got it for a song, did some upgrades to it and an addition. We went through the house, posing as buyers to see what they did, knowing what they paid for it.
A year later, they still can't sell it because they're asking like 150 percent more than the other houses in the area... yet, they still arent budging off the price, even though they are "anxious" to sell...

 

Good housing news if you're looking to buy.

 

You are right on the money here, I flip real estate also and haven't purchased a piece in almost three years. The last place I owned turned in summer '05. Since then, I've been waiting on the bottom to fall out. I was interested in the above banking regulations because I had not heard about the outlay of lending vs. capital funds on hand...that's another sign that the bottom could fall out.

The only thing is, professionals were amateurs also at one point.