So it's a Great Time to Buy!

Just ask any Realtor.

Then when it gets low enough people will start buying more and it goes back up?

The housing market is nearing the bottom? Where have I heard that before?

KaiserRoll: Then when it gets low enough people will start buying more and it goes back up?

I'm gonna wait until people start paying me to live in their houses.

AcneVulgaris: So it's a Great Time to Buy!

Just ask any Realtor.

In 10-15 years that won't be a joke.

/buy cheap, sell high

I am SHOCKED that people don't want to take out a huge loan to invest in something that will be worth less than what you paid by next month.

KaiserRoll: Then when it gets low enough people will start buying more and it goes back up?

Probably not. Home ownership was made easy by large wages throughout the 99%. When those fell, so does all the 'value' that a home acquires. It's foolish to think that the market would turn around without replacing the jobs that allow people to pay for it and provide the stability that gives impetus to staying in one place for a while to pay for the home.

Let's get back to pushing the "It's your right to own a home!" agenda. This problem should take care of itself.....

In Butthead's voice:

So, uh, is going to be like the ending of,uh, Trading Places?

Owning is overrated anyway.

Unless you're in the lower level of socioeconomic scale, you don't need to own.

And even then, you'd be better renting anyway.

I've always figured that the value of a new home would plummet simply due to shoddy workmanship.

Can we do that whole homebuyer tax credit and cash for clunkers bs again? I missed out on the money cause i was still in college, and none of that help with college loans has started either.

IrateShadow: The housing market is nearing the bottom? Where have I heard that before?

Realtors have always had only one answer: "BUY NOW, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE".

Really people, they sell homes, it's what they get paid to do, did you expect them to say anything different?

You gotta live somewhere. I'd rather end up with a place that I own eventually, regardless of resale value, than live wall-to-wall with strangers in an apartment complex and pay rent forever.

Guntram Shatterhand: KaiserRoll: Then when it gets low enough people will start buying more and it goes back up?

Probably not. Home ownership was made easy by large wages throughout the 99%. When those fell, so does all the 'value' that a home acquires. It's foolish to think that the market would turn around without replacing the jobs that allow people to pay for it and provide the stability that gives impetus to staying in one place for a while to pay for the home.

Yeah, it's like a consumer based economy doesn't do well when most of the consumers are barely able to make rent and keep themselves in ramen. Yet somehow it's the "job creators" we all need to worship and treat as royalty.

nopokerface: Let's get back to pushing the "It's your right to own a home!" agenda. This problem should take care of itself.....

Shelter can be found under Maslow's pyramid of needs.
People do have a right to a home, but it needs to be disconnected from the market.
And since the state and the market developed in a symbiotic relationship and help each other (except when the bureaucrat class competes with the capitalist class, but the left/right argument over state and market is like arguing over two sides of the same animal), probably shouldn't rely on the state either.

Not taking out a loan for a home ever. I'll rent or squat my way through life until I can pay for one outright if need be, it's better than having the state's gendarme showing up at my door to kick me out of my home at the behest of some person who makes a living farking people over.

"You really HAVE to buy...You're having a kid and you DON'T OWN?!.... Renting is just throwing away money you could be investing in equity!...You're getting NOTHING for that monthly payment!"

/everyone I laughed at in 2003
/the new American Dream: unemployed, but debt free

thecpt: Can we do that whole homebuyer tax credit and cash for clunkers bs again? I missed out on the money cause i was still in college, and none of that help with college loans has started either.

It's an election year. I'm sure before it's over, you'll be promised a free home, and forgiveness of all your college debts.

And that will be before things get unrealistic.

/I'm holding out for my own moon base
//but prospects are dim now that Newt lost in Florida

Crotchrocket Slim: Yeah, it's like a consumer based economy doesn't do well when most of the consumers are barely able to make rent and keep themselves in ramen.

Go on rent strikes and take the ramen.

Oh good. This means Joe Six-Pack will stop buying homes as "investment opportunities" and then bail on the mortgage when the "investment" doesn't sell in six months. I lived in crappy apartments until I saved the 20% necessary to buy my current home. Well worth the wait. I don't care about the value, and I don't constantly check on it since I plan on living there for a long long time

thecpt: Can we do that whole homebuyer tax credit and cash for clunkers bs again? I missed out on the money cause i was still in college, and none of that help with college loans has started either.

That's why I bought my house 2.5 years ago. For the 8K credit. I fixed it up for about 10k and now I can put my house up for sale in August and wait to see if I get any takers. I'm not desperate, so i'll wait it out until someone offers me 15k more than what I paid.

m2313: Not taking out a loan for a home ever. I'll rent or squat my way through life until I can pay for one outright if need be, it's better than having the state's gendarme showing up at my door to kick me out of my home at the behest of some person who makes a living farking people over.

