Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Looters

From Rocklin & Roseville Today:

“They don’t care and who cares about the bank” is what he said to me when I recently talked with a neighbor of a bank owned home who had helped himself to a screen door to replace the one that was broken at his house.

This kind of theft and much more is happening throughout the Sacramento real estate market on homes that have been left vacant due to foreclosure. Before the bank can take control, these home are being visited by normally honest neighbors who are carting away landscaping, fixtures and anything they can get their hands on.
...
By the way the same person who helped himself to a screen door also mows and waters the lawn of the vacant house so it won’t make the neighborhood look bad.
From Bloomberg (hat tip Calculated Risk):
A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into credit-rating companies found the firms improperly managed conflicts of interest and violated internal procedures in granting top rankings to mortgage bonds.
...
The SEC report describes an e-mail in which an analyst refers to the market for collateralized debt obligations as a "monster." "Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falters," said the e-mail, which was sent Dec. 15, 2006, to another analyst at the same firm.

8 comments:

patient renter said...

Ahh yes, I love Julie's column. It's the quintessential Realtor(TM) column but slightly self-aware.

One thing that Realtors forget or don't recognize is that while they care a lot about sales trends, buyers could care less, and really only care about price/value trends. So while it might be easy for a Realtor to say that the market is merely "soft" or even that it is "picking up steam" (both of which Julie had this year), to the rest of us, the market is still crashing to *%@#.

Note to Realtors: sales only matter if you're making a commission off of them, which the rest of us are not. So how about focusing your rhetoric on prices, in which case words such as "soft" should not even enter the discussion.

Jacob said...

Yea but if they said prices are crashing faster and larger than any other crash in recorded history with no end in sight, how would they eat?

Tyrone said...

34 cities where it's better to rent...

San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif.

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, Calif.

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, Calif.

Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, Calif.

Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, Conn.

San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, Calif.

Honolulu

Stockton, Calif.

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash.

Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville, Calif.

New York-North New Jersey-Long Island, N.Y.-Pennsylvania*

...

Raj C. said...

Tyron- Its better to rent in a lot of places, in fact unless you're getting a hellava loan, or were able to put $250k own, chances are you're still way better off renting. Average rent is appreciating at about 3% nation wide, average mortgage is going to put set you back around 6%. I know the math is more complicated that but for most of us, renting is the prudent thing to do.

Tyrone said...

Raj,
My last rent increase was in July '06--$50/month... petty cash. I think my salary has gone up over $800/month over the same period of time. BWAHAHAHA And I'm meeting with the rental manager tomorrow to plan on new carpets, blinds, and painting. So, believe me, I know renting is better--much, much better. The pedulum is coming back the other way.

Deflationary Jane said...

Still raining and the thunderheads are coming in again so I'm awake at freaking 2am. I feel like I moved to the Pacific Northwest during a heatwave.

Our old place in Davis is now renting for 100 less then we were paying and we thought our rent was low because it was the same for the last 5 yrs ! I'd certainly say that renting is the way to go.

Diggin Deeper said...

Lot's of pressure on the landlords right now. Our lease is up for renewal and we are resisting any long term lease option (1 year or longer). With so many homes for rent increases will be hard to come by.

With respect to RE...watch Fannie and Freddie...reports are that they will have recapitalize $75Billion just to keep the doors open. Government bailout or takeover is very possible as they've leveraged themselves into over a $Trillion dollars of exposure. If they go down, the entire RE mortgage market melts down...

Wadin' In said...

You know I thought the rental market was soft too, but I just had a resident give me 30 day notice. I put a sign out and got 6 calls in 4 days and signed a lease last weekend. It will be vacant on the 15th and the new resident will be moving in on the first. Less than 1% vacancy since 2005. Just for the record, I did not raise the rent over last year though.