Fitch thinks that housing prices have another 10% to go down. This is
a more mild number than my guess of 15-20%. Very nice interactive
graphic also.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/...e-stabilizing/

--
Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their inattention
to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
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posting on Usenet.
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On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 07:32:52 -0500, Ignoramus24384
wrote:

Fitch thinks that housing prices have another 10% to go down. This is
a more mild number than my guess of 15-20%. Very nice interactive
graphic also.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/...e-stabilizing/
================
Remember that Fitch is a *BOND* rating agency, one of several
that gave AAA ratings to the synthetic structured residential
mortgage [and commercial mortgage, student loan, and credit card
receivable] backed collateralized debt obligations that provided
the foundation for the spontaneous combustion currently burning
the global credit "house of cards" to the ground.

Without knowing their methodology, sources of data, and
objectives it is difficult to evaluate the validity of their
conclusions, although these seem plausible. Note that the
particular methodology used is not right or wrong, but may be
better or worse for the particular use you wish to make of the
data.

There is not a uniform national real estate market, and different
conditions exist in different areas of the country. Indeed in
many rural areas there was no [or very little] run-up or boom in
residential housing and there very little "bust," albeit
financing has gotten somewhat more difficult, although still
available from the many solvent local and regional banks for
qualified borrowers.

A possibly more accepted residential value metric is
Case-Shiller.
http://www2.standardandpoors.com/por...0,0,0,0,0.html
http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf...lue_082653.xls
[excel or equivalent required to pen]

also see
http://macromarkets.com/csi_housing/sp_caseshiller.asp
http://www.zillowblog.com/zillow-hom...dexes/2008/03/
http://bigpicture.typepad.com/commen...hiller-in.html

FWIW -- an additional drop of "only" 10% in aggregate residential
house prices seems far too low given the 18 month supply of new
houses in many areas, the huge run-up in values in many "hot"
urban areas, tightening lending terms, and probability of a
serious recession or economic contraction. I think your estimate
of 15-20% is far more likely, however even this may be low.

It should also be noted, despite repeated administration, banking
and media claims to the contrary, an active market exists for the
residential mortgage backed CDOs. The problem is that this
market is rating the values of these derivatives at 15 to 60
cents on the dollar. ==The market that does not exist is the
one that prices these CDOs at face/nominal value.== This is not
unique with the CDOs [there is just so many of them, with so much
capital tied up] but many corporate bonds have similar problems,
for example Ford and GM long bonds.


Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:06:20 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

FWIW -- an additional drop of "only" 10% in aggregate residential
house prices seems far too low given the 18 month supply of new
houses in many areas, the huge run-up in values in many "hot"
urban areas, tightening lending terms, and probability of a
serious recession or economic contraction. I think your estimate
of 15-20% is far more likely, however even this may be low.


Im thinking more like 20-35% in some areas, such as mine..or even
more...

Ive believed that a 50% drop (or more ) is entirely consistant with
the over priceing due to the bubble..There are entire housing tracts
in my area, Bakersfield California, that are band spanking new..and
have been sitting vacant for 18 months already,, already becoming
victims of roving parties of teens, or those stealing brand new
appliences, never used, right out of the homes, along with copper pipe
and wire.

The decrease in Illegal immigration over the past year is also
contributing to a surplus of housing. as is the economy...as more
illegals cant find jobs, and are returning to their home countries.

Gunner

Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your
wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do
something damned nasty to all three of them.

On 2008-10-21, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:06:20 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

FWIW -- an additional drop of "only" 10% in aggregate residential
house prices seems far too low given the 18 month supply of new
houses in many areas, the huge run-up in values in many "hot"
urban areas, tightening lending terms, and probability of a
serious recession or economic contraction. I think your estimate
of 15-20% is far more likely, however even this may be low.


Im thinking more like 20-35% in some areas, such as mine..or even
more...

Ive believed that a 50% drop (or more ) is entirely consistant with
the over priceing due to the bubble..There are entire housing tracts
in my area, Bakersfield California, that are band spanking new..and
have been sitting vacant for 18 months already,, already becoming
victims of roving parties of teens, or those stealing brand new
appliences, never used, right out of the homes, along with copper pipe
and wire.

