Friday, November 9, 2007

Waiting for the market to rebound might cost even more!

From Wednesday's EDH section of the Sac Bee, looks like they are considering fines for vacant homes:

"The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday directed staff members to draft an ordinance setting standards for maintaining vacant buildings, and fines for banks, mortgage companies and investors that fail to meet them."

"Board chairwoman Helen Baumann said she requested figures on foreclosures after residents attending a recent community meeting in El Dorado Hills raised concerns about the effect of vacant homes on neighboring property values." (emphasis is mine)

"Jim Wassner, county code enforcement supervisor, reported that as of Oct. 6, 199 homes were in foreclosure in El Dorado County. An additional 514 were in the pre-foreclosure stage, and 104 were in bankruptcy. Citing Nov. 5 figures for several communities, he reported that 119 homes in El Dorado Hills were in foreclosure, 126 in pre-foreclosure and 26 in bankruptcy."

Commentary - Silly neighbors....if they make it more costly to hold vacant homes, owners are more likely to reduce their asking price to sell.....its a no win situation for property values. The fines, just speed up the process.

6 comments:

smf said...

The market will not rebound. Much like the .com bubble, the market will 'return to mean' till another bubble hits.

Those waiting for prices to go back to 2005 levels will have a looooooong wait.

Jacob said...

Hopefully the wait for 1999 inflation adjusted prices is a much shorter wait. :)

patient renter said...

This idea is almost as ingenius as enacting a temporary moratorium on forclosures.

SheWrestles said...

It won't cost smart buyers more. Just keep waiting and when prices start to go up again, pick what you want and go from there.

Buying Time said...

Appears I might have been too cryptic...

I was cynically referring to all the sellers (or rather "listers") who have taken their investment homes off the market here in EDH and are waiting till property values rebound. But given any new fees (if they aren't renting them out)....it will be financially more painful for them to wait....

And as SMF mention...they are in for a long long wait.

Anonymous said...

Anecdotally, the worst maintained homes I've seen are the post-foreclosure bank owned homes. I suspect that the cities/counties are aiming to levy those fines on the deepest pocketed homemoaners.