patrick.net

Post the home address on Internet! wow...

SoCal Renter says

marko - I’m finding more and more houses listed on Zillow and not the MLS. I think this market has created a trend. Could we be seeing the beginning of the end of the MLS system?
Austinhousingbubble - No plans to walk away if underwater. I plan to be in the house for 30 years (and pay it off before then). This will be my “home” and not an investment.
chrisborden - I have no clue on taxes. Probably the seller is on the hook. But all liens will need to be removed before I take title.
I’ve been pro-renting when it makes sense, and it has made sense for the past five years in California. But we are now at 1990s prices for much of SoCal and even almost 1980s prices. Will prices continue to fall to 1970s prices like I once predicted? Maybe. But I still prefer to buy a car rather than lease.
Actually, house buying is much like buying a car. Find a good used house with low mileage and live in it till it falls apart.
Those still waiting out the bubble will likely find an even better deal by waiting longer. I think we will have another recession dip - probably foriegn lender debt crisis this time. Certainly no rush to buy though. Prices will not be skyrocketing up ever again. I see a slow decline from here through 2012.
If the deal goes through, win for me. If not, no big loss. I will find something else. Win win!

I am in the 'good for you!' camp. And I have been a housing bear (not as much as 'bearmarket', 'member him?) since I started looking around the bay area for shelter in 2005. I have only spotty info on SoCal but everything I hear is it's been a bloodbath as we expected and I'll bet there are plenty of houses ready for the taking. Now in Norcal, it's a different story. In the zip codes I search, we're maybe 20% off peak and peak was 10x median income. Still at totally unsustainable price points, in my opinion.

Thanks for Patrick.net.

Tomrisk says

Also, Thanks for Patrick.net.
Honestly, in BayArea, especially in Peninsula, it is about time.

Then I recommend you buy something. Got a half a mil to put down for a townhouse so your rent matches mine? That's what you'd need. Or a little more cash even. I don't know what penninsula you live in but in the SF penninsula, prices are still out of whack with the populace's ability to pay.

Timing is everything.

Then I recommend you buy something. Got a half a mil to put down for a townhouse so your rent matches mine? That’s what you’d need. Or a little more cash even. I don’t know what peninsula you live in but in the SF peninsula, prices are still out of whack with the populace’s ability to pay.

Yeah, have to agree, with pkowen here - not a lot of serious price reductions on the Peninsula. I rec that posters check out: http://www.burbed.com

As you can see from the postings, the craziness is still with us.

Nevertheless, ~*Congrats*~ to SoCal Renter for doing the research to find their own home! :) I've been using zillow a lot too - the MLS links provided by realtors merely have a fillable box for my email addy with no other property info. I am tired of this invasive tactic and have been since '07. How long before they catch-on that we don't want their spam??? Anyway, to make a looong story short, I use zillow almost exclusively now - I just don't take their "zestimates" seriously.

btw, for the interested, zillow has a couple of tutorials up on YouTube on how to best glean info from their site - may be worth it to check out. It can be a bit simplistic for some, however there is some very helpful info: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaeAgfay01o&feature=channel_page

Sorry to see you leave the rants of us renters - you've been using that username since what, 2006??? Patrick should retire your username, lol :)

My only request is that you NOT treat us like the previous bunch of home"owners" did - sneeringly looking down upon us, having a nose-in-the-air attitude that made them too good to return a friendly "hello" in the morning, thinking that their "richer" simply because they hold a loan...well, you know the drill.

~Misstrial

"Then I recommend you buy something. Got a half a mil to put down for a townhouse so your rent matches mine? That’s what you’d need. Or a little more cash even. I don’t know what peninsula you live in but in the SF peninsula, prices are still out of whack with the populace’s ability to pay." - pkowen

Yeah, have to agree, with pkowen here - not a lot of serious price reductions on the Peninsula. I rec that posters check out: http://www.burbed.com

As you can see from the postings on burbed , the craziness is still with us.

Nevertheless, ~*Congrats*~ to SoCal Renter for doing the research to find their own home!

I’ve been using zillow a lot too - the MLS links provided by realtors merely have a fillable box for my email addy with no other property info. I am tired of this invasive tactic and have been since ‘07. How long before they catch-on that we don’t want their spam??? Anyway, to make a looong story short, I use zillow almost exclusively now - I just don’t take their “zestimates” seriously.

btw, for the interested, zillow has a couple of tutorials up on YouTube on how to best glean info from their site - may be worth it to check out. It can be a bit simplistic for some, however there is some very helpful info:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaeAgfay01o&feature=channel_page

Sorry to see you leave the rants of us renters - you’ve been using that username since what, 2006??? Patrick should retire your username, lol
My only request is that you NOT treat us like the previous bunch of home”owners” did - sneeringly looking down upon us, having a nose-in-the-air attitude that made them too good to return a friendly “hello” in the morning, thinking that their “richer” simply because they hold a loan…well, you know the drill.

