Hampton Roads Housing/Real estate/and Economy

[hoobo]

I was chewing gum. Blew a bubble. And it burst. I blamed Tel.

[urbanvb]

Expert hammers out a warning to home builders

CHESAPEAKE - Residential construction in Hampton Roads could be headed for some tough times in the years ahead, an independent housing consultant told members of the Tidewater Builders Association.

During a breakfast meeting Thursday at the Chesapeake Conference Center, local real estate consultant Bill Dor

[Telmnstr]

Good lord Tel, Do you ever run out of bubbles? I think the office market is on a bit more solid ground. It doesn't seem subject to the same frenzied buying that the condo market was. We are at the very beginning of this minor office boom so it will be quite some time before everything "turns south" as it were.

Heh, sorry. I used to be real positive, before I made it to decent earnings and saw the value of that plummit by fools running up the housing prices on speculation. My opinions are based upon what I read on multiple sites, which are mainly links to news articles around the country.

I have noticed odd offers like this showing up though:

http://norfolk.craigslist.org/off/262635429.html

(Free rent if you want to open an nightclub in their shopping center)

http://norfolk.craigslist.org/off/256964512.html

(Free rent for long term tennant). It is possible they are the same location.

Just caught me off guard. I'm trying to rent a biz spot in Downtown Norfolk, but it's not going good. Property management peeps are asking outside my price range, and are flakey. One day it's "Oh, with no buildout we could cut the price" ... the next day it's "As-is ,it's X price" (which is above the other day). And the place is a mess. Went to get the keys, and they had difficulty finding the right ones buried in a cookie tin full of the unused keys, guess they show it quite a bit. I figured out who owns it, so I might go directly to them.

The place honestly is a mess, but is perfect for my use.

[hoobo]

What part of the office market are we discussing? I believe the foreseen building boom is mostly Class A. What you, Tel, seem to be talking about is Class B, if not Class C as well as retail space. Oh and the housing bubble; it isn't bursting. Construction may be dead but sales are just as brisk as ever even if prices are down a couple percent nationally (thanks to a couple overheated markets and poor markets in the midwest and northeast).

[vdogg]

Except for housing sector, local economy looks bright

Increased defense spending in Hampton Roads, continued commercial construction and greater maritime activity this year will offset the drag of a faltering homebuilding sector, an Old Dominion University economist predicted Wednesday.

Despite the closing of Ford

[lil-bear]

Good to know that the area's outlook isn't doom and gloom!

I'm sure the VA pilot will have an opinion that spells doom and gloom!

[CommRE]

3rd quarter 2006 office vacancy report for HR

Warning! .pdf file

The 4th quarter report is up there now also. Not sure how to link it...

[vdogg]

It's a buyers market

Despite a record year, home sales in Virginia plummeted 18.4 percent for 2006 compared to the previous year.

Even so, 2006 was the fourth highest year for home sales ever recorded, according to the Virginia Association of Realtors.

Buyers may be in the best position this year as prices for new and existing homes start to drop amid a glut of homes.

In its monthly survey, the trade group for Realtors said 112,699 homes sold in 2006 compared to 138,223 homes in 2005, the highest on record since the association has been surveying home sales.

[Telmnstr]

It's a buyers market

It's a fool's market.

The National Association of Realtors is launching a 40 million dollar advertising campaign to try to get the mania going again.

There might be a dead cat bounce, but put a fork in it... she's cooked.

[erdogs]

It's a fool's market.

The National Association of Realtors is launching a 40 million dollar advertising campaign to try to get the mania going again.

There might be a dead cat bounce, but put a fork in it... she's cooked.

Only 40 million? I missed that article, can you post it for me?

[Telmnstr]

Only 40 million? I missed that article, can you post it for me?

http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/1122007_NAR_Advertising.asp

[vdogg]

So...umm..About that bubble Tel

January sets home sales record

Don

[urbanvb]

Sounds encouraging. It still baffles me though who is buying all these expensive homes.

[sugoiben]

So...umm..About that bubble Tel

January sets home sales record

Point, counterpoint:

Housing starts plunge

A lot of people are saying that's a sign of the bubble popping. And even in the article you posted vdogg, it said homes are selling,

but it's the cheaper ones that are selling. The affordable ones. So hopefully developers will catch on and stop building only rediculously

expensive homes, and more things that ppl can actually afford.

[vdogg]

Point, counterpoint:

Housing starts plunge

A lot of people are saying that's a sign of the bubble popping. And even in the article you posted vdogg, it said homes are selling,

but it's the cheaper ones that are selling. The affordable ones. So hopefully developers will catch on and stop building only rediculously

expensive homes, and more things that ppl can actually afford.

Right, but the article you posted deals with national housing starts. The article I posted deals with regional housing sales. If you have an article pertaining to regional housing starts that would be a better apples to apples comparison.