The decrease in Illegal immigration over the past year is also
contributing to a surplus of housing. as is the economy...as more
illegals cant find jobs, and are returning to their home countries.

How much have the prices dropped in your area already?

Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your
wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do
something damned nasty to all three of them.

I think that a common sense approach to buying homes, would in fact
have saved "our ass".

--
Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their inattention
to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
from Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by
more readers you will need to find a different means of
posting on Usenet.
http://improve-usenet.org/

On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:46:12 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

snip
Im thinking more like 20-35% in some areas, such as mine..or even
more...

Ive believed that a 50% drop (or more ) is entirely consistant with
the over priceing due to the bubble..There are entire housing tracts
in my area, Bakersfield California, that are band spanking new..and
have been sitting vacant for 18 months already,, already becoming
victims of roving parties of teens, or those stealing brand new
appliences, never used, right out of the homes, along with copper pipe
and wire.
snip
---------------
You may well be right. California is the "poster child" for the
housing bubble.

In the LA metro statistical area, the median house sale price was
10X!!!!! the median family income. Either the median family
income increases by 4X or the house prices drop by 3/4s. In the
long term, it's as simple as that.


Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

"Ignoramus24384" wrote in message
...
On 2008-10-21, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:06:20 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

FWIW -- an additional drop of "only" 10% in aggregate residential
house prices seems far too low given the 18 month supply of new
houses in many areas, the huge run-up in values in many "hot"
urban areas, tightening lending terms, and probability of a
serious recession or economic contraction. I think your estimate
of 15-20% is far more likely, however even this may be low.


Im thinking more like 20-35% in some areas, such as mine..or even
more...

Ive believed that a 50% drop (or more ) is entirely consistant with
the over priceing due to the bubble..There are entire housing tracts
in my area, Bakersfield California, that are band spanking new..and
have been sitting vacant for 18 months already,, already becoming
victims of roving parties of teens, or those stealing brand new
appliences, never used, right out of the homes, along with copper pipe
and wire.

The decrease in Illegal immigration over the past year is also
contributing to a surplus of housing. as is the economy...as more
illegals cant find jobs, and are returning to their home countries.

How much have the prices dropped in your area already?

Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your
wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do
something damned nasty to all three of them.

I think that a common sense approach to buying homes, would in fact
have saved "our ass".

Most of the price drops are occuring in rapidly-growing areas that are
overbuilt to begin with. In contrast, here's what's happening in my town,
which is fully built. Growth here is very slow, and house prices, after
taking a dip early in the year, are climbing and are at historic highs. Keep
in mind that this is mostly existing houses; there has been little
construction here for several decades:

http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Me...market-trends/

I think the evaluations of the housing situation underestimate the effect of
overbuilding, which is always going to cause problems in a weak economy.
This situation is just a lot more extreme than others that have occurred in
similar, if milder circumstances.

--
Ed Huntress

On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:33:05 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

I think the evaluations of the housing situation underestimate the effect of
overbuilding, which is always going to cause problems in a weak economy.
This situation is just a lot more extreme than others that have occurred in
similar, if milder circumstances.

--
Ed Huntress
--------------
Wall Street has long known "trees don't grow to the sky."

What were these builders and bankers thinking? What were they
smoking?

Other factors are the absolute size of the units, e.g several
hundred thousand dollars each, and the fact these are "fixed" and
cannot be moved from areas of surplus/low prices to areas of
shortage/higher prices. Also housing is a very perishable item,
a month's rent or a month's loss of interest on the capital
invested can never be recaptured.

By contrast the farm price support program is a piece of cake.
Perhaps the US government can buy up the surplus houses, or can
issue "house stamps" like food stamps......











Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

"F. George McDuffee" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:33:05 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

I think the evaluations of the housing situation underestimate the effect
of
overbuilding, which is always going to cause problems in a weak economy.
This situation is just a lot more extreme than others that have occurred
in
similar, if milder circumstances.

