US House Prices
 

Are US house prices following accross the whole country or only in certain areas?

Any input appreciated.

Re: US House Prices
 

Totally totally different based on the area, not even safe to say in the prices are same in the state. Just like the UK, the metropolitan prices are higher than those out in the boondocks. Let me put it this way, the housing prices around LA for example for a basic 3 bedroom, 1 bath house would get me a VERY nice 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house here in coastal Georgia-waterfront even!!!

Re: US House Prices
 

the price of an LA 3 bed house would get you a 10,000 sqrft mansion here.

Re: US House Prices
 

Presume you mean 'falling' across the country......
Full disclosure - I am a Realtor ( whole board wakes up and prepares their best Realtor jokes and warnings) in GA and can tell you that in some markets - FL, CA for example prices have fallen dramatically (30%). Many of these FL homes were 2nd homes that people just wanted out of so that has contributed to the seemingly scary statistic. In others a more modest drop of 3% - 7% has occurred. This should be considered against the backdrop that most markets had a 40% increase in house prices between 2000 and 2004/5. New construction permits began to slow in most markets a year and a half ago and now new home starts are at a 10 year low. It is a strong buyer's market currently and if you have good credit, verifiable income and a 20% downpayment ( ideal but 10% OK), you could get a terrific buy right now. The current mortgage shakeout will run for another few weeks and lending standards have been tightened and rightly so IMO. Don't think we'll see a shift to a seller's market for at least a year maybe longer.

Re: US House Prices
 

Just spent the last day and a half looking at cars and haggling with a car salesman......aren't you realtors and car salesmen closely related?:sneaky::p

Re: US House Prices
 

If you think the numbers of foreclosures currently on the market are pretty high, just wait until next year. The ones which didn't sell this season will still be there along with new inventory of 4closed properties. It has been suggested that this will continue to occur for another 2-3 years but in actuality noone knows for sure. Before anything can "turn around" inventory needs to be mopped up.

Every market is different and subsequently particular segments of the relevant market which you are referring to. No denying, it is a strong buyer's market and has been for a good stint of time equally will continue to be so. Around here the swing started around '02 and it gained momentum while the rest of the country was going gang busters. Feds have 2 more meetings by the end of the year (??) and many believe that rates will dip. With all the banks in the news, there may be a couple more players in the news in the near future. I once heard a while back that Countrywide had a 25% default rate and you could basically call up customer service and pretty much "renegotiate" the interest rate and loan in leu of heading into foreclosure.

What is apparent is that some lessons from the S&L scandal of the 80's were ignored. Perhaps someone will coined it as Vietnam so all is good and blame this mess on Al-Q. Since everything is in cycles, in another 15-20 years, we will experience a lending thing to what we are going through now! Like everyone, I have no choice but to ride along as a passenger.

Re: US House Prices
 

I think you may want to check your figures on that - the CA Association of Realtors is reporting prices have dropped in the low single digits. If prices had dropped 30% across CA I think Arnie would have declared a state of emergency by now ;)

And the current mortgage shakeout is going to last longer than a few weeks - with something like 40K redundancies in the industry in the last couple of months or so there must be more to come. Countrywide will be closing their doors soon and several other lenders are not in much better shape.

Re: US House Prices
 

Here's a pretty good article on the different areas

Re: US House Prices
 

Before anyone gets worried about this - it looks as if Countrywide got bailed out - for now.

Re: US House Prices
 

Yes .....but we try not to intermarry. The gene pool is murky enough.....

Re: US House Prices
 

Yes, you're right my statement was inaccurate. There have not been 30% price drops across the board in CA or FL but there have been examples like it - foreclosures, pre-foreclosures and corporate owned properties mostly. There has been a substantial decline in units sold across the nation. Here in GA we dropped 17% in July compared to the previous year .
I think Countrywide will be OK - though parts of it may be acquired by others.

Re: US House Prices
 

Yes - I did mean falling prices - should have read before posting. A lot of helpful comments. The article was excellent. Thanks

Re: US House Prices
 

The news keep saying it is around here, but it's not...plenty of foreclosures to scare people....but more people are just renting places out to cover expenses and people prefer to rent around here because it's so much cheaper than buying and people aren't willing to go into negative equity, we'll see if that changes over the next couple of years.

Re: US House Prices
 

Despite the fact that they are building frighteningly fast out here (saw somewhere that West Houston is we are one of the 4 fastest expanding areas in the US) prices round our way seem to be defying gravity at the moment......builders are constantly revising their newbuild prices (upwards) and for 3-5 year old properties in the right location, they are selling at or above asking price often before the details are put into the MLS.

We bought new 18 months ago. About 8 months after us, friends signed for an identical house, on a smaller lot (approx 4000' smaller), we've got waterfront, they havent. They paid approx 15% more than us....

On Countrywide - we've just bought a Loft in downtown Houston. The day before we were due to close (17th Aug), our mortgage broker called and said we would need to delay closing - they were planning on selling the mortgage to countrywide, but the plug had been pulled on that due to all the bad news and the 11.5n refinancing countrywide went thru. He refinanced thru Chase, at the same rate, and we closed the following Wednesday. I dont know enough about it to say whether Countrywide will survive or fold, but their problems caused us some minor irritation.

Re: US House Prices
 

Are you thinking of buying property in every state?:confused: