Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Is it just me?

Don't know about the rest of you Sac housing fanatics, but my obsession has slowly evolved into a mere daily/weekly task. My passion started to wane as the credit crunch and gravity of housing woes began to permeate the national consciousness. Once NAR acknowledged that housing was not going to recover till 2008 (and even then their estimates are always optimistic), the fun and excitement of countering the MSM dissipated. In other words the spark has been lost now that everyone acknowledges that housing is in for a major correction.

I had to laugh out loud last week when I read the first sentence of a WSJ article stating that the lackluster housing performance has ended up being worse than even the most bearish had predicted. I’m no paid expert, but it didn’t take more than some basic economics to know housing was in for a BIG correction. Yeah, it felt a little uncomfortable to try and justify my opinion in the face of what industry experts thought, but it was rather enticing at the same time. Now that we all agree….it has become kinda boring.

Of course I still love a good deal, so I continue to impatiently wait out the market correction.

9 comments:

Giacomo said...

I feel just the same. If everyone now agrees prices will be declining for for a year, why should we be shopping now? Unless of course you have some overriding need to be in your own house sooner, and can afford to take the financial bath 50-100K or more.

Re:experts. I would refer again to "Fooled by Randomness"- the author considers that most experts in the public eye are being compensated either as entertainers or as industry spin doctors, not for the validity of their predictions.

Anonymous said...

I have to admit that I'm loosing interest as well. Nothing left to do but keep watching the prices drop and load more money into staggered CDs.

Not even touching the stockmarket these days. I completed my shorts, sold and banked it. Now it's time for a nap.

Anonymous said...

I have been searching for a house in the Antelope/West Roseville area for about 3 months now and just found this site (great btw!) I am taking my time and have a set price in mind and won't budge 1 cent from it (unless down of course) and I got pretty lucky with my REA. He has shown me a ton of houses and on several I liked, he even told me they were way over priced and should wait for a better deal. Once I find the house I like at a price I can afford, I'll buy. I'd never try to time the market and since I'm not looking to flip, I could really care less if it goes down a bit after I buy. Not ending up like one of these 1000's of foreclosures is my main goal.

Anonymous said...

Forget the cheese, just try and figure a way to get out of the trap. Do you have an ARM that leaves you screwed, wait no, did you set yourself up to look stupid and then get screwed? I'ts funny that "even the experts" were denying what was to come, I am a highschool drop out and noticed that peoples income wasn't keeping up with the rising cost of houses. Not to mention observing all the false data people gave to the loan company to get into the real estate arena. I saw this comming 2 years ago.Why should all of us who didnt make terrible choices have to share to brunt of those who did, by the way have you seen the cars most of theese pepole drive too? I think it's funny, esspecially now that I am in a position to purchase a house in a much better area than even my friends who went to a 4 year. Is'nt it ironic, dont you think? No one is offering me free money to get into a home,so get out of the way and hand over the key's to your old, wait, my new house

Cmyst said...

The same thought has been occurring to me. To be truthful, I look at my tracked homes almost like baseball cards or an online game now. I "collect" new ones once a week, if there are any new ones. I usually lose about as many as I gain in a month now.
What to I expect to gain from this? Well, I really do enjoy looking at them, and I enjoy researching the neighborhoods and driving by when it's convenient. But ultimately, I don't think any of the homes in my collection now will be there when I'm ready to buy. The more reasonably priced ones will probably sell at some point and the ones that can't lower their price will probably go REO and then the bank will try to hang on for what's owed. I've heard that REOs can be really a mess to deal with, too, even for agents who specialize in them.
By the time I'm ready, though, I think I'll know more about Strengs than any other home buyer in the region, and I'm sure it will come in very handy.

G Spot1 said...

Not just you...

There are no good deals out there right now. Sellers won't get realistic so everything just sits and gets stale. Every once in awhile someone will break and drop the price sharply, and it goes pending, but no one else will budge. Maybe they finally will come Christmas but by then the new price will be even lower. I'm just hoping things hit bottom sometime next year because I enjoyed being a homeowner...

Anonymous said...

Prices are sticky on the way down.Just think about it a little.A house is listed @ 300k.They drop the price 5000 and wait a month.Then another 5000 drop and wait another month. The people who want to sell drop their price to be the lowest amongst the competition.The not so bright people will chase the market down for a long time.It took the market about 4 years to make it's run.So this is year 2 of the downturn and still have more time to kill.

smf said...

"So this is year 2 of the downturn and still have more time to kill."

But some people are finally acknowledging the data that the downturn is here, and have assumed that this means the bottom has been reached.

And you still have plenty of people who realize what happened, but feel that the market will come back in 2008.

That applies to those renting their 'investments'. After all, they would sell ASAP if they thought prices would continue to stay down.

My prediction is that by next summer, there will be no cheerleaders left, including those that sat in the sidelines, bought foreclosed homes, etc. waiting for the market to return.

Jacob said...

I am still looking, mainly cause I want to see what the deals are now.

Its hard to just stop looking even though I dont see myself actually buying anything until 09.