A seller's lament: Not desperate, but anxious

Good morning. Why don't sellers lower their prices? The L.A. Times takes a look at the market today, and profiles a seller who hasn't yet come to grips with the market.

Joe Lee is still holding out for $700,000 that he's asking for his 2,600-square-foot, three-bedroom home in Lynwood.  Lee has owned the home for 25 years, listed it for sale three months ago, and has reduced the price by $25,000 -- 3.5% from where he started. DataQuick stats, though, show prices per-square-foot have dropped 17% since mid-2006 in his zip code.  "I wouldn't say I'm desperate, but anxious, yes, I am feeling anxious," he said.

Other anecdotes and insights from a well-researched "state of the market" story:

-- Don't assume recent buyers can afford to sell at their original purchase price. Some need much more than that to break even. Story notes one Valley seller who bought for $890,000 in 2004 (100% financing), and later refinanced to take out $100,000. "They've got a situation where their break-even point is $1,150,000," said their agent, Peter LaMonica. "I just don't know if it's realistic for them to get that."  The house is listed for $1.249 million.

-- LaMonica's advice: If you're thinking about selling in the next few years, sell now, and price your house lower than comps:  "In this market, if we accidentally price your house too low, it could be a blessing," he said. "It's a big mistake to wait 60 or 90 days before lowering the price. You're going to get the greatest amount of exposure at the beginning of the listing."

-- One more from the Valley: One seller put her 3-bedroom, one-bath home in Lake Balboa (Van Nuys) on the market for $525,000 in July. She's since cut her price to $433,000. Only two prospective buyers have visited the house since October.

Commentary: Some of this may strike avid readers as old news. It's not -- it's not old news that agents are now telling the Sunday Los Angeles Times Real Estate section that, if you're thinking about selling, now is the time to sell. That's conventional bear market advice -- if prices are falling, sell. But it differs from advice we've seen often from real estate professionals recently, which is: If you don't need to sell right now, don't sell. That reflects optimism that the market will turn around, and prices will recover. The "sell now" advice reflects fear that we're in for a long period of weak prices.

Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com.

Comments

[bulwark]

You're delusional, Mr. Lee. A home in Lynwood for $700,000? What did you pay, $50,000? Anyone who pays your price is a fool, to be sure.

[blackbox]

Karevoll is a fool. He was clueless when prices were skyrocketing without any fundenmentals, and he is clueless now. Thornberg knew it since 2001, and he is right on target now!
I put my money on Thornberg's predictions, and not on that fool Karevoll.
If you need to sell, SELL at whatever price you can. If you are a buyer, don't bother for a few more year........

[pugtv]

Lefty sighting - I was informed people saw him at the Santa Monica 405 exit begging for change. Please direct him to the nearest shelter. Do not give him money as he is known to frequent internet cafes where he spends all his money. He needs medication as he is still trying hard over the blogs to sell his already foreclosed home.

[mommy]

oh, to have a crystal ball... but really, what are these sellers thinking?? last year in october when we sold our house (finally) in north long beach, it had already fallen out of escrow once in august. we had moved and were unwilling to go back, so we slashed the price $20k from $469 to $449 (one of the lowest prices in that area at the time). it sold within 2 weeks, and while we were a little sad about losing that money, we were thankful to be done. our realtor recently told us that our house was the last high-priced sale in that zip code.
i guess those that really need to sell will do whatever's necessary. maybe the guy in lynwood isn't desperate enough yet. and he still thinks his place is awesome and worth $700k (WHATEVER!).
buyers are planning on prices dropping, so they've got to feel like they're getting a real bargain right now in order to offset the predicted future price drops, and sellers are remembering the times when their homes were worth so much more (and are expecting the value to return). they are both looking at the same market and seeing two completely different pictures.

[jk]

This guy purchased his home 25 years ago and is reluctant to drop the price 17%? He's a fool. By the time he accepts the reality that the housing market is not what it was in 2004, the prices will have gone down even further. Sell now and be forced to drop the price 17% or sell 2 years from now and be forced to drop the price 25%. LOOK OUT BELOOOOOWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[amir]

Karevoll is hedging by saying "if there's a recession...".

If? There will be a national recession and a very deep and long California recession with housing the lead culprit. By some analysts we're already in a recession.

