“hoping” should be “hopping”.

“Tighten credit” should be “tight credit”.

“I think you will really start seeing some strength now.” should be “I think the market has about 50% more and 3 – 5 years to fall, no matter what some silly “Reelitoors” spout out on blogs all over North America.”

BTW, since you’re hopping all over North America, how are igloo sales coming along up there in the Yukon? I heard the whole market is still frozen over. Har-dee-har-har ;-)

Thanks for the idea.

This could be a costco sized chocolate box out in elma.

I would love to see this chart with total $ value closed. That would be REALLY interesting, I suspect. And shouldn’t be too difficult, I suspect.

Lee

$90 is fair.

Who’s your agent?

Your Earnst Money is applied to closing costs which may be more than that. You will need to see the HUD1 which is required for your submitted offer to be accepted. If you don’t have escrow established with the estimated HUD1 statement you don’t have a viable offer in.

Put the wallet down and walk away…NOW!

Andy YOUR agent or the LISTING Agent should be answering all your questions.

What is earnest money?????????? Are you kidding us??

With your knowlege of this transaction it appears you will become another statistic or at BEST waste alot of your time.

Andy- do you have any idea what the hell you are doing? Sorry bud, but see my post above for relevant quotes. Maybe you should research the current market and real estate purchases/ownership in general before throwing 10 large at something you clearly don’t understand.

Sorry that should be June for the peak month of 2004, my guess for 2009 peak is still July though.

The only way to lower the assessed value is to appeal the assessment once you own it, and find comparables to demonstrate that your house was assessed too high, or show photographs to demonstrate that your house is inferior to the neighbors.

Lenders are very aware of the current market value, and generally have a percentage under that in which they will consider accepting an offer for.

Here is why: I cannot identify and factor changes from the prior years that would in my opinion support a change in the trends of the closing sales data. Sure the stimulus package has its effect. So does more job losses. Yes, housing is becoming less expensive. However we are not anywhere near fire-sale prices yet, or in this potential buyers opinion, prices that I will buy into. Loose credit and another emerging bubble like the one that just collapsed? Don’t think so.

Maybe you could keep track of the predictions from people who want to be “on the record” and revisit specific predictions in a post later in the year.

1500 max. 1300 wouldn’t surprise me. As Einstien said, only two things are infinite- the universe and human stupidity… and he admitted he wasn’t sure about the universe.

Macroeconomic factors really have very little to do with it at this point. It’s straight math. As Greg points out, we are seeing over 2,000 pendings a month. And my bet is that the close:pending ratio is more likely to get better at this point than it is to get worse. Money is easing up – especially at the low end of the market where all the action is. So worst case is 65% of pendings close (2,500 * 65% =1,625) and more likely we see 70 – 75% of pendings close.

OK, just kidding. :)

I picked the 1251 to 1500 category, but I was tempted to go up a notch. It’s not like home buyers are using their brains when they buy. They’re acting on 100% impulsiveness and falling victim to the difficulty in excercising the willpower necessary to save enough money to actually afford to buy something. Thus, home sales will track free government handouts. Half of those who buy a house this year will be unemployed strawberry pickers using FHA and the free taxpayer-funded downpayment. The other half will be “me too” follower victims whom can’t think for themselves and simply do what everyone else seems to be doing. A few legitimate sales will be made by people who make decisions based on thinking it over more than a week.

Green shoots appear to be nothing more than free handouts to the gullible. I expect this recession to take the form of a W with no “real” growth until 2011 or later. The antectote for screwing up the economy appears to be to increase doing the things that messed it up in the first place. The first half of the W was driven by deflationary forces, and the second half will likely be driven by inflationary forces. Whatever happens, I predict it will make for one heck of a ride out to the other side.

I’m stunned to see asking prices are still double what they were in 2000; yet, wages haven’t kept paces with today’s house prices. People are saying houses are cheap. But they are comparing today’s prices to the peak of an asset bubble where you didn’t need a job or a downpayment to buy a house. Even though the govt. is doing everything in its power to recreate these artificial conditions in the current market, I’m left wondering, where are all the people going to get the loans for non-starter homes when the Alt-A mess starts wiping out the market? I suspect the second half of the W will bail all these nannies out. But, keeping in mind the burden of higher interest rates on ARM loans, the cost of doing so will be excruciating.

Then again, I could be completely wrong.

1) You’re trying to point out very small differences.
2) The y-axis is temperature or some other value for which 0 doesn’t mean anything much physical.

I could do Seattle weather with a lot more accuracy sitting on the john each morning. Let’s see, lows 35-50, highs 45-62, partly cloudy, chance of drizzle. That pretty much covers every month except for July and August.

FWIW, I doubt we’ll be as flat as last year, and wouldn’t be surprised to see 1,800 sales in a month, assuming prices continue dropping into reasonable territory.

I must agree with Tytler as well if he guessed 1200-3500. Steve would make a killing at the fair guessing weight and birth dates as well.

OK, keep your 1899.

My new guess is 1898-1900, somewhere in there, or I could, by channeling that Steve Tytler guy, guess it’s gonna be right around 1200 to 3500 or so. Yeah, that’s the ticket, right in there, that is my precise 3rd guess. Just wait, you’ll see I’m right.

;-)

http://www.425realty.com/.a/6a00d83451cc6269e20115708af219970b-500wi

Trend for this year looks a lot better there…

And given +2100 pendings in April – hard to believe we won’t see at least 1200 closings in May – maybe closer to 1400 if last quarter’s bleak closing ratio holds.

However, it’d be better if the y-axis would start at 0, as this shows true scale.

Since I don’t think there will be any big season this year, as, for example, the 2007 graph, I will use the 2008 graph example to come up with 1125 as the max sales, and this would be in the Month of July (what with the global cooling coming on, August may just have everybody back inside their rental houses with their hot chocolate and fire places blazing).

So:

1125 July

You heard it here, first.