Comments on: Real Homes of Genius: Today we Salute you Downey. $100,000 off in 3 Months.

By: x-downey

x-downey — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:07:19 +0000

I used to live in Downey and bought a 3 BR, 1 BA, 1431 sf house in 2000 for $220,000. My income was about $120K, so I could easily afford it. I had an ARM that actually went down to 3.75% the last year. I bought the house to live in, not as an investment. I watched in disbelief as housing prices started rising quickly. I lost my job in 2002, and couldn’t find another one. I decided to move someplace cheaper and to try to start a consulting business. So in 2003, I listed the house. Most of the realtors I talked to said they felt it was a bubble market. I sold the house for $360,000 very quickly and moved to Wichita, KS where I paid cash for a house. Wichita is not as exciting as LA, but neither is Downey. My old house was put on the market last year for $725,000. The owner never went down on his price. Instead he relisted it and tried again at the same price. After nine months he took it off the market. The current Zillow estimate is $440K, which I find unbelievable.

My consulting business took off and I made about the same as I made in LA. But now I only have to pay taxes and insurance. I salute you, Downey.

By: Lost Cause

Lost Cause — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 21:35:00 +0000

I humbly nominate this home for a Real Home of Genius Award.

Stuck House Snarls Traffic On 101 In Hollywood

By: The Not Quite Crunchy Parent

The Not Quite Crunchy Parent — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 14:04:00 +0000

Peter Viles over at The LA Times picked up this post and a commenter lleft a good question that has yet to be answered..any thoughts?

Are we sure banks are holding all these REOs? In the era of mortgage-backed securities and CDOs, who is actually ending up with these properties? The servicing companies? From what I can remember, during the last peak in foreclosure activity, all REO properties were marked down aggressively because they were held by banks under Federal regulations to move non-performing assets off their balance sheets within a fixed time frame, but that was in an era when most mortgage loans were made with a bank's own money. Today that's certainly not the case when the majority of loans, even those made by major banks, were/are being resold after origination.

Could it be that the entities holding some or all of these REOs are not under similar regulations to move non-performing assets and therefore can hold them for longer periods of time?

By: steve

steve — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 06:59:00 +0000

Very good article. I have been pondering on how much of a price decline house price will be for California? I read an article one time and it mentioned that the UCLA School of Business/Economy (Anderson) was saying that house price in the LA area is about 40% over value. Would house price pull back 40% from peek (around 9/05)? I do agree with them due to the fact that Southern California did experienced about a 30% price pull back from 1990 to 1994 and the price appreciation run was smaller back then.

Any thought and comment?

By: thamnosma

thamnosma — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 23:16:00 +0000

I’m monitoring a Beazer project under construction on Foothill Boulevard in Claremont.

This ugly POS “townhouse” complex is probably 1/3 done. A few units are ready, the sales office building is open and the other buildings are in various stages of construction, from foundation to finishing off.

Yesterday after lunch I noticed little activity, just some workers toward the rear of the complex apparently working on some “finishing up” units. No one was working on any of the other structures.

Could just have been a light day or an early Friday off. However, my curiosity is up on whether they will actually complete the project. If there is any more seriously bad news on Wall Street for these guys, maybe not.

It’s being built on the last leftovers of a large citrus orchard. Of cousre, we don’t need food anymore, just granite counter tops.