What do you think $15bil budget cuts and/or more taxes will do for the local economy? How about $4 a gallon of gas? a writer's strike with thousands losing their jobs? Collapsing financial institutions that fire their employees (Axium, Countrywide)?

The horrible truth is that Thornberg is an optimist. 30% will hardly bring us to fair value in relation to income levels. Bottoms are reached when smart money comes in after a selling climax. That's when there's universal psychological depression and prices are below fair value. That's 50% or more from the top (more if you consider inflation).

The attitudes of the sellers in this article just show how far we are from a selling climax and a bottom.

[CD]

Boy, I remember at the start of your blog Peter, the tone was quite different we were considered complete doomers and ask to go back to our bear cave. Well, here we are.Read Nouriel Roubini 's blog and his prediction for 2008, hang tight, that 10 point earthquake is coming.Paulson was asleep at the wheel ,he is one year too late with his stimulus package. Who are those people who pretend to govern us? Mr Lee your house is now 50% off.

[JK]

"I did open houses -- it brought nothing. I've done all the fliers -- nothing," Zinsmeister said. "The buyers now want you to pay the closing costs, make repairs, take them to dinner and all that. They've really got you."

This is ironically funny. It is the same thing the sellers were doing to buyers for the last five years. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, the sellers are whining. The scary part is, this is only the beginning. Contrary to popular belief in the Real Estate industry, WE ARE headed for recession if we're not in one already. Walmart opened in Atlanta Georgia and 7500 people lined up for 400 jobs. If you ever want to sell your house in the next 5 years or so, you'd better price it right and get out now because it's going to get real ugly.

All the people that have spent the last few years bitter that they were priced out of the market will now have their pick of homes to buy very soon. Good for us!

[perks]

I keep an eye on all the new listings that come on the market in the San Fernando Valley every day, and it amazes me how many people are still living three years in the past. I just want to scream "NO! Your 1300 square foot house in Canoga Park is NOT worth half a million bucks! It never really was before, and it certainly isn't now!"

What kind of fool for an agent is willing to take on a listing like that? I'm seeing more and more REOs that are now coming on the market priced as much as 40% below peak these days. Those houses are the only ones that are actually selling. How can anyone expect to compete against those when they're pricing their houses $60-80K higher than similar homes? If you need to recoup that much more on your house, you need to face the fact that you're screwed. Short sale? Good luck...with so many other houses on the market right now, you're not going to find many buyers willing to suffer through that process either.

[National Bubble]

In all fairness to realtors, they have been telling sellers to lower the prices since the beginning of last year but many of them don't listen until it is too late. Even in this slow market, I've been bidding wars when sellers price their homes lower than the competition.
Let's face it , there is no way the real estate market will improve this year. Particularly here in California. The economy here is going down, the budget deficit, the mortgage meldown with all their layoffs, the writers strike, the stock market going down, high gas prices. Home prices will keep going down for at least another year, we might be in a bear real estate market for several years where prices don't do much. Real Estate is not liquid like the stock market, so it might be a lot tougher to sell your home a year from now. If you find a good serious buyer, lower the price to keep him/her. There might not be another potential buyer for months if you let this one go. In the meantime, you are still paying property taxes, mortgage interest, HOA, maintenance, insurance, etc, etc, etc. All that just to maybe get 20K more for your house. That is a dumb financial decisiion. This spring, the sellers who are going to win are the ones that price their homes lower that the comps.

As far as the ones who bought recently and are upside down, I'd talk to the bank and try a short sell. It is much better than going into foreclosure, specially now that you don't have to pay federal taxes on the amount of the loss.

http://www.NationalBubble.com

[Joe]

Mr. Lee sounds like my brother, holding out for 500K for a 1600 sq ft box in Chino. It's been on the market for over 2 years and he long since moved to No. Cal and left the house vacant. The formerly walnut-treed neighborhood is now full of yard cars and no habla Eenglees, but he, like Mr. Lee, is clueless. The police have only had to remove squatters once (so far)--guess he considers himself lucky, although he was forced to move in his sister-in-law, rent-free, to avoid total destruction.

Good luck, Mr. Lee. I'd rather live in Chino (but I won't).

