Anyone selling anything?

I'm growing somewhat concerned over here in CT, its kind of like 2008 all over again. No one is pulling the trigger on anything, just looking. I'm blaming it on what's going on in Europe. Last year was better so far, heck it was pretty good up until about March of this year.

Any ideas?

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

I'm looking for some rentable property in North NJ, and it's slow. Seems like inventory has gone up a bit over the past month, and not much is selling. Fine by me. Just more of the same that's been dished out since 2008. Oh yeah, and more foreclosures/shorts are coming onto the market.

Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn/Ft. Greene seem to be doing better -- I hear that average sale price is up, and I see quite a bit of new construction. But a lot of the prices going up has to do with middle to high end ($750k+) selling better, and also the data I've seen are from last month:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/realestate/brooklyns-gold-rush.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

I'm going in for the long haul -- fix and rent, no desire to flip, so a stagnant market (for now) is just peachy in my book. If I see some appreciation over 2-3 years, that's gravy.

As far as my current neighborhood, so far so good. Rents have gone up at least 20% in the past year, and I see apartments selling for 10-15% over 2009 prices. It helps that quite a few buildings are friendly to foreign buyers, and there's a glut of those in NYC. NYC is actually (oddly) cheap per sq ft compared to many Western European and Asian cities. And if crises happen abroad, people could do worse than parking their money in US urban real estate. Manhattan, Boston/Camberville, downtown DC, San Fran, all of those markets weren't significantly hit by the property crisis.

Move here to the SF Bay Area. The market is going pretty good. My wife and I are trying to buy a house right now. We have put offers on for almost a dozen houses and been beat out everytime. Frequently by full cash buyers. This is in San Jose, Morgan Hill Gilroy, Santa Clara. I don't think the problem is so much to many buyers, there's just not much inventory and most of the houses that come on the market are REO, or short sales. The people who are underwater are staying put because they can not afford to sell.

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I heard a knowledgeable commercial real estate broker say that the market for commercial property in Northern Virginia is "no longer deceased." Landlords with quality commercial space are doing reasonably well. Everything else is sort of perking along. It is not "deceased" like it was 2-3 years ago.

Was the Bay Area ever doing badly? I thought that the R.E. 'problem/correction' in California is mainly confined to:
(a) inland/Sacramento
(b) parts of SoCal

The other screwy thing is that SF actually appears to be more expensive to buy than NYC. Or at least has fewer sub-$500k condo/co-op conversions due to strict laws about conversions. Basically, crap at the low end, and a lot of undivided homes/multi-family above $1MM with little in between. But with annoying landlord-tenant laws, you'd have to be a masochist to wish to buy the multi-families

From my limited perspective of the market it seems like 2010 & the first half of 2011 were pretty bad. The price of houses had dropped pretty stteply from the 2007 highs. My wife ad I are currently renting and houses in our neighborhood were selling for 500k to 650K back in 2006 and 2007. Now that same house can be had for 400k It seems like, in the last 10 months or so, everyone who has a job has come to the same conclusion, the market has hit bottom.

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Even if values dropped say 30% (on avg, taking the mean of your two starting values) from, it's small potatoes as compared to the declines in other US cities.

Yup, was and is in most areas. There are a few brights spots such as SJ, but they are the exception.

We sold 8 months ago in the East Bay - nice upper middle class neighborhood 30 minutes from Oakland/SF. Comps around us were $850-950K at the height - we got out after 8 months on the market for $625K, and were very lucky to get it.

Prices on homes $150k and up are still dropping here, but the market is holding steady on those under currently under $50k (which were in the $120K range in 06-07).

My older brother has taken a look at what is going for under $50K here and is interested in partnering up on a few more houses to rent out.

Right now, we're still in a renter's market. There's many that either walked away from or lost their higher priced homes that were stuck in the ballooning interest rate loans, so the number of those interested in renting is skyrocketing around here.

Banks don't want the properties, people can't afford to make the payments on them, so prices keep dropping.

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1987 560SL
85,000 miles

I cannot say much with certainty about the market here. I think we were hit less hard than most places because we had not inflated as much, but prices have fallen. Sales have been slowly getting better I think.

In my own rental property, the residential side is currently profitable and with no vacancy. My properties are in excellent locations and are good units.

My commercial property is not profitable at present and has some vacancy, about 18%. about half the vacancy appears poised to be leased soon. On the commercial property the property tax is about double what it should be. If not for the tax it would probably be profitable at present.

A recent appraisal showed the value to have dropped on my big commerical/residential property to have dropped about 1/3 from six years ago.

My guess is most property here has dropped from 30 to 40% in value from the high.

Most of the long time real estate developers around here have gone broke and are out of business. Making money in it, traditionally depends on rising prices.

I am currently working on getting some of my debt forgiven. If I can pull that off without incurring too much tax liability I will be able to survive long term probably for sure.

My residential property at present is too profitable to sell. The market for it paradoxically is probably not that good either.

There are deals to be had (apparently) for those with cash to invest but the market is not for the faint of heart.

I am currently poised to refinance my home. It is marginally worth it but I will be able to save about $20,000 between now and when it is paid off and we will shorten the life of the loan by about six months. If the appraisal comes in high enough to fold our second mortgage into it that will protect us from the second adjusting to a higher rate in the future.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Its downright depressing here. My wife and I are being relocated by work to Delaware next month and house prices here in the Bay St Louis/Gulfport area have dropped by 25%. The upside is that houses in Delaware have dropped by upwards of 40% since we moved here 6 years ago.

AZ, and my area in particular, is coming back nicely. Still quite a lot for sale in Phx, but not so much around here unless you want to dick around with short sales. County reports a couple of actual house permits taken out in the last quarter, which is precisely two more than were taken out the quarter before. Californicators are once again cruising the back roads looking for realtor signs. It's a mixed blessing.

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You're a daisy if you do.
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84 Euro 240D 4spd. 220.5k sold
04 Honda Element AWD
1985 F150 XLT 4x4, 351W with 270k miles, hay hauler
1997 Suzuki Sidekick 4x4
1993 Toyota 4wd Pickup 226K and counting

Hat,

Since I've lived on the same place for over 25 years I don't stay on top of that market, but a high school buddy of mine is a Real Estate agent in the DFW Mid Cities area. I bumped into him last weekend and he started asking me questions about cars. He remembers me as a car guy.

He was telling me that he is so buisy now that he doesn't have time to shop for a car. He said it had really picked up in the last few months.

Best of luck in your area!

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2001 SLK 320 six speed manual
2014 Porsche Cayenne six speed manual

Annoy a Liberal, Read the Constitution

Pity we can't put up anti-californian signs alongs side the realtors ones.

- Peter.

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2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

Yeah.

FOR SALE [unless you're from CA]

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You're a daisy if you do.
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84 Euro 240D 4spd. 220.5k sold
04 Honda Element AWD
1985 F150 XLT 4x4, 351W with 270k miles, hay hauler
1997 Suzuki Sidekick 4x4
1993 Toyota 4wd Pickup 226K and counting