--
Ed Huntress
--------------
Wall Street has long known "trees don't grow to the sky."

What were these builders and bankers thinking? What were they
smoking?

The builders are thinking they have to catch the wave while they can. Two of
my friends caught that wave and made a bundle. As for the bankers, we've
heard that story here numerous times. g


Other factors are the absolute size of the units, e.g several
hundred thousand dollars each, and the fact these are "fixed" and
cannot be moved from areas of surplus/low prices to areas of
shortage/higher prices. Also housing is a very perishable item,
a month's rent or a month's loss of interest on the capital
invested can never be recaptured.

By contrast the farm price support program is a piece of cake.
Perhaps the US government can buy up the surplus houses, or can
issue "house stamps" like food stamps......

'Dunno. I suspect that the market will soak up those excess houses sooner or
later. Some people will take a bath. That's life.

--
Ed Huntress

The bail out plan explained by Forest Gump..........
Sort of explains it in basic terms that we can all understand



Forrest Gump Explains Mortgage Backed Securities



Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates. Criminals on
Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with
turds. Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA
Investment Grade chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the
world to investors.

Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly
nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.

Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all
these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until
the market for turds returns to normal.

Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the
good chocolates are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted.

Mama always said: "Sniff the chocolates first, Forrest."

cavelamb himself wrote:
(...)
Mama always said: "Sniff the chocolates first, Forrest."

Thanks Richard.
I think I understand now.

Crooked is as crooked does.

--Winston

On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:46:12 -0700, the infamous Gunner Asch
scrawled the following:

On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:06:20 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

FWIW -- an additional drop of "only" 10% in aggregate residential
house prices seems far too low given the 18 month supply of new
houses in many areas, the huge run-up in values in many "hot"
urban areas, tightening lending terms, and probability of a
serious recession or economic contraction. I think your estimate
of 15-20% is far more likely, however even this may be low.


Im thinking more like 20-35% in some areas, such as mine..or even
more...

Ive believed that a 50% drop (or more ) is entirely consistant with
the over priceing due to the bubble..There are entire housing tracts
in my area, Bakersfield California, that are band spanking new..and
have been sitting vacant for 18 months already,, already becoming
victims of roving parties of teens, or those stealing brand new
appliences, never used, right out of the homes, along with copper pipe
and wire.

My property tax bill was delivered today. Surprise! It's higher than
last year, and last year, during the first year of the housing drop,
it was higher than the year before. Go figure! GDMFSOBs.


The decrease in Illegal immigration over the past year is also
contributing to a surplus of housing. as is the economy...as more
illegals cant find jobs, and are returning to their home countries.

Hurrah! So we're down to 19,989,000 now, are we?

--
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it
exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong
remedy." -- Ernest Benn

On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:07:52 -0500, cavelamb himself
wrote:

The bail out plan explained by Forest Gump..........
Sort of explains it in basic terms that we can all understand



Forrest Gump Explains Mortgage Backed Securities


Forest Gump would likely notice that Henry Waxman isn't going to
investigage fannie and fredie until after the election. Guy is
usually hot to trot on corruption. Smells like another turd in the
chocolate box to me.

Wes

"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
...
The bail out plan explained by Forest Gump..........
Sort of explains it in basic terms that we can all understand



Forrest Gump Explains Mortgage Backed Securities



Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates. Criminals on
Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with
turds. Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA
Investment Grade chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the
world to investors.

Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly
nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.

Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all
these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until
the market for turds returns to normal.

Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the
good chocolates are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted.

Mama always said: "Sniff the chocolates first, Forrest."


Richard,

You did it again !

And your explanation of it passes the sniff test.

How do you do it?

Flash

cavelamb himself wrote:
The bail out plan explained by Forest Gump..........
Sort of explains it in basic terms that we can all understand



Forrest Gump Explains Mortgage Backed Securities



Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates. Criminals on
Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with
turds. Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA
Investment Grade chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the
world to investors.

Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly
nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.

Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all
these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until
the market for turds returns to normal.

I think a better approach might be to sort the boxes and throw the turds
away, while sorting and re-packaging the chocolates which will someday
be worth a bit more than he intends to pay for the boxes of mixed turds.



Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the
good chocolates are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted.

Mama always said: "Sniff the chocolates first, Forrest."

On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:10:19 -0500, Ignoramus24384
wrote:


The decrease in Illegal immigration over the past year is also
contributing to a surplus of housing. as is the economy...as more
illegals cant find jobs, and are returning to their home countries.

How much have the prices dropped in your area already?
+

I dont know. However the For Sale signs are still up, though some
have recently changed to For Rent...and still no takers. I suspect the
owners have dispaired of selling, so are trying to make their monthly
mortgage payment by renting them out...but given the long periods of
time some are up...trying to rent them out for more than anyone can
afford

Im seeing fewer and fewer motor homes and bigger travel trailers for
sale on Craigslist (Im personally looking for a 25' travel trailer to
replace the small piece of crap I live in during the week in So.
Cal)...and fewer and fewer Vacancy signs on RV parks and mobile home
parks that will accept such...Im guessing that those foreclosed out of
their homes are moving into RVs and travel trailers. Or renting the
homes the Illegals used to occupy...which has to be culture
shock...moving out of a home only a few years old, to a piece of ****
filled with roaches......

Ill ask some folks I know in the real estate business about some stats
for my area.

Shrug

Gunner

Larry Jaques wrote in
:

Hurrah! So we're down to 19,989,000 now, are we?

In the Peoples' Republik of Kalipornia...

--

I used to be an anarchist but had to give it up: _far_ too many rules.

On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:12:25 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:
My property tax bill was delivered today. Surprise! It's higher than
last year, and last year, during the first year of the housing drop,
it was higher than the year before. Go figure! GDMFSOBs.


Perfectly normal for your ever expanding local council with
ratepayer expectations growing every year.
My council rate account went up by 8.8% this year, more than double
the supposed inflation rate and, like yours, last year's was higher
than the year before. Thank goodness I get a 50% age pensioner
discount from the state government. Also received my drivers
licence renewal yesterday, have to go and get a pretty picture taken
at the licencing centre to be valid for the next 5 years, free for us
old farts.

Alan

In article ,
Ignoramus24384 wrote:

On 2008-10-21, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:06:20 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

FWIW -- an additional drop of "only" 10% in aggregate residential
house prices seems far too low given the 18 month supply of new
houses in many areas, the huge run-up in values in many "hot"
urban areas, tightening lending terms, and probability of a
serious recession or economic contraction. I think your estimate
of 15-20% is far more likely, however even this may be low.


Im thinking more like 20-35% in some areas, such as mine..or even
more...

Ive believed that a 50% drop (or more ) is entirely consistant with
the over priceing due to the bubble..There are entire housing tracts
in my area, Bakersfield California, that are band spanking new..and
have been sitting vacant for 18 months already,, already becoming
victims of roving parties of teens, or those stealing brand new
appliences, never used, right out of the homes, along with copper pipe
and wire.

The decrease in Illegal immigration over the past year is also
contributing to a surplus of housing. as is the economy...as more
illegals cant find jobs, and are returning to their home countries.

How much have the prices dropped in your area already?

I'm not far from Gunner.

My neighbor's house sold for $375k three years ago, was foreclosed on
two months ago, went on the market for $208K yesterday.

The last appraisal on my house was $368K. Four years ago. I'm afraid of
what it might be now.

-Frank

--
Here's some of my work:
http://www.franksknives.com/

On 2008-10-22, Frank Warner wrote:
In article ,
Ignoramus24384 wrote:

On 2008-10-21, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:06:20 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

FWIW -- an additional drop of "only" 10% in aggregate residential
house prices seems far too low given the 18 month supply of new
houses in many areas, the huge run-up in values in many "hot"
urban areas, tightening lending terms, and probability of a
serious recession or economic contraction. I think your estimate
of 15-20% is far more likely, however even this may be low.


Im thinking more like 20-35% in some areas, such as mine..or even
more...