Unless you're BOA, then they'll do that anyway.

dj_spanmaster: I actually feel it IS a good time to buy. There's a lot of people out there, living with friends/family and working/job hunting. They will land good jobs away from home and look to buy with their $10k savings. When things "start to turn around" or have "hit bottom" in news articles, it's going to be 3-4 months along - already too late. If you're in a depressed area with potential and you have cash, now is the time.

You'd be dead on, if house prices weren't still trending down and most of the experts not in the pocket of NAR weren't saying that this is a pain that's going to take at least the next decade to work itself out.

BigBooper: thecpt: Can we do that whole homebuyer tax credit and cash for clunkers bs again? I missed out on the money cause i was still in college, and none of that help with college loans has started either.

It's an election year. I'm sure before it's over, you'll be promised a free home, and forgiveness of all your college debts.

And that will be before things get unrealistic.

/I'm holding out for my own moon base
//but prospects are dim now that Newt lost in Florida

Moon base would be cool... But anyways i like how they called those programs " successes" to save face then never do them again.

I hope we can pull ourselves out of this mess. I mean, really, ~250 years as a nation before shiatting ourselves and falling over is pretty pathetic.

I guess maybe we should have taken better care of the ol' girl.

KaiserRoll: Then when it gets low enough people will start buying more and it goes back up?

Not for a long time.

The last major meltdown (mid 1970's), it took about 20 years to completely recover the lost value. Given the income and credit situation now, I'm guessing longer.

FTA: On a year-over-year basis, only two cities showed rising values. Detroit was up 3.8%, and Washington, D.C., 0.5%, the Case-Shiller data show.

Quick, everyone move to Detroit! It's obviously the land of milk and honey!

BigBooper: you'll be promised a free home, and forgiveness of all your college debts.

All of which would be possible if the upper class wasn't going to extort or imprison anyone who violated those. Debt is the new false obligation, since loyalty to the king is out of style. The only difference is presumably debt is made between equals and how it plays out is actually up to whoever has the gun/debt collectors/mafia style armbreakers (like the IMF) on their side, instead of a straightforward hierarchy.
Look at Greece and Haiti, farked over for their debts.
Meanwhile, the USA gets "loans" (tribute) on more favorable terms.

thecpt: Can we do that whole homebuyer tax credit and cash for clunkers bs again? I missed out on the money cause i was still in college, and none of that help with college loans has started either.

That was a sucker's bet and you don't really want it back unless they can sneak it through without sellers noticing. I watched a lot of places around here drop $20k overnight when that credit expired.

IT'S A GREAT TIME TO BE HOMELESS!

Malcolm_Sex: I am SHOCKED that people don't want to take out a huge loan to invest in something that will be worth less than what you paid by next month.

So no one is buying cars then?

/home ownership is not a month to month proposition unless you are an idiot

Eh, I bought a house six months ago, and don't really care about this. I can afford my payments, I feel I got a really good value and don't plan on selling any time soon.

Part of it though, is the fact that here in San Antonio, the recession never really hit, and home prices were low to start with, so there wasn't really a drop. Demand is certainly down, and prices have been pretty flat, but no real drop.

Again, sensational reporting. According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of American who owned here homes in 1900 was less than 50%. This rose some during the 1920s, but fell to 44% by 1940. It recovered to 50% by 1950. Since that time, the rate has increased 1-2% per decade. Current home homeownership is still higher than it was in 1990 (54%). So the 66% current rate is a setback, but not catastrophic.

Home prices will eventually turn around when foreclosures bottom out and excess inventory is purchased. Investors are purchasing homes in record numbers, causing slight shortages in some markets. Their goal is to buy and hold these properties and put them back on the market in such a way as to drive prices up.

Bottom line: if you own a home and can do so, sit on it for at least another two to three years. If you can qualify for a mortgage and can afford to do so, this is the best time to buy a home decades.

dj_spanmaster: I actually feel it IS a good time to buy. There's a lot of people out there, living with friends/family and working/job hunting. They will land good jobs away from home and look to buy with their $10k savings. When things "start to turn around" or have "hit bottom" in news articles, it's going to be 3-4 months along - already too late. If you're in a depressed area with potential and you have cash, now is the time.

Here's why it is not a good time to buy a house. There have been at least 5 years of "deferred maintenance" on many of the houses out there, especially in depressed areas. Take a walk around even typical working class neighborhoods and you see neglect.

