[satthackacibe]

I know that this can be political (Bear and Bull after all), but I thought it'd be best to put in EE.. If you don't think it belongs in EE, Id/Dusty, feel free to move it!

Recently, under my favourite moniker of FunkyLeprechaun (I wish I could change it here but "Zen" has stuck here... so I'll keep onto this one for now), I've been posting on a website dealing with the housing market (not many posts at the moment just lurking basically).

I have several questions:

How are the markets in the US?
What do you think were the causes of the market trouble in the US?
What do you think should occur to improve the market conditions in the US?

My hubby and I bought this house in March 2007 (nearly a year before Northern Rock went !%!%!%!%e) and finally closed in October 2007 (they were REALLY picky on our finances!).

I've seen house prices gradually fall since the Northern Rock crises. Currently, it is an 8% fall in the housing market (according to my hubby, but I think it's greater than that). An example of house prices falling is a terraced house going on the market at £239,995, then dropping to £229,995, and at the moment it's "offers around £210,000", My american in me automatically converts prices to dollars and that's now nearly 400,000 dollars for a small terraced house. It's a victorian and in one of the picturesque villages in a well known city.

To be honest with you, we did put down a 5% deposit on a regular terraced house (built 1960s and quite iconic in British lower middle class, if you do visit it's quite similar even in Cambridge and Oxford, just cheaper) that we agreed on at a price of £102,000. I said to my hubby, you know that's over 200,000 dollars for this house and that's EXPENSIVE!

Well, they no longer do 5% deposits. It's now the rule to do 20-25% for first time buyers and 10-20% for 2nd home buyers.

It's become increasingly difficult for people to get onto the housing market here now.

How are the markets now? Do they suck?

[fd8IIys2]

If you're a buyer the market is great. If you're a seller it sucks. My daughter has been looking at houses to buy for months now. Either she will find something wrong with it or I would so she kept looking. She finally found one that me and her both like and close to me. The asking price was $119,000 I think 3 mo ago when she found it. It's been on the market for over a year or longer. So while she's getting approval and checking on rates etc she decided to build her own, but still she was keeping up with the other house. In two months it has dropped from the $119, to 109, 99, 89 and currently it's at $79,000. It's a 3br brick, 2 bath, outside shed, screened in huge back area on 2 acres. I told her to offer them $75,000 for it and build her a house at a later date, because the market will go back up and she can turn around and sell it for a good profit. Wish I had some extra money to invest in real estate right now.

[wp6Eg2Fm]

One thing you can always count on is real estate going up and down. Ultimately it will always go up.

This time around it went down because of greed. Banks were competing so much for loans that they accepted "declared income" with nothing down and no financial security checks. This was obviously destined for failure as soon as the market slowed. When housing dropped a few percent, the nothing down flippers bailed. Many of the nothing down buyers got adjustable loans at around 3-4 percent which is great at first but only short term affordable. They figured on selling for a profit in one year of refinancing as interest was going down at the time.

Greed by the Banks and Greed by the buyers.

I owned my home outright and purchased three others in the last 6 years. I still owe on three of them but they are all 30 year fixed at just above 5%. I moved into my current home two years ago and rent out the others. I paid just over 1,000.000.00 for my current home but these homes are holding their value fairly well in N. California. A recent appraisal confirms the valuation.

The one mistake I made was in not selling the home I had paid off four years ago. It was valued at 700,000.00 at the time. Now it's valued at around 550,000.

Oh well... It is rented and bringing in 2k/month so I will wait for the market to come back before selling.

Bottom line: Those that are in trouble now were in no financial position to buy their homes and the banks didn't care.

I predict that it will not turn around for at least another year. As long as these foreclosed homes are on the market the prices will not increase. We currently have a 6 month supply of unsold homes here in N. California.

[career-builder]

wow £102k for a house! lucky!
where i live a flat would cost you that!

ID, your daughter could offer $75k for a house lke that! thats almost what you'd need just for a deposit here!

MJ

[fd8IIys2]

The house was a foreclosure so she knows what was left owing on it. The bank just wants to get rid of it. They may even take 70k for it

[career-builder]

wow what a bargain!!

MJ