Sunday, September 7, 2008 at 07:45AM
Sellers Giving Up?
CA renter asked if more listings are going off-market - are sellers getting frustrated and packing it in? Or are they hanging in there a while longer in hopes of getting a boost from 'Charger-fever'?
BMIT notes that in September, 2007 the inventory was 23,649, which is the all-time high mark for inventory. As of 8/31/08 it was down to 19,778 listings, a 16.4% decrease in homes for sale, compared to last year around the same time.
Here's the comparison of detached and attached listings that expired, cancelled, or withdrew:
| 7-day period | 2007 | 2008 |
| 8/10 to 8/16 | 845 | 458 |
| 8/17 to 8/23 | 758 | 486 |
| 8/24 to 8/30 | 791 | 471 |
| 8/31 to 9/6 | 1224 | 554 |
It looks like last year a bunch of sellers gave up right at the end of summer - but not this year. "Maybe if we just wait a few more weeks, honey, that lucky sale will come our way!!"
Jim the Realtor
6 Comments
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (6)
Hey Jim,
Big news this morning - what do you think?
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Federal officials unveiled an extraordinary takeover on Sunday of troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, signaling the most dramatic move to date aimed at shoring up the nation's housing market.
"It looks like last year a bunch of sellers gave up right at the end of summer - but not this year. "Maybe if we just wait a few more weeks, honey, that lucky sale will come our way!!"
A few more weeks sounds just about right to me. We moved in here Labor Day weekend last year, and during the 3-4 weeks that followed a lot of listings fell off the online searches, only to reappear in the spring.
I wonder how many properties are in the lendor's no-man's land.. while the lendors are trying to figure out what to do.. and who really owns the underlying mortgage/MBS/CDO since they got swapped willy-nilly... and if they have the paperwork to prove they own the lien so they can go through with foreclosure.
Yes.. it was and is a truly new paradigm.. but not what the hypsters thought.
Unless the house is ideal, only lowering the price will sell the house and that's the option of last resort for anyone but a shortsale. I've seen sellers try everything else:
1) To wait it out for a better offer / appreciation
2) Try to rent out their house
3) Take it off the market, put it back on next year hoping that "next summer" gives them a 5% boost in price.
This is a double edged sword - today I went to four listings in my price range, and all four were short sales. Looking online, it's clear that sellers are divided clearly into "have to sell" and "wish could sell" - I can pretty much guess based on the price/sqft and location if it's a short sale or not because only the short sales are affordable. What I've seen is most of the other sellers aren't willing to lower their price.
Here's a rule of thumb - if the sellers have already moved out or are in the process, that's when they're most likely to price it to sell. The only exception I've seen is the ones that try to rent it out instead of sell.
clearly we are in uncharted waters with the Fannie and Freddie bailout. New York Times and others have articles predicting a short term mortgage rate drop. Personally just b'cos the Fed is a guarantor (with all of our money, lets not forget), doesn't change the fundamentals of the housing market (and the general economy). Of course, what do I know.. Lets see what happens...
Regarding Sellers giving up..IMO, in today's market most of the sellers who are here are not because they want to sell, but because they have to sell. So do they have a choice other than to stick it out and hope they get an offer?
Byomkesh,
The way I see it is that the Federal Reserve will print up a fresh $1,000,000,000,000 to cover those failed bonds. That will weaken the dollar and drive up inflation. Basically, the fed is backing the dollar with Fannie/Freddie's "valuable" mortgage bonds. Japan, China and the UK (the three biggest US Treasury holders) won't like that too much. It will likely force the Fed to raise interest rates in the future AND the yield on the 30 year T-bond. That's when the pain begins.
Remember, for every 1% interest rate increase a house's price has to fall 10% for the 30-year P+I mortgage payment to be the same.