RE blogs: The good, the bad, the nasty

The L.A. Times' Ann Brenoff reports on a topic near and dear to readers here: the proliferation of real estate blogs and the tension between blogging agents and bubble bloggers.

"Dust-ups between the bubble bloggers and the real estate industry bloggers are frequent, and disputes fall along predictable lines: Agents put a more positive spin on the market; bubble bloggers predict economic catastrophe. The two groups distrust each other, and some bloggers claim to fear repercussions from the other side. Few would disagree that bubble bloggers are angry victors whose 'I told you so' message is often delivered with a cyber finger-poke in the chest."

The story is chock full of links (Bad MLS Photo of the Day could become a new favorite here). It also points out that, in a crummy market, more and more agents are blogging for survival: " ... if I didn't have this blog, I wouldn't be in business," says Teresa Boardman, who writes www.stpaulrealestateblog.com. "Most of my business today comes from my blog."

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

Illustration by James Kaczman for the L.A. Times.

Comments

[NoWayinLA]

Ann: I came to the same conclusion you did, but in a very different way. Instead of looking at stats and numbers, I looked at houses. As I've said before... this isn't rocket science.

In 2002, I figured out I could buy a home for about $225k. There were houses in the Inland Empire at that time that I was willing to buy for that. But the industry hadn't yet devolved to fog-a-mirror testing, and I couldn't get financed. The wife had a bankruptcy, and I had this annoying habit of saving money to pay for things. Nobody was even talking to me about ARMs or interest only, which is just as well, because I wouldn't have taken one once they'd finished explaining themselves.

So I broke my annoying habit and financed a car, and we started using credit cards for everything, and paying it at the end of the month. Three years and about 300 FICO points later, the neighborhood where we were looking went from $225 to $425. I talked to an institution that was willing to finance me on an 80/20 30-year fixed (I still hadn't heard the terms "interest-only" or ARM, because I never gave the person the chance to talk about them) up to $350k.

I looked at what the loan would cost me (wayyy too much), I looked at what kind of house it would buy me (fixer-upper in gangland San Berdo), and I started looking out of state.

[NoWayinLA]

cane said: "LA LAND wasn't referenced in the article because it's neither a bubble blog or a real estate agent blog. It's impartial"

One look at the content by the uninitiated would tell them this is a bubble blog, full of negative stories and written by a bitter renter. But technically you're correct... this blog is simply following the story of real estate in LA, and the story is the bubble. This blog leans to the dark side of the bubble because it happens to be the side of fact.

[Ann]

Ann, You said the owner owes the bank 1,900,000 with an 8.85% interest rate and currently received a notice of auction. (NTS ?) Also, you said that the house is currently for sale for $2,700,000.
That sound very very stupid. We do not know what the owner paid for it but i would assume it is more than $1,900,000. SO WHY THE HECK DON'T THEY LOWER THE ASKING PRICE AND SELL THE DAMN THING? The bank will take it back in auction...the seller today can probably sell for more than $1,900,000. So seller, lower you asking to $1.9M and get rid of it and keep you credit intact. However, maybe the market price of this place is lower than $1,900,000...Then how the seller expect to get $2,700,000....pleaseeee help these deadbeats.

Posted by: Laker

Actually Laker they haven't been able to peddle the bloody house in over 1 year. This is a second summer home where 'summer' is mid-June through August. They are kind of running out of suckers to buy those places.

In our county of 13,000, there are 35 houses priced at $1,000,000 up to $3,500,000. There are 20 parcels priced at $1,000,000 and up - and 18 of the 20 are single house lots while the other 2 are 14-16 acres with minimum 5 acre zoning.

I see the math - $2,700,000 - 8% (realtor - higher here on those places since they are harder to peddle) = $2,480,000. You are right that they do have room to move. Probably they don't really care that much sine it is not their primary home.....

This is about the 4th place in this price range to slam into foreclosure in less than 6 months. Guess not enough of the top % income households want to spring for a summer place they can only really use 2 1/2 months a year.