Archive for February, 2009Cirios Wire Check – 2/27/09A DAILY LOOK AT THE STORIES YOU SHOULD BE READING Real Estate – If you want a huge house in SF, it seems you have a lot to choose from. And they’re getting cheaper by the day. – Manhattan is the riskiest real estate market in the country. – Bankruptcy doesn’t solve all your problems. [...] Housing Perspective: January New Home SalesBy RYAN TAYLOR New homes sales reached record lows in January as transactions fell 10.2% from a month ago to seasonally adjusted annual rate of 309,000. This annual rate is the lowest in the history of the reading which the government started in 1963. The median sales price for new homes also fell by 9.9% [...] Cirios Wire Check – 2/26/2009A DAILY LOOK AT THE STORIES YOU SHOULD BE READING Real Estate – People are not buying existing homes and they are not buying new homes. – In breaking news, real estate agents are not paid to get you a good deal. – Oversupply + 100 degrees in the summer = more value declines for [...] Housing Perspective: January Existing Home SalesBy AUSTIN NELSON Nationwide home values continue to decline into the New Year. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released existing home sales data today for January, indicating an overall 3.1% decline in the median sales price of US homes from the previous month. This drop follows the same national trend we have been seeing [...] House of the Week: Paradise Found – Ocean BeachFor this week’s House of the Week, Cirios takes you down the coast from San Francisco about 500 miles to one of California’s hidden gems: Ocean Beach in San Diego. Ocean Beach (or “OB” as the locals call it) is a modest, middle class town free of the pretentiousness of many other beach towns in [...] Cirios Wire Check – 2/25/2009A DAILY LOOK AT THE STORIES YOU SHOULD BE READING Real Estate – Yahoo! Finance thinks you should be looking at taking out a HELOC. The number of Americans eligible for such a loan shrunk while you were reading the article. – US existing home sales fall again, analysis to follow later today. – Job [...] Housing Perspective: December Case-Shiller Home Price IndexBy ANDREW JEFFERY The broken record rambles on: Home prices keep falling. The latest reading from the S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Index showed another record decline, as prices tumbled 18.5% from a year ago. And again, the worst performing metro regions were out west, with Phoenix, Las Vegas and San Francisco leading the way to [...] Obama’s Mortgage Solution: What’s In It For Me?By AUSTIN NELSON There is considerable controversy as to the wisdom of the new measures introduced by the Obama Administration to stabilize the housing market: Will they work? What does it even mean for something like this to work? While there are strong arguments on both sides, let’s look specifically at who Obama’s plan will [...] Cirios Wire Check – 2/24/2009A DAILY LOOK AT THE STORIES YOU SHOULD BE READING Real Estate – In many areas of the country, housing is finally dropping to an affordable range. This trend is likely to continue for some time, but prospective buyers should be wary of further price declines. – The Case-Shiller 20 city index has fallen yet [...] House of the Week Results: Blame it on BrentwoodBrentwood, as we mentioned, was a poster child for California’s real estate boom and bust. A rural community turned boom town when homebuilders and speculators descended on its quiet shores. Ok, not shores so much as fields, but you get the idea. 552 Sassafrass is a gargantuan home, almost 5,000 square feet on a single [...] Cirios Wire Check – 2/23/2009A DAILY LOOK AT THE STORIES YOU SHOULD BE READING Real Estate – Freddie Mac has decided to investigate itself. – California says “I will see your $8,000 tax credit and raise you…. to $10,000″ – Distressed Asset Investor: Foreclosure Fix is not enough – please sell assets to me at realistic prices – The [...] Cirios Wire Check – 2/20/2009A DAILY LOOK AT THE STORIES YOU SHOULD BE READING Real Estate – Jaime Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, sees the housing plan helping borrowers. No word on whether he called his servicer to get a mod because his salary is now capped at $500,000. – Businessweek has released its list of great affordable [...] Keepin’ It Real Estate: A Real Fix for HousingBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. While pundits and politicians debate the various aspects of President Obama’s $275 billion housing bailout, one piece of data proves just how misguided federal efforts to revitalize the housing market are: $275 billion could buy more than half of all American homes already in foreclosure. Such [...] Cirios Wire Check – 2/19/2009A DAILY LOOK AT THE STORIES YOU SHOULD BE READING Real Estate – Lenders finally have the motivation to do their jobs. – Who doesn’t feel sorry for an institutional stock broker who can’t refinance his mortgage? – That’s right, you can still overpay for a place in San Francisco. – When incomes shrink and [...] House of the Week: Blame it on BrentwoodFor this week’s House of the Week, Cirios takes you on a ride to the formerly pastoral outskirts of Contra Costa County, an hour-long jaunt east from San Francisco. Brentwood, once a quiet farming town, became a poster child for the housing market’s boom and bust. Builders threw up development after development, buyers paying more [...] Cirios Wire Check – 2/18/09A DAILY LOOK AT THE STORIES YOU SHOULD BE READING Real Estate – Obama decides to help home buyers and incentivize mortgage servicers to finally do their job correctly – In a down market, it is amazing how not building homes can be considered unexpected. – In breaking news, when homes are affordable, people want [...] Housing Perspective: February Home Builder SentimentBy RYAN TAYLOR The National Association of Home Builders, or NAHB, released its confidence numbers for February this morning and the reading unexpectedly rose to 9, up from 8 in January. 8 is the lowest level the index has ever reached. This surprise increase is not exactly a reason to start popping champagne and celebrating [...] Cirios Wire Check – 2/17/09A DAILY LOOK AT THE STORIES YOU SHOULD BE READING Real Estate – South San Francisco has seen home values fall, but the town is optimistic about future development. – Let the debate begin on which home buyers should be rescued from foreclosure and which should not. Maybe a better question is who gets to [...] Creating Value: Your ValueBy RYAN TAYLOR Looking at real estate from the perspective of an investor, it’s easy to forget that behind each transaction is an intensely emotional decision – often one that is life changing for the buyer. Not only do people want to buy a home to grow their wealth but they also want a place [...] Straight up Statistics: How Random is Your Sample?By AUSTIN NELSON How many times have you read a statistic like this one: “57% of Americans believe that the economy will do X in the next Y years”? Ever wondered how in the heck they can say something like that? Do they poll every American and ask them what they think? The answer, of [...] House of the Week Results: It’s Always Sunny in SunnyvaleUnlike Santa Ana, where last week we learned there is strong demand for attractively priced properties, Sunnyvale has seen sales volume decrease over the past 3 months. This is concerning, particularly as other, distressed areas experience pops in sales activity and the broader economy continues to weaken. Sunnyvale is in the heart of Silicon Valley [...] Americans to More Debt: Talk to the HandBy ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. Washington just doesn’t get it: We don’t want more debt. While congressmen berating bank CEOs for their unwillingness to lend out their bailout money makes for a nice media clip, it reflects the growing disconnect between our elected officials and any semblance of reality. Not that [...] Housing Perspective: Home Prices Fall … AgainBy RYAN TAYLOR The National Association of Realtors announced yesterday that the median home price in the US fell by 12% from a year earlier. Not surprisingly, the fall in prices was driven by the ever increasing number of foreclosure sales which accounted for 45 percent of all transactions. The pressure on prices is only [...] The Mortgage Rescue Plan: Will It Work?By ANDREW JEFFERY This post first appeared on Minyanville. The answer? An emphatic no. This is simply the latest example of legal plunder perpetrated by the federal government against law-abiding, tax-paying citizens. The Obama administration’s scheme to help troubled borrowers centers on subsidizing interest payments, which would help borrowers make ends meet without angering those [...] |