[vdogg]

Real Estate execs confident in local prospects

Hampton Roads real estate executives expressed confidence Thursday that commercial sales, leasing and development will remain vibrant in 2007. The funds for real estate transactions are abundant, and no clouds have emerged on the horizon, said Michael W. McCabe, president and chief executive officer of Harvey Lindsay Commercial Real Estate in Norfolk. The problem is finding enough properties to meet clients' demand, McCabe said at a gathering sponsored by the Hampton Roads Association for Commercial Real Estate.

Two key factors for commercial real estate activity

[spiker3]

This isn't a scientific study or any facts to back it up, just my opinion and take on the housing 'thing.' I was/am in the market for my first home, i've been renting in Ghent for almost three years now ($690 for 3 bedrooms, 1100+ sq feet, a bargain) I've had the annual income to afford a house/condo, but not the ability to save for a downpayment. My portion of my mother's life insurance money helped me with that, so now i was ready.

I was easily pre-approved for $150K to $180K with 3% down, a fixed rate mortgage, nothing fancy out exotic, interest only or 10/1 ARM or anything. But in looking at the market, while it is definitely a buyers market currently, my price range is constantly moving, houses staying on the market for less amount of time, mostly due to the military presence. I put in an offer for a house listed at $182K, put in at $177K asking for $5K in closing costs, pre-approved mortgage with $5K down in earnest money, and had the offer rejected out of hand. The seller was basing their listing on an appraisal 6 months old that gave them $185K, they apparently were looking for that or more.

I've backed off a bit due to the quality in the price range where i'm lookin, there isn't the inventory or quality i'm comfortable living in for the price; i'd rather keep renting in a place i really like then pay double that in a mortgage for a place i settled for. But in talking with my realtor and some others, there's a pretty big misconception with the market as whole. While the market has shifted to a buyers market, sellers are having a hard time coming to grips with that. There's still a sense of 'my neighbor sold their house last year for ____, so i can get at least that much' or 'why should i have to pay closing costs, so and so had an offer in three hours after their place went on the market.' But as time passes, in some cases for some of the listings i looked at, months, concessions start to come, closing costs, allowances, etc. I guess it takes a wake up call or rude awakening for people to realize what the market's become. Now in my price range, houses are still moving, at a fairly brisk pace. It's the 250K - 750K homes that are stagnant, taking much much longer to sell, if at all, and only after price breaks, closing cost assistance, etc. My former boss accepted a position in Charlotte, and has been tryin to sell his house since April of last year. Almost a full year, initially listed at $529K, now down to $425K with closing cost, and still can't get an offer. So the market right now is kind of a mixed bag.

I realize that i don't have studies or facts to back of any this up, it's just my opinion. I put two offers in for two different places, one was rejected out of hand, the other i put an offer down for $191 with 2500 in closing cost, and it was countered for $192 with 2500 in closing cost. A thousand more. Felt absurd to me, and after looking at my monthly budget and commitments, i realized i couldn't afford it, so i let it go. So for now i'm staying in Ghent, unless some miracle appears on the market, but not likely. Fingers crossed. Anyways, it was/is my first home buying experience, and i learned alot. It is definitely a buyers market right now, just taking awhile for people to realize it.

Edited February 25, 2007 by spiker3

[lil-bear]

Good that you are being cautious about buying your first home.

Many people got in over their head during the low interest rate housing boom, and now many are going into forclosure.

I lived in Ghent for a number of years myself. I love the neighborhood, but the worst thing is the parking. If you are looking in Ghent, then get a house or condo with it's own parking space(s).

In 2003 I bought my house in Norview. A far cry from the environment in Ghent, but I still love my house and am constantly making improvments. Luckily for me I got a great deal on my investment and payed below market value for my house.

My house was listed for $98,900.00, I offered them $95,000 plus half of closing. They countered with $96,000 and only $500.00 closing. I gave my agent permission to make quick decisions for me and he came through. He told the sellers agent that I would accept their counter-offer IF and the house appraised for $96,000. If the house appraised for lower than what they countered, then I would get it at what it apprased for. Not only did I get it thousands of dollars less, the seller had to do a list of improvement before I closed!

Make sure you have a exceptional agent to help you with you house hunting. If you find one you can trust, then they will get you a house you like in an area you love without breaking your bank!!!

[Telmnstr]

Err, it's not a buyer's market at all. This is what the realtors say. Listen to Linda Foxx-Jarvis's dumb advertisement running WTAR "It's a buyers market now. Also it's a great time for sellers." They ALWAYS use these dumb lines. Prices are still at near peak points, and some homes are still selling. If people cut their losses and dump their pressboard boxes, they should make out well. It's NEVER both a good time to buy and sell. Prices are either LOW and it's a good time to buy a house, or prices are HIGH and it's a good time to sell. It's definitly not near equalibrium.

