Compartmentalized building. Build out as necessary, just build a plan prior to build out so that additions do not prevent expansion.
The robosigning scandal and other issues led to fewer foreclosures in final months of 2010. But banks still repossessed just over a million homes last year, according to a report out today from RealtyTrac.
The number of repossessions is likely to be even higher this year about 1.2 million, RealtyTrac's Rick Sharga told me. And banks will continue to repossess homes faster than they can sell them, building up an inventory of unsold homes.
"There are about a million homes in the banks' inventory right now," Sharga said. "It'll probably surpass 1.5 million before it's all said and done."Foreclosures may finally start to slow down next year. But it will be 2013 before banks sell off their backlog of unsold houses.As we've noted before, repossessed houses tend to sell at a discount, and this backlog is likely to keep housing prices down.
It's also likely to mean that home construction crews will largely remain idle. Who would want to build new houses that will have to compete with all those foreclosures coming to market?
Near Virginia Mason undoubtedly?Sounds perfect for me. I finish residency in 2013, fellowship in 2014, and will be looking to buy a house in (probably) a still-overpriced market around then.
Not so sure Seattle's in the future. The wife would like it due to family, yes, but I actually prefer hipster-laden Portland: bike culture, cheaper housing, better public transit, at least equivalent weather (for what that's worth).
Hell Yes.
Maybe we could start referring to you as "Nostradumba$$"?
I think the huge shadow inventory backs that up. There's a sh!tton of houses on the banks books that are not on the market yet.
That. My gut has a good hit ratio and it's say hold.
Me either. The bond market up until recently has been backing up my gut feel. Whilst interest rates are increasing, home values must come down, right?
I'm going to make the wild prediction that all real estate is local. Some parts of the country have a lot further to plunge, most of the rest will bump along at or slightly below the rate of inflation, and a very few will go up.
This has a lot to due with my general feeling of unease when it comes to the housing market. I've read/heard about people staying in "their" house upwards of 2 years after they've quit paying the mortgage. This is because the banks don't want the house on its balance sheets, don't want the liability of holding the empty house, and are waiting for values to turn around. You'll know were out of the woods on a macro level when the number of foreclosures start to increase nation wide.
Yes. Prices here in the Springs we have been relatively stable (at least in comparison to the wider market) due in large part to the fact that the counties largest employer is the US military. Wages/unemployment/housing demand remain relatively constant, we didn't see the super large bubble a lot of other places did, and consequently the drop hasn't been as precipitous. Although according to Zillow my house just dropped last week to lower than what we paid for it.
My attitude regarding walking away has pretty much taken a 180 as I've educated myself on the Banks/lending markets/securitization that was occurring during the bubble and the way people have been treated after the collapse by said industries. If we were in the position of having zero equity in this house (we have a bunch still) I would totally quit paying and see how long I could put money away.Doesn't somebody here have that custom title already? Besides, I've been called worse by better people.Maybe we could start referring to you as "Nostradumba$$"?
I'd argue that we're ****ed before that point AND afterwards.
I'm no rocket scientist, but this looks like an amoeba ready to split. Parts of the country in stable pricing and parts still falling. The driver of prices on existing houses should be population flux in the area, with a twist of new-home pricing in that area as well. Of course overall pricing will fall when overall pricing had previously been bloated. Sadly, Chicken Little lacks the hindsight and stomach to handle it. It certainly doesn't help when Uncle Sam Quantitatively Eases things with a flood of capital that stirs up the cloudy stuff by functionally revaluing the everything in ways the average chicken won't comprehend until it is time to be angry again.
The average chicken should have never stopped being angry. But because they are chickens they were distracted by what ever shiny thing Bristol was wearing on Dancing with the Stars.
Define "rosy". After a bubble it takes YEARS for things to even get back to pre-bubble growth. And, the bigger the bubble, the longer it takes to get back to that growth. It'll be years before we're back to the "2-3% above inflation" level that we had from 1950 through 2000.I'd argue that we're ****ed before that point AND afterwards.
As long as things are starting to look a little rosier by 2014, that's all I ask...
Oh, I don't disagree in the slightest. To continue the analogy, chickens are also stupid.
Interesting.
I'd like to know more on that one. If there is any truth to that, that's way shady/ballsy. I'm amused by the bank getting screwed but I don't know how the PO could just move right back in without questions being asked. If the bank finds out the PO is living in that house again he might be up a creek.
Buck up, Little Camper. We're in the same boat (Zillow estimate below purchase price, lots of equity)... but we're not going anywhere.
Even if my house had doubled, I'd still be in the Springs. Why are you rubbing salt in the wound?Buck up, Little Camper. We're in the same boat (Zillow estimate below purchase price, lots of equity)... but we're not going anywhere.
Of course you're in the Springs... so that sucks.
After Julian Assange crashed and burned in his threat to release documents that expose fraud at Bank of America, many thought he had been only bluffing, and that BofA is actually clean. Not so fast. A member of the hacker collective Anonymous, which singlehandedly destroyed "hacker defense" firm HB Gary, who goes under the handle OperationLeakS "is claiming to be have emails and documents which prove "fraud" was committed by Bank of America employees, and the group says it'll release them on Monday" reports Gawker. As to the contents of the possible disclosure: ""He Just told me he have GMAC emails showing BoA order to mix loan numbers to not match it's Documents. to foreclose on Americans.. Shame." If indeed this makes the case against BofA' foreclosure practices stronger, it certainly explains why the banking consortium is scrambling to arrange a settlement, and also why Bank of America recently split off its $2 trillion in mortgages into "good bank" and "bad bank" entities.
As a "teaser", the Anonymous member released a November 1, 2010 email between two Balboa Insurance (a BAC subsidiary) employees, which while not proving any fraud, indicates he/she does indeed have access. The timeline on the email makes sense as it is a few weeks prior to the original disclosure that Wikileaks would expose BofA. Perhaps the Assange team merely handed off its materials to Anonymous, which has previously demonstrated its solidarity with the Australian on various occasions.
The full letter is below.
Gawker with more on why Brian Moynihan may not sleep too soundly overnight:
OperationLeaks, which runs the anti-Bank of America site BankofAmericasuck.com, says the employee contacted the group to blow the whistle on Bank of America's shady business practices. "I seen some of the emails I can tell you Grade A Fraud in its purest form " read one tweet. "He Just told me he have GMAC emails showing BoA order to mix loan numbers to not match it's Documents.. to foreclose on Americans.. Shame."
An Anonymous insider told us he believes the leak is real. "From what I know and have been told, it's legit," he said. "Should be a round of emails, then some files, possible some more emails to follow that." The documents should be released Monday on Anonleaks.ch, the same site where Anonymous posted thousands of internal emails from hacked security company HBGary last month. That leak exposed a legally-questionable plot to attack Wikileaks and ultimately led to the resignation of HBGary CEO Aaron Barr.
It is unclear whether this will be yet another climax-free build up, but Anonymous has certainly proven their mettle by putting HBGary effectively out of business with one masterful hack.
Those I've spoken to in Anonymous are convinced there's something to this. Anonymous has a proven track record with leaks, and Bank of America has been in their crosshairs since they cut off payments to Wikileaks in December. If it's real, it could be big. Keep your eye on anonleaks.ch: It should hit Monday.
We urge readers to check into http://hbgary.anonleaks.ch/ first thing Monday - after all this is the portal that released the original damning HBGary evidence, and brought down the firm within weeks. If it can do the same with Bank of America, Monday may just soon be a national holiday.
Same here, we're down ~5% from when we bought in Nov '07 but still have almost 20% equity due to a large downpayment and monthly payments to the principal since then.
