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A small dose of real estate reality

GRDadof3

By GRDadof3
in Grand Rapids

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

Posted
Posted

People have been moaning about the housing sales activity in Grand Rapids. It might be time to be thankful we're not some other markets, like TAMPA! :o

Greater Tampa Association of Realtors

From peak to trough:

Existing home sales peak - 2005 - 28,846 homes sold - total homes listed 8478

Last year - 14,750 homes sold - 20,758 total homes listed

A drop of 50% in sales and a jump of 150% in listings!

Here's Grand Rapids Association of Realtors

Existing home sales peak - 2003 - 13,840 homes sold - no stats on # of listings

Last year - 11,327 homes sold

A mere drop of 20%? A metro area of 2.7 Million people only sold just a few thousand more homes than GR last year.

I have more shocking stats you guys won't believe that I'll post when I get a chance (like Greater Phoenix dropping from 110,000 to 64,000 homes sold in one year).

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ModSquad Hamlet

ModSquad

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At the same time, Lighthouse just got back some appraisals on some of our stuff that we have been unable to sell and we have seen a 20-25% drop in values since our appraisals last year. Statistically there are 5,000 foreclosures in Grand Rapids right now and from what we can tell, 1,000 of them are in the 2 zip codes in which we concentrate our work. HUD just took back over 165 foreclosed homes in the Grand Rapids City Limits and that number is expected to balloon to 300 in the next 6 months. Don't mean to bring you all down but welcome to my reality on the SE side!

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speed2fast Unincorporated Area

speed2fast

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At the same time, Lighthouse just got back some appraisals on some of our stuff that we have been unable to sell and we have seen a 20-25% drop in values since our appraisals last year. Statistically there are 5,000 foreclosures in Grand Rapids right now and from what we can tell, 1,000 of them are in the 2 zip codes in which we concentrate our work. HUD just took back over 165 foreclosed homes in the Grand Rapids City Limits and that number is expected to balloon to 300 in the next 6 months. Don't mean to bring you all down but welcome to my reality on the SE side!
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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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At the same time, Lighthouse just got back some appraisals on some of our stuff that we have been unable to sell and we have seen a 20-25% drop in values since our appraisals last year. Statistically there are 5,000 foreclosures in Grand Rapids right now and from what we can tell, 1,000 of them are in the 2 zip codes in which we concentrate our work. HUD just took back over 165 foreclosed homes in the Grand Rapids City Limits and that number is expected to balloon to 300 in the next 6 months. Don't mean to bring you all down but welcome to my reality on the SE side!
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PR-15 Whistle-Stop

PR-15

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I unfortunately own an "extra" house in Cherry Hill. I finally pulled it off the market in December after 16 months and dropping my asking price $30K in the process.

I put it up for lease and had that puppy rented in about a week! (thanks leasegr.com!) :thumbsup:

I wish I would have pulled it 9 months ago...rental rates seem to be very steady.

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NorthCoast Hamlet

NorthCoast

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Unfortunately for sellers (like my parents) home values are plummeting. It is a great time to buy in Michigan if you can talk someone into coming here. And values are expected to fall maybe another 20k by this time next year. My parents house, which they are going to be selling will most likely appraise at about 20k less than what its actually worth. And if you took the same house and plopped it into where they would be moving too it probably would be worth 40k more than what it will appraise for here.

I should mention my parents are leaving Michigan not exactly by choice. My dad got promoted and will now have to work out of his company's corporate office in Columbus, Ohio. Not that there is anything wrong with Ohio, in fact its were my family is from originally but they've lived here for 18 years, had their roots set, and were very happy with the Grand Rapids region.

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ModSquad Hamlet

ModSquad

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I unfortunately own an "extra" house in Cherry Hill. I finally pulled it off the market in December after 16 months and dropping my asking price $30K in the process.