Also, I keep hearing this "interest rates are low, it's a great time to buy." I want HIGH interest rates! Bring it on!

#1 - It will flush out all the specuvestors that bought to flip and are on ARM loans and other junk

#2 - More earnings on my savings

#3 - Lower cost of house (mortgage will still be the same)

#4 - I can pay it off earlier as my income rises

#5 - There is a chance that interest rates will go low again when the fed reserve chairman wishes to manipulate the market again

I've backed off a bit due to the quality in the price range where i'm lookin, there isn't the inventory or quality i'm comfortable living in for the price; i'd rather keep renting in a place i really like then pay double that in a mortgage for a place i settled for. But in talking with my realtor and some others, there's a pretty big misconception with the market as whole. While the market has shifted to a buyers market, sellers are having a hard time coming to grips with that. There's still a sense of 'my neighbor sold their house last year for ____, so i can get at least that much' or 'why should i have to pay closing costs, so and so had an offer in three hours after their place went on the market.' But as time passes, in some cases for some of the listings i looked at, months, concessions start to come, closing costs, allowances, etc. I guess it takes a wake up call or rude awakening for people to realize what the market's become. Now in my price range, houses are still moving, at a fairly brisk pace. It's the 250K - 750K homes that are stagnant,

Yep, it's NOT A buyers market though, that is realtor speak. Say it enough and people believe it. There are lots of people that bought with the advice or the idea that they can refi in a year or two, and sell in a year or two. Houses aren't generally that liquid, so these people took huge risk on the advice of a salesperson who profits from the transaction... now they are finding they can't refinance because the comps aren't making it and the investors are getting shaky (some very large mortgage companies are blowing up, people like H&R Block! www.ml-implode.com). Also, selling a home has costs.

The mortgage people were pushing ARMs and IO loans a year ago, now are all about giving advice to get out of them. 1 year later. Of course they will collect huge fees on the refi's.

My point of view is this. ~3 years ago, you could buy a 2600 square foot house in whiteville VaBeach for ~$180K or so. Now it's $330K. What has changed? Salaries haven't. Population hasn't. Financing has, they were giving anyone who could fog a mirror a huge loan, so those people (who have nothing to loose by going to foreclosure as their credit is already horrible) are running around competing against people who could probably afford to really buy. These two competed, and things heated into a mania. Now it's going to explode, and bring down the US economy with it.

Talk to finance professors. There is one that lives in my building, and I talked to him ... and he said it's worse than I realize.

The main stream media has not been objectively reporting on this stuff. There are more empty houses now than ever in the USA. Less savings than ever, more debt than ever, people own less of their homes than EVER.. I mean it goes on and on. Debt is not wealth.

Also, the terms are funny... LANDLORD for a property owner... HOME OWNER for anyone who has a mortgage... they don't own jack. You aren't a homeowner until you hold the title, you're a renter from the bank.

The main stream media doesn't point out that 50%+ of all employment gains since 2001 are directly tied to real estate... so once it slows down, poof goes the jobs. Google about the lumber mills laying off, home depot earnings going down.

The wealthy just took a whole lot of future earnings from the sheeple of the USA.

taking much much longer to sell, if at all, and only after price breaks, closing cost assistance, etc. My former boss accepted a position in Charlotte, and has been tryin to sell his house since April of last year. Almost a full year, initially listed at $529K, now down to $425K with closing cost, and still can't get an offer. So the market right now is kind of a mixed bag.

No, it's falling apart. People are still selling and buying, but inventory is sky high. Some new neighborhoods have clauses that you can't resell for 2 years and such, so investors will hold till that point. This was to prevent speculators from competing against builders. Lumber prices are down. Land prices are dropping hard, as large builders like Centex, TOL and KB Homes give up land purchase option contracts... They aren't making more land said the bimbo realtor...

Get rich quick without working is what it's all about. Late night TV shows, talk radio shows (Crunchman @ 5pm MON WTAR, Tony London & Assoc @ 5pm Thur WTAR, Linda Foxx-Jarvis @ 6pm ?Wed? I think)... listen to the callers. Bankruptcy 1 year ago, trying to buy a house. They pump the heck outta the market, it's the way to get rich quick, buy a ton of houses from them (they profit on the mortgages). If you don't default on the first payments, then they can sell it off.

I realize that i don't have studies or facts to back of any this up, it's just my opinion. I put two offers in for two different places, one was rejected out of hand, the other i put an offer down for $191 with 2500 in closing cost, and it was countered for $192 with 2500 in closing cost. A thousand more. Felt absurd to me, and after looking at my monthly budget and commitments, i realized i couldn't afford it, so i let it go. So for now i'm staying in Ghent, unless some miracle appears on the market, but not likely. Fingers crossed. Anyways, it was/is my first home buying experience, and i learned alot. It is definitely a buyers market right now, just taking awhile for people to realize it.

