The newest housing staticis are frightning
12 percent of all homeowners are at least one month late This is up 20% form only 4 months ago.
48 percent of homeowners who have adjustable-rate mortgages are behind on their payments or in foreclosure.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090305/ap_on_...es_foreclosuresThose number can only go up as unemploment climbs and more people walk away from their mortgages because they're upside down on them, this includes the people who can afford to pay their mortgage but don't because the drop in house prices makes it a poor investment.
Coming from Broward county,which was the worst ,i think Vegas topped us recently, there are no homes for sale here ,its all foreclosure or short sale. On a lighter side though,i have 42 listings and starting to get a lot of calls and showings,the buyers are coming out again to take advantage of how cheap everything is.
After hurricane Wilma,which we never received any news time because of Hurricane Katrina, my job (Realtor) vanished! Then we had large corp like DHL just up and leave. Luckily i was still baretending because i think the statistic here was 1 in 14 workers were laid off,including myself in 2008 .i know people arent out spending because when you drive down US1 ,our main hwy ,all you see is bill boards %75 off,going out of business sale etc..scary.i think the rest of the country is riding on the coat tails of South Florida,Cali,Arizona and Vegas. When your driving down the street and start seeing bread lines in a tourist state,something is wrong.
As much as you read about bailouts and the banks,theyre still fucking up,for instance. i have a cash buyer right now and we put in an offer on a short sale that was listed for 239k,he put in a 200k offer-CASH. they made him wait 1 month until they got a better offer and took it. it costs the bank on an average home here in Broward county , $51,000 a year to take posession of a home.so when some one comes in with a 209k offer 30 days later did they relly get a good offer? meanwhile its another month the buyer is getting dinged credit wise. To defend the banks,i have 100s of strories of home owners just doing retarded things to screw themselves but these are people who shouldve never owned a home in the first place.