~Misstrial

Misstrial says

I just don’t take their “zestimates” seriously.

Hi Tomrisk:

A short summary - zillow.com to enter address you are interested in to Zestimate & Charts - take a look at the Zestimate Information and Value Range field. Anything more than a $20k Value Range difference means that the home price is up-to-question as in this example of where I used to live:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/charts/51503112_zpid,5years_chartDuration

Knowing that the price or value range has a wide variation leave things open to interpretation and thus giving you some negotiation room.

hth

~Misstrial

congrats to SOCALRENTER...er BUYER :-)

Now, guys who said they just bought (SocalREnter, davidphan_7).. can you please tell us the CITY and/or ZIPCODE. This will help us all, I think.

Zillow like to cheer people up.

Misstrial - I'll never look down on my Patrick.net-ers. The community here saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars. Who knows what my path might have looked like if I had not found Patrick in 2006. I'll stick around; I enjoy like minded people and I still will never trust a real estate agent.

permanent-marker and others - Posting the zipcode or city helps you do what? Steal my identity? Steal my sale? You don't have to believe me if you don't want to. I don't care.

I've been interested in buying a house for four years now. I've made offers at various times over the past few years as many longtime readers will remember. My gut told me to refuse counter-offers. My gut was right. We made an offer on a house a year ago that was rejected. It finally sold last month for over $50k less than our offer.

The problem with the market has never been a lack of buyers. It has been a lack of reasonable sellers. Flippy McFlipperton chose to go bankrupt rather than take a loss. Now we have a flood of inventory hitting the market because of the sheeple mentallity. It is finally becoming conventional wisdom that house prices will continue to fall. This may mean it is time to buy.

Tomrisk says

Misstrial says

Hi Tomrisk:
A short summary - zillow.com to enter address you are interested in to Zestimate & Charts - take a look at the Zestimate Information and Value Range field. Anything more than a $20k Value Range difference means that the home price is up-to-question as in this example of where I used to live:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/charts/51503112_zpid,5years_chartDuration
Knowing that the price or value range has a wide variation leave things open to interpretation and thus giving you some negotiation room.
hth
~Misstrial

I c wat u saying.
But one good thing is they really cheer me up. At least, my newly purchased property on early this year, I already made $100k on Zillow dollars, that’s what they show on their zestimate.

Whoo-hoo! $100k in Zillow dollars?! Better run to the bank and get a HELOC.

HELOC is much much harder to get this day..

@Socal REnter

"permanent-marker and others - Posting the zipcode or city helps you do what? Steal my identity? Steal my sale? You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to. I don’t care"

Dude, you got it wrong. I am just curious to know which cities have come down to some-basics that Patrick.netters are buying. that is all.
If you are skittish about letting out too many details before the sale closes, I understand. Please let us know afterwards.

Permanent-marker and Bap33 - No offense taken and none intended. After the sale closes I will give you folks the details.

Don't believe your eyes?

Zestimates are horseshit.

The only thing to go by on that website is the ten year sales history chart.

Tom, what does that information prove?
1) People could have gotten good deals, well below the Zestimate. Conclusion: Zestimates are worthless.
2) If you are claiming that this data shows increases in the area, well, those increases are around 15% for the middle 3 listings. Are you honestly claiming that prices have risen 15% in that area over the past year? This also proves Zestimates are worthless as they do not reflect reality.
Your data merely proves that Zestimates and Zillow dollars are worth less than a roll of toilet paper.

Peace.

drfelle says

Congratulations! (gritting my teeth in jealousy.)
I can’t seem to get in at or below what I pay in rent. (and I’m living right on the beach in SOCAL!)

San Clemente?

How about this: High Crime Area in East Bay

Feel better!

http://www.forexhound.com/article/Stocks/Stocks/July_New_Home_Sales_Up_96_Break_Out_the_Bubbly/153921

drfelle says

WillyWanker says

San Clemente?

Ha! Close enough…. I.B. It’s very underrated which keeps rent very low.

Well, I think you ought to tell us your address so we can stop by & have a drink hanging out on the ocean... I'll post my address, and allow ya'll to hang out on my porch and stare at the dirt...