[Chris]

Advice not to sell now if you don't have to doesn't necessarily reflect optimism that the market will turn around. If this is a true market correction, prices will drop permanently to better reflect actual values, and those prices will stay down because they were unrealistic in the first place.

[Cal]

The advice today is the same advice as last year except the sellers will be getting less. Those who get out soonest will get the most. The longer the seller stays in denial the less they get.

If people aren't getting showings.. they are priced too high.. if they are getting a trickle of showing and no offers.. they are priced too high.. if they are getting a good amount of showings or offers then the sellers know they are in the ballpark.

Buyers know that todays good deal is tomorrows overpriced sale. Yet some of them are still willing to jump in and grab a deal. It is the sellers job to give them that deal if they want to sell.

[taylor]

What the heck does it mean to say that buyers can't "afford" to sell at their original purchase price? I love how so many sellers feel entitled to a price that covers their debt obligations.

unfortunately, though, markets don't work that way. anyone who is at a 100% LTV vs their purchase price is in a very tough position. they will either have to earn their way out of the hole (and thereby service their obligation the old fashioned way) or they will enter foreclosure. anyone who holds out hoping for a miracle (a deep pocketed buyer willing to overpay or a return to the 2004-2006 when things were silly) are going to be extremely disappointed.

market prices are in the process of reverting back to the long-term trend line (a line which prices started moving above in 2001, not 2004 like the pundits suggest). nominal prices will not stop going down until 2010 or 2011. nominal prices will not reach the 2006 peak for another 10+ years after that. it won't be quite as bad as Japan in the 90's (nominal prices down 80%) because our policymakers will never willingly allow a deflationary spiral to take hold in the same way the JCB did. but for anyone who purchased or did a cash out refinance in the period from 2002-2008, it will nevertheless be brutal. they would all have been better off renting and putting their savings into a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds than buying a house.

over the next few years, more and more people will learn what it's like to bring a check to closing, or engage in a short sale. as that sensation pervades through the population, people will begin to realize that housing is a terrible investment on its own. it will destroy the myth that home ownership is a sure ticket to great wealth, or a form of "savings".

people have been deluded by leverage, inflation and rent savings. in reality, residential real estate is a rather poor investment. it appreciates 1-2% annually in real terms, 4-5% in nominal terms. it is only a good investment when the monthly payments are more or less in line with rent on comparable properties. then you are getting the inflation hedge for free.

the situation in recent years when you had to PAY for the privilege of owning vs renting - that was sheer stupidly. it reflected a lack of basic financial literacy on the part of millions of americans.

the sad thing is that our government seems dead set on wasting billions of dollars to try to delay the day of reckoning. if there's one thing that history has taught us, it is that price controls invariably fail. they will in this case too. the problem with housing is simple: asking prices are too high relative to incomes and rental values. when that corrects the down cycle will be over. and there isn't a thing that paulson, bernanke, et al can do about it.

[toby]

700,000 for a 3 bedroom house in Lynwood? Does it have a nice view of the Women's Correctional Facility of Lynwood?

Lynwood is a big steaming pile of hot mess. I wouldn't even pay 200,000 to live in that ghetto.

Sell now, or be upside down for the next 9 years.

[Mike]

Looks like we're entering the fear stage of the Bubble Psychology graph (per IrvineRenter at IrvingHousingBlog - who wrote about this in June)

Link to that post, here:
http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/2007/06/25/
houses-should-not-be-a-commodity/

Do yourself a favor and read it.

[are they crazy]

Why does Mr. Lee who has owned his home for 25 years need $700K? The inference is that he already took all his equity out and now NEEDS that much to break even. WTF did he do with all that money? If he didn't take the equity out - lower the damn price and sell it - that gives you plenty of money to live out your golden years. Or how about working longer - you're only 58. I'm tired of seeing story after story of anxious victimized sellers. So many of them have gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars tax free for no work out of their houses and now they're whining. They just don't get it's not really your money until you sell for more than you owe.

[mike]

jk........you say there are no jobs. the jobs that are available are at wal mart.it does no good to have your pick of houses if there is no money.what are you planning to buy on your wal mart salary???

