U.S. Previously Owned Home Sales Sucking A Little More Wind

^ people said the exact same thing in 2007: declines would be limited to Modesto, etc.
It’s the second wave, on it’s way to a neighborhood near you!

“I would love for it to fall for another couple of months”
You are in luck, it will take years for the bubble to fully deflate. In the meantime, you can rent for less.

^you mean like the last time money was given to anyone with a pulse and you could get a loan that didn’t even require you to pay the interest?

^ people said the exact same thing in 2007: declines would be limited to Modesto, etc.
It’s the second wave, on it’s way to a neighborhood near you

Shameless. You were playing Chicken Little SF in 2007 too. You’re just going to holler panic in the streets for a couple more years and then go away, right? Have your fun.

The early 90’s bubble took 5 years from peak to trough, 90-95. The SF MSA appears to have peaked in early ’06.
However, there is a big difference between the 90’s bubble and our current one.
In the 90’s the bursting of the bubble was the RESULT of a recession which lead to unemployment and price declines. This was typical of RE price declines.
In the current bubble the bursting of RE prices was the CAUSE of a recession which is atypical.
This makes it difficult to estimate the length of the downside of the cycle. Also, there is reason to believe that the recent price increases are largely due to massive government intervention and therefor not sustainable.
Regardless, despite that fact that we are about to hit the 4 year mark for decline prices for the SF MSA there are still many reasons to expect further declines and to expect a long slow recovery in prices as more people treat real estate as places to live and not investments.

“You were playing Chicken Little SF in 2007 too.”
Huh? There was an unprecedented real estate crash from 2007 to today, in SF and most places in the U.S. That “Chicken Little” prediction was right on!
Maybe that internet thing will stem the fall in SF, or Chinese or French buyers, or trust funds, or all the other proposed factors than have failed to materialize to date. Sorry, anyone who denies that the bears were right on target is simply delusional. Sure, you can all debate the future, but you certainly can’t credibly deny the facts about the past three years.

Are you seriously contending that real estate prices did not rise in SF between 2005 and 2007?
You’ve got to be kidding. You have little credibility as it is, but don’t totally blow it.

No, I’m not contending that. It wasn’t any 20 percent tho. I provided numbers speaking to same in the other thread.
Now you’re exaggerating what I’m saying and arguing against your own exaggerations. The onus is on you. You’re the one saying wild made up stuff, such as a 3% gain from 2005 represents a 15 to 20 percent drop. Own it.

15 to 20 percent drop. Own it.
Where did I say it was a 20% drop?
Here’s what I actually said (the day before it sold, when I predicted a 1.350 price):
So this seller should do quite well: he has an asset that is more in line with today’s economy than it was when it was purchased 5 years ago. So they should at least not have to bring any cash to the closing, even to pay their realtor. [I was wrong about that – only the Realtors made money – no one else] I doubt they’ll make the entire premium they paid to renting.
Own what? Your ignorance?

Tipster, embrace the concept of having two separate conversations in a BBS thread. Ignorant? Moi? You speak your navel’s mind daily. That’s textbook.
Prove what you’re saying, AT. The MLS data doesn’t reflect it. It looks like about 5 to 7 percent more than 2005 for 2007 and the first part of 2008. Most would agree with that.
I get that you never even saw the property in question too. I did, last time ’round. No way does it ever sell for 1.56M. Not in the last decade. So here you are, slapping your own ideas about what went down onto a property that you never even saw. Nice one.

Great find, A.T.
Wanna know who the most accurate poster is on this site? Watch this:
“If I didn’t think it would be 1.1M next year, I’d go look myself.
Posted by: tipster at December 20, 2008 12:35 PM”
{at the time, it was listed for 1.395)
https://socketsite.com/archives/2008/12/perhaps_its_more_the_market_thats_unbelievable_to_some.html
Wanna know who is just a real-estate-cheerleading hater? Watch this:
You’re off by 160K right now. That’s not very accurate at all for a condo guess.
Posted by: anonn at December 23, 2009 11:49 AM
https://socketsite.com/archives/2009/12/a_not_so_absolutely_unbelievable_foreclosure_and_coming.html
Anyone want to discuss my inaccurate sky-is-falling predictions any longer!!!!

Tipster, you really should be the last candidate to encourage searches back for things said.
AT, so you cherrypicked one competitive sale. It didn’t even prove a single thing. (And remember, we were talking SFRs and not condos anyway.) But do I think that one would have sold for 5 to 7 percent less in 2005? Yes, I do. Was that even a point? You who always ask for numbers and not anecdotes? When I provide them, what do you do? Say they don’t count. Typical.
So good luck with your 2007 was 20 percent more than 2005 routine moving forward. And kudos to you, Tipster, for jumping on that bandwagon. You guys are gonna do great with that one.