Tomrisk says

HELOC is much much harder to get this day..

Well, duh!

Well, as promised, here is the update on my "home purchase".

Despite everything being good to go and the bank accepting our offer, the home fell into foreclosure. It seems the bank failed to extend the "sale date" for us to close on the house. Unbeknownest to all the house is now going to auction and the homeowner has the right to squat in the house for 90 days rent free!

Yes, very strange and bizarre. The Seller is completely screwed, we are out of a good deal on a house, and the bank is losing a crap load of money. Lawyers are involved, etc. You would think someone at the bank would lose their job over this but the only excuse I've heard is that "the bank is just too overwhelmed by the number of foreclosures that they can't process anything fast enough".

So there you have it! Our wonderful banking system that was too big to fail is now too big to get anything fucking done!

awwww SOCAL, too bad buddy.
So are you still pursuing the 'same home' or you have moved on?

SoCal renter, I wouldn't shed any crocodile tears for the seller if I were you. He could have found a way to make it work had he wanted to. Sounds like greed is involved on some level (but not yours, definitely). Sorry it didn't work out, but as you said, win, win. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

Buy it at auction for $100,000 less.

I'm reaching out to reporters to see if I can get any local papers to pick up our story. The latest - the banking person needed to finalize was (and still is) on vacation... so nothing was done. Times up! Thanks for playing.

Now I have to decide if I want to find someone to front me the cash to buy this house on the courthouse steps in three months, buy something else, or wait longer. Too bad Uncle Sugar's $8k is setting to time out December 1st.

SoCal RENTER lives on!

SoCal Renter says

I’m reaching out to reporters to see if I can get any local papers to pick up our story. The latest - the banking person needed to finalize was (and still is) on vacation… so nothing was done. Times up! Thanks for playing.
Now I have to decide if I want to find someone to front me the cash to buy this house on the courthouse steps in three months, buy something else, or wait longer. Too bad Uncle Sugar’s $8k is setting to time out December 1st.
SoCal RENTER lives on!

If you counted on $8k tax break - don't worry. NAR will be lobbying hard to extend and likely increase the tax credit amount. The unsuccessful attempt to buy the house could work out in your favor.

@SoCal,
I too have had the same short-sale run-around game played on me and would be happy to foreward to you my 6 months of emails between me and the REbadperson so you could see just how similar our experiences are. Even the vacationing assett manager. I feel the whole thing was done by the REbadperson to gain the non-buyer the ability to squat a few more rent-free months. I say this because the listing went out right before the first NOD went out in Feb .. and no activity again until the next series of NOD's went out in June. That tells me that the REbadperson was just using me to stall the forclosure process. Atleast, that was/is how it felt.

RE: vacationing assett manager: I was told last week by an honest-er REgoodperson that there is no assett manager for any home before it is REO. My REgoodperson said that before a home is foreclosed and REO you will just get a bank worker in a particular loan department with each call into the bank, and it is rare that you will ever get the same person to answer twice. Any loan/bank/REpro people out there in Pat-land that can clarify?

@Bap33 - My realtor has been frustrated because the bank has a specific negotiator to work out short sales. That was (supposedly) the one difference with this Short Sale and this bank.

We have tried one last ditch effort with the lawyers so fingers crossed ...

In any event, I've gotten responses from local reporters regarding our story. Tomorrow I'm going to be calling my Congressman all day. The bank has not heard the last of me!

SoCal:
If not this house, the next one will be just as right. I have some new neighbors who offered and lost the bid. Then the bank contacted them, asked to resubmit; they lowered the bid. Bank refused... and so on. They were pissy (the bank), so the buyers actually told them that they'd be dropping the price $1,000 per day of any further delay.

They got the house for $10k less than their original lowest offer.

Good luck!

Which bank was it?

Lawyers to the rescue?

The deal is BACK ON! More updates as this wild ride continues...

Blast from the past: We thought this was dead a month ago.

Bank finally sent us a written offer. Someone at the bank finally cruched the numbers and figured out that the loss sellling to us was less than the loss fighting a bankrupt man in court.

We will take a look at it again. What to do, what to do? The Realtor is concerned it will no longer make appraisal since prices in the area have fallen so much since our original offer.

Offer 100K less and tell them to take it or leave it

Yup time to lowball.
If now was a good time to buy, then you would have a)bought the house, b)they would have sold it.

I'm waiting until a deal is a phucking deal again.

I have no patients for Ida the Indian giver, and Rene the reneger.
Those two seem to be the only ones left employed at the bank and the RE office.