[mbob]

Heads up, universal truth about to be revealed:

"Greed minus Fear = Sale"

[peter m]

"Joe Lee is still holding out for $700,000 that he's asking for his 2,600-square-foot, three-bedroom home in Lynwood. Lee has owned the home for 25 years, listed it for sale three months ago, and has reduced the price by $25,000 "

I know Lynwood quite well and to put it bluntly this guy is a complete Re idiot. Or thinks that he can scam some ignoramous into overpaying by $400,000 for a property there . Yes, it is overpriced by $400,000. Lynwood median household income is under 50,000 (real income, not the stated phony $100,000 put down by immigrant contractors/buyers) so homes should be priced around $250,000 . Lynwood is a dump no better than Compton which it borders to the south. To the west is Watts and Willowbrook, two of the most gang- infested hellholes in LA. .
The only buyers who might pay close to that price are hi-rolling drug dealers or illegal- alien smuggling crime syndicates looking for safe houses.

[Dan]

It amazes me that people still compare their house to the prices a year ago. The only true comparison is perhaps compared to 2002, before no doc option pay option mortgages came on the market. And then add 5% a year for normal appreciation. Thus the true value of a house in the LA area is the 2002 price plus about 25%. I predict that at the bottom in two years, houses will be at 2002 price +35%.

Any comparison to a market where there stupidly lax mortgage terms were offered and today's mortgage market is meaningless. All you can do is work back from a time of market sanity like 2002 and work forward.

[peter m]

"700,000 for a 3 bedroom house in Lynwood? Does it have a nice view of the Women's Correctional Facility of Lynwood......Lynwood is a big steaming pile of hot mess. I wouldn't even pay 200,000 to live in that ghetto."

Regarding lynwood:

The most notable visble institution in that decayed slumville is the Huge Cinderblock -like Lynwood sheriffs station off 105 near alameda ave. It may be the most depressed hellish site for a sheriff station in Scal, which is why they transffered Paris Hilton there for a few days, which would be the most gruesome punishment for a rich spoiled bitch to have to endure.
Just 1/2 mile to the west is the world -famous now defunk MLK Hospital,
which actually doubled as a morgue.
The areas around these world famous must -see LA tourist sites may be some of most trashed -out, gang-infested, gutted, Crime ridden,decayed slums in LA. Mr Lee must have pulled all the equity out of his $700,000 Scentral LA gold-plated mansion. If he is now underwater an d cannot sell at his rediculous price he can simply walk out or do a short sale with all the crap ,cars, vacation memories, paid- up CC and hospitial bills all on the Heloc. U see It is now all forgiven debt according to Uncle Sam.

[Joseph]

5-7 years before we hit bottom in California....
Buy any time in between!...Just make sure you pick an experienced agent.... Not a neophyte...

[Uncle Billy]

This is great... interview with Brad DeLong, economist and blogger from Berkeley, Business Week econ editor, and some dude from the Heritage Institute (blech).

The question posed is: Ok, so what do we do now? The answer, despite their great desire to not want to say it flat out, is, nothing.

http://tinyurl.com/28qp6w

[Turn up your volume]

Ay Dios Mio

[rebecca]

So the Valley seller's break-even is 1.15 million, BECAUSE HE ALREADY TOOK A HUNDRED THOUSAND OUT OF HIS HOUSE, and now he wants an additional hundred thousand profit in three years of owning his house? Why is it incumbent on the buyer to make good his "break even"? I hate people.

[jbunniii]

$700k for a house in Lynwood? Aside from its enviable proximity to Compton and South Gate, what does that town have to offer that would make a mundane house there worth twice what a similar house would have cost in Santa Monica before the bubble (and will again after the bubble)?

Wake me up when the same house is offered at well below $150k, which is its actual worth given its location.

[Uncle Billy]

It will be interesting to check a few other things as we keep our finger on the pulse from the femoral artery (wrist and carotid are totally occluded at this point):

a) How's the "For Sale By Owner" business going? Have those franchises closed up, including those in Madison, Wisconsin?

b) How are the foreclosures selling? We've heard anecdotal reports here and there that some are selling for up to $40k less than asking, but what's happening in general? Is our old acquaintance Leo Nordine selling anything? Was he at Mavericks during the recent big swell? What's the total inventory at this point, and how fast is it accelerating? With 3 million new home built in the last few years, and the "unqualified" folks that bought them, seems like we have quite a flood still to come.

c) How many other mini-markets besides Beverly Hills and Pacific Palisades are experiencing dropping inventory and escalating sales prices? They're 30-35% up while others are way down. Are these escalating areas just behind the curve, or will they continue to appreciate (my thought).