The way to do it is find 3 or 4 houses you like, then tell the owners they have to underbid each other to the lowest point... then you will consider buying. Remember the supposid outbids?

I've learned so much reading blogs... and it's amazing that the random bloggers have been so spot on with their observations and fact research, and major economists, and largely the main stream media (which profits from real estate advertisements) has totally missed it.

It's stupid. There are more things, like "home sales" as reported in the news is home sale contracts, not closings. So one month or quarter, the actual # of closings was 30% less than contracts... so the record sales was really bogus, just record # of contracts many of which don't go to closing.

Anyone that "owns" a home has something to loose by the values going down, so most will deny the speculative mania that is the American housing bubble (which is more of a credit bubble and speculative mania than anything). We aren't alone, London, Austriailia and others are a bit farther ahead than us.

You can't escape the fact that USA is loosing manufacturing jobs and producing less. Median income does not afford median home.

www.housingtracker.net (skyhigh inventory)

www.thehousingbubbleblog.com (Used to have great predictions, now is mostly watching it all play out...)

www.housingbubblecasualty.com (This guy used to be a mortgage broker, and gives insight as to how some of it plays out on the backend).

There is also rumored to be a good amount of fraud. Some bloggers started researching their markets, and one found at least 32 cases right around where he was looking to buy. He has had a hard time getting the lenders to even care. The FBI and lender ratings agencies were interested, though.

The way it works is home is for sale for $600K. Then $550K. 1 year passes. Boom, it sells for $725K. Fake appraisal to get the loan to go thru. Cash back at closing. New buyer has bad credit, just lets it go to foreclosure. Some cases have a good 7 to 9 homes under 1 person. I was told this happen s in HR. In the end, it runs up the comps.

[vdogg]

Commercial real estate market heats up, residential squeezed

The retail, apartment and office-building sectors of Hampton Roads real estate are likely to thrive this year, but home building will be under continued pressure, speakers at Old Dominion University's annual real estate forecast predicted Wednesday. The pace of home sales in Hampton Roads accelerated in January, but builders have to contend with a large inventory of existing homes still on the market, J. Van Rose Jr., president of the realty firm Rose and Womble Enterprises, said to about 750 people gathered.

[Telmnstr]

Check out this link a friend just showed me:

http://www.delatores.com/blog/default.aspx...es-For-Software

Virginia Beach ranks in the top 10 worst cities to be a programmer.

[vdogg]

Check out this link a friend just showed me:

http://www.delatores.com/blog/default.aspx...es-For-Software

Virginia Beach ranks in the top 10 worst cities to be a programmer.

Adjusted for cost of living we beat New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Fransisco, San Jose, Long Beach, Oakland and Honolulu. D.C. barely beats us and it's about as high tech as you get around there. Perhaps because programmers are so prolific in the above mentioned areas is why the salaries are so low. We have a lot of former military talent that the private sector can feed off of resulting in little or no competition based wage hikes. I imagined that it is the same in the other more well established and much larger cities. Of course this is not the point you were getting too, you finally found a list that our region hit bottom on instead of the numerous other top 10 lists that we consistently rank on and just had to post it.

[Telmnstr]

Adjusted for cost of living we beat New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Fransisco, San Jose, Long Beach, Oakland and Honolulu. D.C. barely beats us and it's about as high tech as you get around there. Perhaps because programmers are so prolific in the above mentioned areas is why the salaries are so low. We have a lot of former military talent that the private sector can feed off of resulting in little or no competition based wage hikes. I imagined that it is the same in the other more well established and much larger cities. Of course this is not the point you were getting too, you finally found a list that our region hit bottom on instead of the numerous other top 10 lists that we consistently rank on and just had to post it.

True. My friend who pointed it out said they always have openings at his company in San Jose for $120K+, and cannot fill them, and people do come around looking for more. So I dunno what is up with the San Jose numbers (He used to be fairly senior at Paypal and eBay, and circle of friends hits Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc).

I don't know overall, but those I know that were coding @ Tader Online were fetching $45K ? Anyone know what the median programmer salary is there?

[scm]

Farm Fresh plans overhaul of stores in Norfolk

Interesting changes -- kosher meat market in the Ghent GW Marketplace, new FF across from ODU, renovation of OV FF will include a Starbucks, possible FF urban market in Portsmouth.....

[urbanvb]

Sounds like a step in the right direction.

Grant stokes region's bid to bolster tech industry

NORFOLK - Citing job losses from the closings of Ford's F-150 truck plant and a Peninsula military base, the Hampton Roads Partnership has snagged a $915,000 federal grant to help the local technology industry grow.

The competitive grant, announced Thursday by the U.S. Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration, will be used to promote three high-tech clusters that local leaders say are key to diversifying the region's economy and creating high-paying jobs.