Special kudos to you, Tipster, for saying that 2007 was 20 percent more than 2005. You know, considering you said that SF RE was tanking utterly in 2007 every chance you got. I’ve noticed a change. You don’t even think about anything you write any more. Personally speaking, I’m sort of enjoying the new you.

“Special kudos to you, Tipster…you said that SF RE was tanking utterly in 2007 every chance you got”
Yes, I accurately predicted the fall in price from 1,600,000 to 1,137,000 a year in advance, but you ridiculed the prediction only a bit before it sold for nearly my exact prediction made the year before.
I think you got pwned on this thread. And if you don’t think that someone who paid over 40% more than their unit sold for this year feels like the market tanked, there isn’t much hope for you.

It’s clear, if you are thinking you need to sell your house, you better do it now, prices are not going up anytime soon.

Annon – sorry for confusing you, I had my info in the wrong boxes. If you review it you will see I was adding on to my previous comment (something I would have done in the original post if this site used a platform that allowed us to edit our posts). So you should now be able to figure out that my reference to a “big, bull period” was sarcastic and I was quoting AT.
So now hopefully my name thing has been straigtened out (thanks editor) and everyone can just forgot I messed up in the first place…”these aren’t the droids your looking for.”

Come on now, Existing home sales tanked exactly when the tax credit was supposed to end, in November. S&P 500 did not.
And seriously, if we are depending on S&P 500 investors to create real estate demand, forget it. That only represents a TINY fraction of the population. Especially if you don’t count 401k’s. And I certainly don’t let my 401k balance determine how much I spend on housing.
To top it all off, existing home sales were FLAT from Oct 2008 through March of 2009 when the S&P 500 was really tanking.
Occam’s Razor

It seems like one thing to claim that the *stock market* is related to real estate demand vs. specifically naming the S&P 500. When someone says the former, I typically think of the IPO lottery and things of that sort. When someone says the latter, I think of a typical index investor. Those two crowds seem distinct to me.
I certainly know a few folks who cut down on their general spending because of their 401(k) declines (e.g. trying to save more and cut their expenses so as to be better positioned for the future), but I’m not convinced that most people’s 401(k)s had that much of an effect on housing, given the types of investments that are in typical 401(k) plans and how locked up those funds are.
In addition, it would be odd to use, say, down payment money for investing without knowing what the hell you’re doing, but maybe most people don’t know what they’re doing. If you were to put down payment money in something other than extremely safe assets (e.g. a CD), you’d want to put it in some asset class that mimics housing (although it’s not clear that a general REIT fund, to give one example, would do that).

“you’d want to put [downpayment money] in some asset class that mimics housing”
Not if you are waiting for housing to bottom out.
“although it’s not clear that a general REIT fund, to give one example, would do that”
ICF and IYR do. SRS does the opposite.
“My point was that its all related, and to call out tax credits as the main reason for what appears to be a rise (or dead cat bounce) in SF real estate prices, is just silly.”
Yeah, but this report is not just about SF. The exact same thing happened with Cash for clunkers. As soon as the tax cut ended, sales tanked big time.
The problem with all this talk of tax credits not impacting SF or other expensive markets is that no home sale happens in a vacuum. Their is normally a chain of operations.
Person A sells their starter home and buys a medium sized/priced home from Person B, Person B buys a McMansion from person C, and so on and so on. That chain has been broken since home sales have been driven so heavily by foreclosures. Persons B and C are left with overpriced houses with triple digit D.O.M.

Another perspective could be they felt that things were turning, with the rise of the stock market, and that the bottom was over, hence they started to buy houses again.
I also doubt that people would be pulling money out of investments for housing…I think it was more of a confidence-type thing.
I also think that a relatively small portion of folks took advantage of the tax credit, especially in the city, and especially in the better parts.
I agree the report was not just about SF, but this is an SF blog, so I was commentating on the SF situation.
Furthermore, if access to credit dried up, then who cares about a small $8000 tax break. The ones who bought had a boat load of cash, and had great credit, which implies to me that they would likely not be eligible for the tax break anyway. That was sideline money that came in, not people who would commit to housing in this crappy market for a lousy $8000 tax break.

An interesting article. However, national statistics are rarely relevant. There’s a saying that all real estate is local. This is so true. I’m in Sarasota, Florida. Certainly the Sarasota real estate market is different from the San Francisco market. So while it’s interesting to compare notes, it’s important to get local information.

You can say that, J, and ignore San Francisco’s behavior during 2007 and on, when it was performing quite well and the “rest of the country” took it on the chin? Or how about the levels attained during the runup, which individually are repeated daily, at levels never seen prior to the runup?

I see you are not willing to entertain any sort of debate and would rather just issue flat statements. Fine. But your “SF went up at the same time as the rest of the country” statement begged a question and I gave it.