[Theorist]

Apologies in advance -- very off topic.

Here's the guy on whose watch we saw our economy crumble before our very eyes (from WSJ):

"During an hourlong tour of Israel's Holocaust memorial, Mr. Bush had tears in his eyes and told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the U.S. should have bombed Auschwitz to halt the killing, the memorial's chairman said."

In case you missed it, he advocated bombing a concentration camp to halt the killing. Um, Mr. President... wouldn't that kill *everyone* in the camp?
Let's hope he doesn't bomb the few remaining threads that are holding our economy together -- to stop the bleeding. Don't let the door hitcha.

[jonah1979]

I'd like to question the crazy realtor who said "yeah, you can get $700k for that house in LYNWOOD!" I still see a LA market filled with greedy sellers and realtors.

[JK]

Mike, I never said that there were no jobs. I was just lamenting about all the people lined up for low paying jobs at Walmart. Thank God I have lived below my means, will probably keep my job and have been able to amass substantial savings so I will be okay through the recession. I know that I'm not special, just an individual member of the bitter renters club. Sorry for any misunderstanding.

But since you bring up Walmart, if that were to happen here in Los Angeles, and a large percentage of the population worked at low paying retail jobs, I guess the housing market really would have to adjust, no? Luckily, that is not the case.

[Laker]

Theorist, You are very wrong. If Bush said the US should have bombed the camps, he is 100% right. Many expert are saying that today. You obviously lack knowledge of history so since this is very important i will try to help you. The Auschwitz camp was used to kill hundreds of thousand of people mostly Jewish. This camp has amazing infrastructure of killing chambers, crematories and machines to kill people in masses. Masses of people were shipped to this camp on a daily basis. So, if the camp and the roads to it (especially train tracks) were to be bombed and destroyed, many people could have been saved !!! possibly in the millions!
Learn history Fool !, and stop the bush bashing!

[webe3b]

Where in the valley is the seller trying to get 1.1M?

[Laker]

JK, 40,000 of 50,000 countrywide employees will be canned or relocated to Charlotte North Carolina. Simi Valley, West lake village and thousand oaks will suffer. Many of these live in houses thought all san fernando valley in locations such as woodland hills, Encino, Sherman oaks and more. Now add unemployment to the the foreclosure mess that exist today and you get crazy positive feedback foreclosure wave escalating...

taylor, You suggest that the market nominal prices will get to 2002 levels. You might be right. I think the market is heading to 2000-2001 "real" levels so now it depends on the the FED inflation run to see if it will indeed be nominally 2002 levels. But that is the direction for sure.
A side note to buyers, offer 2002 prices to the sellers, not a dollar more.
But the bottom line is indeed prices coming to the income levels. That is sustainable. As the fear reaches more and more sellers, some buyers might actually get deals below the mean income levels. But that will quickly fix itself by the market.

Some have said that BoA is going to own 100,000 of the houses in california...It might be true at some point, but bank do not like to hold empty properties that do not generate any income. Standing empty deflates their value. So they will unload the houses faster than you think!

[theKK]

I think agents are telling everyone that if they need to sell they should sell now in the hopes of flooding the market so they can take the pain of price reductions and get some transactions through.

Before it was "Don't flood the market with your home--it will drive down prices!"

Now that nothing is selling and realtors are hungry, I think they are more of the bring it on mentality--as in "Please, flood the market so we can knock some damn sense into sellers and show them the market has changed!"

[Steve]

I have a real shocker for Mr. Lee. the reality he is competing with houses in my area of CO where many ex-Calis are escaping to. The same house in gang land Lynwood that he is asking $700K for, would go for <$200K whare I am at. The difference is the the house in CO is new, great schools, your kids are safe and taxes are half. Mr. Lee get real, unfortanately your $700K home in Lynwood is worth half what you are asking for.