I put it up for lease and had that puppy rented in about a week! (thanks leasegr.com!) :thumbsup:

I wish I would have pulled it 9 months ago...rental rates seem to be very steady.

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GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

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Unfortunately for sellers (like my parents) home values are plummeting. It is a great time to buy in Michigan if you can talk someone into coming here. And values are expected to fall maybe another 20k by this time next year. My parents house, which they are going to be selling will most likely appraise at about 20k less than what its actually worth. And if you took the same house and plopped it into where they would be moving too it probably would be worth 40k more than what it will appraise for here.

I should mention my parents are leaving Michigan not exactly by choice. My dad got promoted and will now have to work out of his company's corporate office in Columbus, Ohio. Not that there is anything wrong with Ohio, in fact its were my family is from originally but they've lived here for 18 years, had their roots set, and were very happy with the Grand Rapids region.

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NorthCoast Hamlet

NorthCoast

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A home can't sell for "$20K less than its actually worth". A home is worth what someone will pay for it. :thumbsup:

Here's Greater Phoenix:

Peak to trough

Existing home sales peak - 2005 - 132,025 homes sold

Last year - 62,450 homes sold

Drop of 53%

Greater Las Vegas

Existing home sales peak - 2005 - 36105 homes sold

Last year - 17,415 homes sold

Drop of 52%

Also should note that in December 07, 13% of home sales in Vegas were bank repossessions (they get recorded as "sales" to the bank).

These are all existing home sales stats, not including new home sales which have fallen off a cliff all over the country.

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NorthCoast Hamlet

NorthCoast

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Sorry, but the state doesn't say what your home is worth. They are not appraisers or real estate professionals. The local governments make tax "assessments", which people mistakenly believe is directly tied to "market value", but I've seen homes valued all over the map in relation to their assessed values. But some people have successfully gotten their assessments lowered, FWIW.

I think what you are trying to say is the home will sell for less than what your parents would like for the home?

As I said, it could be MUCH worse. In the areas I've highlighted already, there's about a 1.5 - 2 year inventory of homes on the market.

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Rizzo City

Rizzo

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Ditto here...and I just had it assessed a week ago for a loan refi showing it's supposedly gone up 7.5% over what I bought it a year ago (hey, whatever they want to say to get me my loan...no complaints here!). The only reason I can think that the city would record a drop in property values is because the state SEV dropped (and assessment for property taxes can't be higher than SEV value, at least per the assessment letter). If this is the case, this is a nice case of the east side of the state really screwing the west side again (on top of a disproportionate amount of our (west siders) tax money being transferred over to east-side programs, etc.)
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suydam Hamlet

suydam

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Rizzo, I unfortunately don't have any numbers to back up my claims. All I have to go on is my memory of the past couple of elections (and state budget issues) that had candidates from this side of the state calling for tax reform / spending reform in order to have the state allocate money more accurately based on where it was collected from (just purely as example, definitely not the right numbers, but if West Michigan paid 40% of all taxes collected by the state, it only received 30% of state spending on schools, roads, etc., etc.)

To what extent this "problem" exists, I have no good answer for it, other than I hear that it does noticeably exist. (Fairly easy assumptions would lead one to think the same, simply by looking at where a lot of the poverty in the state is...Flint, Saginaw, Detroit, etc...places where a lot of money needs to be spent on education, policing, and infrastructure, but without a high income base for taxing purposes).

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Rizzo City

Rizzo

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Sure sounds like a west side urban legend to me.

Metro Detroit-Ann Arbor-Sagniaw (if you take the broad definition) has about 50% of the state's entire population and at least 2/3rds of the largest companies if you use the Detroit Free Press' annual list.

Of course the majority of programs are going to be there too and a majority of state tax dollars will be spent there.

It's like Wyoming complaining that New York City gets more money for anti-terrorism funding....which they've done, and to which I've responded "well duh."

Don't forget...GR is the bright spot right now... but all things being equal, Detroit is to GR about the same way GR is to Jackson.

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