The housing market will have hit bottom when you see the majority of current homeowners taking some pride in the place they live in and demonstrating it by performing standard maintenance. A significant number are so far under water they can't sell, although they want to. They can't repair or don't have the stomach to repair.

Why can't they repair? Private debt soared from 65% of disposable income to 130%. Until the debt overhang is paid down, home owners are strapped.

Meanwhile those of us "throwing away our money on rent" are paying mortgage cost or even below for gorgeous properties. My landlord foots the maintenance bill, plus the down payment, then has to move out to the burbs and rent his dream home out or risk losing it!

I'm paying $.75 a sq ft for a 2000 sq ft loft with 14ft tin ceilings, all bills paid. Choosing between an 1800 sq ft high rise apt with 19 ft ceilings or a beautiful 3000 sq ft arts and crafts home with a pool and hot tub for my next place.

Put your kids in private school and it doesn't matter what district you're in. Living in the suburbs so you can buy a soulless mini mansion and put your kid in a "good school" is an early death sentence and raises your kids in a homogenous, artless and coma-inducing theme park for wanna-be rich white people and Asians.

Things change, not having the agility to react to a changing job market or neighborhood is a disadvantage to you and your family.

If you're reading this, and suspect you are a victim of individuality theft as a result of pretending to be the "family man" you know from television, sit your wife down in front of the real estate listings in the nearest 2nd-tier city. It's not going to be easy, but if you play your cards right, you could be taking a freight elevator that opens into the superhero headquarters you always wanted to live in. Your kids will think it's amazing and your wife will have something to lord over the wifebots at carpool.

/NYC kids know how to navigate public transit at 8 years old

CruJones: Part of it though, is the fact that here in San Antonio, the recession never really hit, and home prices were low to start with, so there wasn't really a drop. Demand is certainly down, and prices have been pretty flat, but no real drop.

That's because you guys have Armando Montelongo fixing things up.

IMHO, they should sell to the next person back in the homeowner line.

Axiom: Everyone wants want a home
Axiom: There are plenty of homes
Q: Why doesn't everyone have a home?
A: Someone is keeping people out of homes for fun and profit.

Seriously, what would happen if most homes crashed by 50% in value? 80% in value?

thecpt: Can we do that whole homebuyer tax credit and cash for clunkers bs again? I missed out on the money cause i was still in college, and none of that help with college loans has started either.

The people that took that 8k have already seen the value of the homes they bought with it drop 16k. I was glad to miss out on that.

Submitted First With a Better Headline: I hope we can pull ourselves out of this mess. I mean, really, ~250 years as a nation before shiatting ourselves and falling over is pretty pathetic.

I guess maybe we should have taken better care of the ol' girl.

If you consider how much the world has changed in that 250 years, it was a pretty good run. I think she's still got another 50 in her.

Buying new is for suckers. Everyone knows the value drops the second you drive it off the lot.

Even if people want to own a home, they may not be able to, given the difficulty in getting financing for a mortgage,
And how much money did we give to the banks to bail them out of their bad loans? Money given so the banks would make loans and keep the economy going.

Good, keep the investors out of the housing market -- more homes available for people to buy for actual living in.

I find that odd because a bunch of people I know just switched careers to real estate brokerage. The housing market has to, eventually, go back up. There're going to be graphs all over this thread about how, over time, the value of land/gold/houses/whatever has increased over time. There are occasional dips, or market corrections, but the overall trend is a rise in price. Short of a new way to make new land without getting rid of the old, what we can see is all we got, until we start colonizing the sea floor, that is.

/watched seaquest every night

Mirrorz: All the homes in my area are being bought up left and right... just not by American citizens.

DubyaHater: I lived in crappy apartments until I saved the 20% necessary to buy my current home. Well worth the wait. I don't care about the value, and I don't constantly check on it since I plan on living there for a long long time

This is the thing. I took the same path and haven't had to care about the housing market. A lot of people have odd perceptions of home ownership. It's not the "American Dream", it's not something you're entitled to, and it's not supposed to be an investment opportunity. It's also not the "opposite" of renting. It's simply another option for living arrangements. Renting was an option, but I really disliked that I couldn't make the house my own. By that I mean renovate the kitchen, paint, build a big-ass deck. And when doing those things I had no thought about what it would do to the resale value because I will be in that house for another 20 years in all likelihood.

AcneVulgaris: thecpt: Can we do that whole homebuyer tax credit and cash for clunkers bs again? I missed out on the money cause i was still in college, and none of that help with college loans has started either.

The people that took that 8k have already seen the value of the homes they bought with it drop 16k. I was glad to miss out on that.

I took 7.5k and I close on my property in 6 days with a 26k profit.