[Diego]

Dear Abby,

I hope you can help me because I’ve been trying to get advice from Lefty but he won’t return my calls.

I just got out of Folsom and would like to move back to my old hood in Lynwood to be with the other bangers.

I’ve got my eye on a cute ranch that’s asking $700,000 but I can’t seem to find a shark that will gimmie a Jumbo. If I can’t buy in Metro L.A right now, would this be a good time to rent-to-own?

Lynwood House Hunter

[xtine]

Thanks Steve,

Can I commute to my job from CO?
No?
Oh. Does my chosen field even EXIST in CO?
No?
Oh. Can I be a cashier in CO?
Yes?
Excellent. Can a cashier afford a 200k House?
No?
Oh.

Maybe when I'm independently wealthy I'll move. But thanks for the terrific advice!

[Bush]

Carol Zinsmeister with a three-bedroom, one-bath home in Lake Balboa, Van Nuys. Your house is now worth about $350,000 and you are asking $433,000.
If you reduce your asking to $350,000 you will find some investor to buy it from you (i said investor since most people in that area do no make enough "dinero" to pay that type of mortgage today). If you don't reduce, and decide to sit on it for another 6-9 months, your house will be worth $300,000 or less.
Down in 2009-2011 your house will be worth its true value of about $200,000-$250,000 tops!

Peter LaMonica, from Re/Max, it is great to hear an RE agent that is talking sense here. But why in the name of god did you accept to list this house for $1,249,000 in the first place? What if your client had pulled $400,000 refi cash to buy a new boat, RV, credit card bills, Lexus, etc... Would you then list it for $1,600,000? Can you explain that all these sellers that bought in 2002-2007 can not (i repeat can not) break even by definition. They can either short sell, if they are lucky! Or they can jingle mail their keys and walk away (actually run away...)
Since i know exactly where vista de oro is, and i'm looking for a property there, let me add this: Same house like yours was sold (on natoma ave) for $760,000. Do you read me? I will rephrase it for you Mr. LaMonica, Same house like your client's was sold for $400,000 less than your asking price !!!
In plain English, you need to reduce your asking price to $750,000 in order to sell. You cannot sell for $761,000...and sure not $1,200,000.

And lastly Joe (Mr. Lee), so you were clock punching for the last 25 years...you probably have a nice pension from LA county. You bought it for $50,000 25 years ago... Your house in Lynwood is worth $350,000 if you are lucky today! and will be worth 2001 levels that is $250,000 tops.
geee.......get real!
I love the sellers being nostalgic for 2006, what about buyers nostalgic for 1996??? Which dream will likely more to occur?

[Theorist]

Laker,

Please point us to the experts that claim the camps should have been bombed. He did not say "bomb the train tracks." He said "bomb the camps." We seem to be able to rationalize having dropped nuclear weapons on civilian targets in WWII; I don't think we could rationalize bombing concentration camps the same way.

Why do they even let him talk without Karl Rove feeding him lines through an earpiece? Would love to hear his thoughts on the finer points of the economy. It would probably be a lot funnier than Guacamole and Chips. Remember, it was his, heh heh, little buddy Roland Arnall that fine tuned the beginnings of the mortgage meltdown. Time to send him packing back to Mammy Bush.

Make the leap from weak, sophomoric, self interested leadership, to national credit crisis. It ain't that hard.

[jay]

its really simple, we all know that the housing boom of the early 2000s has inflated prices 2 to 3 times their real value, hey if you got out then you made a bundle.. good for you.. that is not the real value it was inflated and you all know it.. there will be an adjustment that is now. the prices will go down a lot.. yes they will eventually get back up tehre but not in 5 months like it did in 2002 and 2003 the good old times.. if you are in for teh long haul, like people used to be, yes you wll make all that money back and make a profit too.. but the days of the quick turn or getting 2-3 times the value of the house are over at least for a few years..

[Laker]

Theorist, give me a break will you and open some history books!
Auschwitz was not only concentration camp, it was a mass termination facility capable of killing 50,000-100,000 people on one day! That is without using WMD. You are indeed a bush basher and you should go to moveon dot org since that is where you belong. Also, you don't know history! The people in that camp were due to be die and they did die. Bombing the camp itself would have killed those inside but it would have prevented a killing of maybe million other people if it was done early !

