Well the weekly screen scrape numbers from last Wednesday indicated a strong jump in contracts...probably smoothing out last weeks dry spell. Inventory finally took a small dip, and average price per square foot moved higher.
Not a thing to give thanks for this last week......sigh. Maybe Santa will bring me something to cheer about.
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Buy now or be priced out forever.Go hug a realtor today and steal some of your money back.There is no housing bubble I guess.I am going to buy a trailer and head for the hills for the winter.anybody know where I can squat for a few months?I'm self contained!
I'm really beginning to see that what people are saying about RE bubbles taking a long time to deflate is true. And I also think that "dead cat bounce" bit is true.
In the same neighborhood where I was fighting the urge to buy a 218K repo house, and deciding that for the area it wasn't really a bargain, there are a couple other families who bought homes and paid even more, into the mid 300's. And then poured even more money into re-habbing them! And once again, I'm scratching my head and wondering where they are coming up with the money to do this. I deeply empathize with their desire to do it, because these little houses are very hip. But there are 3000 of them in the area, and I've seen by my own records that there are usually about half a dozen in the reasonable middle-class range for sale at any one time. The neighborhood where these folks put out that money just doesn't warrant that kind of price, and no matter how much I love a house I guess my love of fiscal common sense overcomes it.
I have to agree, dead cat bounce.
There was a small one in my area as contracts closed in Feb/Mar (distressed and marked down properties). Then in June "blamo"!.
The inventory flood gates opened with everyone trying to beat each down in price. Lots of the homes sold in earlier part of the year are back on the market as flips or S/S.
I've also seen lots of pending sales that just don't close.
It's interesting times here.
The houses I am tracking fall out of contract as well....although not that often, maybe 5%.
I am thinking it might have something to do with wanting to close before the end of the year...tax purposes kinda stuff. Last year at this time, my mom's house sold, and they were very anxious to contract before the close of the year for that reason.
Just an observation from Roseville (95747)-
The Nov/Dec time frame is traditionally the bottom of the sales season and as such has traditionally been the best time for opportunistic bottom feeders to move in and make good deals. Last year in our zip these two months were the MOST optimistic months for our local realtor crowd. Sales actually appeared to improve during these months and the cheerleading grew quite loud. Then... reality returned and things quieted down by Feb. and then remained dead through 2007... until now. The pattern seems to be repeating. Bottom feeders are back out there, or at least they think they are on the bottom. We have also noticed that many of the people who are looking at homes are realtors buying what they have convinced themselves are good investment properties at bargain basement prices. REO's in particular seem to draw in realtors and they smell like they are still thinking of doing quick fix, clean and flip schemes.
This behavior is foolish and will give the market a brief break from free-fall but by Feb. we'll be right back to marveling about how bad things are looking for the spring.
It's a good time to take a break from watching the market unless you enjoy seeing the blood of folks trying to catch the falling knives.
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