It’s been a while since I’ve posted on real estate – Lately been hearing a lot of people talking on the subject of short-sales, and I’m trying to digest some of the numbers. The NAR (National Association of Realtors) is describing 18% of homes on the market as being upside down (the owner owes more on the property than he or she could sell it for). I feel for the those in this situation.
A big curiosity is how the upside down sales are distributed. 18% is the average, which means there are big swings around the country. Along the Central Coast of California (San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Morro Bay, etc), it’s roughly 50%… But in many locations that are still undervalued, prices still rise.
This is what I’ve been thinking and talking to people about when the topic of real estate comes up. Not many dinner conversations go by without hitting on this topic.
Anyway, the reason I’m on the topic of real estate in this post is because I spent all weekend remodeling… Well, thinking about Facebook applications, Google Social, and other apps while remodeling… Phew!
We gutted the 2nd bedroom of our apartment. First we tore it down to the studs, and then tore out the studs themselves. The plan was to leave a beautiful exposed brick wall.
Unfortunately, the bricks are starting to powder up and refinishing them would have involved amounts of muriatic acid I don’t want to think about (my wife had to run and dive out a window to escape the fumes last time – aweful stuff!)
The decision for covering the bricks was made easier by being able to shrink our heating and cooling bill with some rolls of insulation. So I framed away.
I should note that Galina and I are nearly drooling at the thought of being done with the remodel. Having Summer weekends free for outdoor (and computing) activities will be heaven on earth.
By the time the sun was setting, we called it a day and went for nice walk (some decent sunset pics).
My keyword tracker caught your post. Not sure where you got your numbers regarding Central Coast real estate but things aren't that bad here. The city of San Luis Obispo hasn't had any short sales closed this year yet, Morro Bay has had only two. Most of the foreclosure (REO/Short Sale) activity is with the lower-priced homes in Paso Robles. I track the monthly statistics here if you're interested – http://www.SloWatch.com
– Keith
That's an outstanding site (http://www.slowatch.com) – I'll be coming back to that on a regular basis. Very nice aggregation of stats.
My statement was that the listings are upside down. I should not have intertwined the “short sale” and “upside down” terms. The NAR is claiming an 18% upside down rate for new listings nation wide. My 50% data is based on numbers from realtors and general browsing on realtor.com and zillow… Not scientific (yet).
Some towns, like Cambria, are nearly unaffected due to tight restrictions on growth. If I post on this later, I'll include these details.
My keyword tracker caught your post. Not sure where you got your numbers regarding Central Coast real estate but things aren't that bad here. The city of San Luis Obispo hasn't had any short sales closed this year yet, Morro Bay has had only two. Most of the foreclosure (REO/Short Sale) activity is with the lower-priced homes in Paso Robles. I track the monthly statistics here if you're interested – http://www.SloWatch.com
– Keith
That's an outstanding site (http://www.slowatch.com) – I'll be coming back to that on a regular basis. Very nice aggregation of stats.
My statement was that the listings are upside down. I should not have intertwined the “short sale” and “upside down” terms. The NAR is claiming an 18% upside down rate for new listings nation wide. My 50% data is based on numbers from realtors and general browsing on realtor.com and zillow… Not scientific (yet).
Some towns, like Cambria, are nearly unaffected due to tight restrictions on growth. If I post on this later, I'll include these details.