[LeavinLA]

xtine: Try decaf... sheesh. There are plenty of great-paying professional, technical and skilled jobs in CO. The world doesn't revolve around you and your job.

[Cal]

Barbara Cochran, housing bull extrordinaire was on Today show today saying now was the time to sell and unload that home. So Peter is definitely onto something with the change in psyche.

Also on the today show was someone else saying "now is the time to rent".

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22647381

I couldnt find the Cochran video, im sure its out there.

[INland Empire]

Lynwood used to be a great place. But that was in the 1930s. The Watts riots of 1965 pretty much helped the downward spiral. 700K? Not even if it had solid gold plumbing.
There are plenty of bargains out there right now because, as one poster noted, people were busy sucking money out of their houses to buy boats, Lexuses etc etc. Lots and lots of short sales and repos.
Why go to Lynwood when there are better deals in better areas?

[inland Empire]

xtene said
Can I commute to my job from CO?
No?
Oh. Does my chosen field even EXIST in CO?
No?
Oh. Can I be a cashier in CO?
Yes?
Excellent. Can a cashier afford a 200k House?
No?
Oh.

You forgot the part about buying a big generator and a weather radio. Also the snow tires, the blizzards, black ice, thermal underwear, late springs with surprise snowfalls, avalanches and all the rich, snotty people in the small ski towns.

[Uncle Billy]

Market going up -- Realtors say time to buy and sell
Market going down -- Realtors say time to buy and sell
Market stable -- ibid.

The few that were saying: "if you don't need to sell, then wait" probably had nothing to lose by saying it since they weren't doing any deals (or doing so many deals that it didn't matter?). In the meantime they gain credibility, and hopefully, as a result, a few deals from folks who say... gee that's refreshing and honest.

[Joe]

May I make one suggestion to seniors. This may be the time to get a reverse mortgage and cash out that way. Comps will be based on higher prices than reality, and even with the high loan costs you may cash out about the same as if you sold, be able to invest the cash for income, and no longer have a mortgage payment. I just did this for my parents a few months ago, and prices dropped further and they cashed out more than if they sold (if they could even sell the place). They now live better with less stress. Like anything else, be sure to shop around, and make sure you have someone who knows real estate law to review the paperwork.

[loveMEsomeME]

how 'bout we get Bush to focus on bombing Countrywide and it's allies for the damage they have done.

[Hugo Chavez]

I am telling you, wealth (and land) redistribution is what is needed, and this bubble burst will help it come to fruition. Viva Fidel!

[Uncle Billy]

Loveme: I just conferred with Condi... we need to bomb the 101, not the CW buildings themselves.

Hugo: Have you noticed that we're seeing more and more people around L.A. wearing Che Guevara t-shirts?

If we nationalize housing, and make sure everyone has a safe, warm home to live in, barring violence or natural calamities, we will never need to feel anxious or desperate about houses again. We might even be as happy as the Danes (rated happiest people in the world).

[xtine]

LeavinLA - "The world doesn't revolve around you and your job."

MY world revolves around ME and MY job. The plenty of great technical blah blah jobs in Colorado are not relevant to me.

ME. Around whom MY world revolves. It was MY post and I was talking about ME.

You can feel free to relocate. Get out. Go somewhere and drink decaf all you want. I cannot stand the smug, ill-thought out, blanket recommendation to move as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

[markl]

Barbara Cochran, housing bull extrordinaire was on Today show today saying now was the time to sell and unload that home. So Peter is definitely onto something with the change in psyche."

this summer she was on a cnbc show 'how to becoma a millionaire' along with a few other so called experts and she was wrongly advising people to BUY real estate.A VERY DUMB EXPERT.Do not listen to experts in an ongoing mania.If you ve never heard of an experts name before its because they really arent much...Even trump and his schlep kyosagi do the cheezy low budget real estate scam seminars-thats how 'rich' they are...Trump has run several casinos and himself into chapter 11.Most o fthese experts have an undocumented history and dubious past.

[Cal]

"A VERY DUMB EXPERT.Do not listen to experts in an ongoing mania"

The point is that the permabulls are changing their tune not that you should ever listen to these people.

I found the video of her on Today:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/
vp/22646065#22646065