Ive believed that a 50% drop (or more ) is entirely consistant with
the over priceing due to the bubble..There are entire housing tracts
in my area, Bakersfield California, that are band spanking new..and
have been sitting vacant for 18 months already,, already becoming
victims of roving parties of teens, or those stealing brand new
appliences, never used, right out of the homes, along with copper pipe
and wire.

The decrease in Illegal immigration over the past year is also
contributing to a surplus of housing. as is the economy...as more
illegals cant find jobs, and are returning to their home countries.

How much have the prices dropped in your area already?

I'm not far from Gunner.

My neighbor's house sold for $375k three years ago, was foreclosed on
two months ago, went on the market for $208K yesterday.

The last appraisal on my house was $368K. Four years ago. I'm afraid of
what it might be now.

You can try zillow.com. It is a very nicely done website.

According to it, my house is worth between 15% to 20% above what I
paid for it 6 years ago. It is worth approximately 10-15% less than it
would sell for 1-2 years ago.

--
Due to extreme spam originating from Google Groups, and their inattention
to spammers, I and many others block all articles originating
from Google Groups. If you want your postings to be seen by
more readers you will need to find a different means of
posting on Usenet.
http://improve-usenet.org/

On 22 Oct 2008 14:08:12 GMT, the infamous Eregon Eregon@Saphira.ørg
scrawled the following:

Larry Jaques wrote in
:

Hurrah! So we're down to 19,989,000 now, are we?

In the Peoples' Republik of Kalipornia...

My buddy in LoCal told me last month that there had been 11,000
voluntary returnees to Mexico from CA so far this year.

--
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it
exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong
remedy." -- Ernest Benn

Flash wrote:
"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
...

The bail out plan explained by Forest Gump..........
Sort of explains it in basic terms that we can all understand



Forrest Gump Explains Mortgage Backed Securities



Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates. Criminals on
Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with
turds. Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA
Investment Grade chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the
world to investors.

Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly
nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.

Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all
these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until
the market for turds returns to normal.

Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the
good chocolates are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted.

Mama always said: "Sniff the chocolates first, Forrest."



Richard,

You did it again !

And your explanation of it passes the sniff test.

How do you do it?

Flash



Aw Shucks, Flash, t'wern't nothin', it just came to me,
(via email).

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...earch&aq=f&oq=




--

Richard

(remove the X to email)

On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 10:46:12 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

Im thinking more like 20-35% in some areas, such as mine..or even
more...

Ive believed that a 50% drop (or more ) is entirely consistant with
the over priceing due to the bubble.
==========
Looks like you nailed it in your area. [65% drop!!!!]

-------------------
California Home Sales Revive, But Not Without Intense Pain
By MICHAEL CORKERY and JONATHAN KARP

LOS BANOS, Calif. -- In this California city, one of the hardest
hit in the national housing crash, there's good news: Homes are
starting to sell again.
snip
Across hard-hit California, sales volumes rose 65% in September
compared with a year ago, said MDA DataQuick, a San Diego-based
real-estate information service.
The bad news is that the latest round of sales is unleashing
another round of pain in cities such as Los Banos, a commuter
community in California's Central Valley. ==With home prices
already down 66% from their peak here,== {emphasis added} most
homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their houses are
worth. Successive deals bring new low prices,
snip
------------
for complete article click on
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122462963345656289.html

And the banks are complaining because those residential mortgage
backed CDOs are selling for only 35 cents on the dollar? Looks
like Mr. Market was right again.


Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

Ignoramus24384 wrote:
Fitch thinks that housing prices have another 10% to go down. This is
a more mild number than my guess of 15-20%. Very nice interactive
graphic also.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/...e-stabilizing/

Remember that Fitch is one of the 3 rating
agencies that had been saying all along that Wall
Street was entirely on a safe path, and there was
no undue risk. They were being grilled on Capitol
Hill yesterday and today over their failure to
discern anything wrong in the investment market.

I'd be very leery of making any decisions based on
utterances from such a clueless or corrupt outfit.
(My guess is it is the latter.)

Jon

Ignoramus32289 wrote:

You can try zillow.com. It is a very nicely done website.

According to it, my house is worth between 15% to 20% above what I
paid for it 6 years ago. It is worth approximately 10-15% less than it
would sell for 1-2 years ago.


Interesting web site. They say my house is worth
$338,000. I've got the county appraiser talked
down to $240K as of last year.

My next door neighbor had his house listed for
months, asking $325,000 for a 2-bedroom one bath
house on roughly one acre. Zillow lists it at
$310K. Just a coupe days ago a sold sign went up.
It will be interesting to see the assessor's
listing of the actual sale price.

These numbers may sound tame to others, but we
have much lower values here in MO than a lot of
other places. (Just comparing the two Zillow
listings, our place is 4 Br, 3.5 bath, 2100 Sq Ft,
the neighbor's place is 2 BR, 1 bath, 1100 Sq Ft.
So, is that ALL land value? $300K per acre of
land? 1000 more Sq Ft of house and several baths,
etc. is only worth $28K?)

Hmm, my neighbor on the other side has a
relatively new, very fancy castle, Zillow lists it
at $917K. I know they bought it about 4 years ago
for $450K. Maybe zillow hasn't heard that the
bubble has popped, yet.

Jon

Larry Jaques wrote:

My property tax bill was delivered today. Surprise! It's higher than
last year, and last year, during the first year of the housing drop,
it was higher than the year before. Go figure! GDMFSOBs.

In MO, every two years, we get re-appraised, by
state law. That gives us an opportunity to
contest the appraisal. I always go, and always
get some reduction. One year, they just gave me
the value I wrote down. Other years they offer to
split it halfway between my number and theirs. I
will have LOTS of ammo for the next year it comes
up (2009). I've been arguing their was a
ridiculous bubble for years, it shouldn't be a
hard sell this time.

The tax records are open, and on computer via the
web. It is INSANE to see two nearly identical
next-door houses, one getting apprased at $350K
the other at $210K. You have to assume the guy
who's paying less must have been actively
contesting his appraisal.

Jon

In article ,
Ignoramus32289 wrote:

On 2008-10-22, Frank Warner wrote:
In article ,
Ignoramus24384 wrote:

On 2008-10-21, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:06:20 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:

FWIW -- an additional drop of "only" 10% in aggregate residential
house prices seems far too low given the 18 month supply of new
houses in many areas, the huge run-up in values in many "hot"
urban areas, tightening lending terms, and probability of a
serious recession or economic contraction. I think your estimate
of 15-20% is far more likely, however even this may be low.


Im thinking more like 20-35% in some areas, such as mine..or even
more...

Ive believed that a 50% drop (or more ) is entirely consistant with
the over priceing due to the bubble..There are entire housing tracts
in my area, Bakersfield California, that are band spanking new..and
have been sitting vacant for 18 months already,, already becoming
victims of roving parties of teens, or those stealing brand new
appliences, never used, right out of the homes, along with copper pipe
and wire.

The decrease in Illegal immigration over the past year is also
contributing to a surplus of housing. as is the economy...as more
illegals cant find jobs, and are returning to their home countries.

How much have the prices dropped in your area already?

I'm not far from Gunner.

My neighbor's house sold for $375k three years ago, was foreclosed on
two months ago, went on the market for $208K yesterday.

The last appraisal on my house was $368K. Four years ago. I'm afraid of
what it might be now.

You can try zillow.com. It is a very nicely done website.

According to it, my house is worth between 15% to 20% above what I
paid for it 6 years ago. It is worth approximately 10-15% less than it
would sell for 1-2 years ago.

Yikes! Gives a current market value for my house of $224k. In January
of '06 it was $397K!

-Frank

--
Here's some of my work:
http://www.franksknives.com/

On 2008-10-24, Frank Warner wrote:
Yikes! Gives a current market value for my house of $224k. In January
of '06 it was $397K!


I think that your Lompoc area is almost in the middle of the housing
storm...

My area did not experience any big swings in home prices. maybe 20-30% or
so beyond fair value and some return now.
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