For what it’s worth i think now is the time to look for deals.

Nice one. it is excactly that – time to look for deals. So do other 1000000 or so residents of NJ. Every house priced under markets sells within a week.
It is a GREAT time to sell a house – just price it right.

“Also you have to admit this blog is more bearish than average buyer.”

I watched the “average buyer” in action between 1999 and 2006 and was not impressed.

Prices will fall for another couple of years (except in manhattan, where they will fall for the next four years).
Perfectly good reason to wait.

Yeah

All of that.

“Major job cuts by pharmaceutical companies since January 2007, and when they were announced:

_ Schering-Plough Corp., 5,500 jobs, 10 percent of staff (April 2)

_ Wyeth, 5,000 jobs, or 10 percent, Jan. 25

_ Novartis AG, more than 3,760 jobs, or 4 percent (Oct. 2007-Jan. 2008)

_ Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., about 4,200, 10 percent (Dec. 2007)

_ Bayer AG, 1,500 jobs, 1.5 percent (Nov. 2007)

_ GlaxoSmithKline PLC, unspecified jobs (Oct. 2007)

_ King Pharmaceuticals Inc., 560 jobs, or 20 percent (Oct. 2007)

_ Johnson & Johnson, up to 4,800 jobs, or 4 percent (July 2007)

_ AstraZeneca PLC, 7,600 jobs, 4 percent (July 2007)

_ Encysive Pharmaceuticals Inc., 150 jobs, 70 percent (June 2007)

_ Pfizer Inc., 10,000 jobs, or 10 percent (Jan. 2007)

_ Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc., 267 jobs, or 76 percent (Jan. 2007)

Prior major restructurings:

_ Merck & Co., trimmed 7,200 jobs since December 2005.

_ Eli Lilly & Co., trimmed more than 5,000 jobs, about 11 percent, since 2004 and continuing.”

that sounds like my area, so I can buy a condo for the same price as a house 10-15 miles away.

Something is broken :)

For what it’s worth i think now is the time to look for deals.
Layoffs left and right, fifth largest IB bankrupt, largest morgrage originator almost bankrupt, hundreds of billions of losses, worst credit crunch in decades
…
Just don’t see the point in waiting more.

While we are starting to see deals emerge from distressed sellers, banks, or even smart sellers who understand it’s time to get out, I don’t think we are at the point yet where “now is the time to look for deals”.

While the stock market reacts in real time, or in anticipation of, negative economic events, asking prices on homes tend to be backward looking (after all, asking prices are set based on comparables; what sold last month, six months ago or last year). The bad news doesn’t get priced-in for some time. Did we see a wave of sellers cut their asking prices after Bear collapsed? Of course not.

Sellers tend to be very slow to react. Marge & Homer Homeseller don’t understand the connection between their home and Wall Street, IB bankruptcies or write-downs of CDO’s & SIV’s. They only “get it” when their home sits on the market unsold. After which, their first reaction is usually to get angry. Their realtor svcks; buyers are too cheap; after all, they aren’t just going to “give away” their house; their home, after all, is so much nicer than their neighbor’s house that sold in 2005 and we are even asking $2,000 less than they got! These sellers, to their own detriment, often dig in their heels refusing to “lose money” (i.e. realize either a real loss versus what they paid or even a theoretical loss versus the market peak).

Housing bubbles don’t burst like stock market bubbles do. They die excruciatingly slow deaths. While we are surrounded by bad news, many sellers refuse to give up the fight. This is why waiting still makes sense.

632 Lawlins Road, Wyckoff

Purchased: 5/15/1987
Purchase Price: $304,000

MLS# 2734801

Currently Asking: $499,000

This is crazy! Less than 2.5% a year appreciation. Adjusted for inflation (headline CPI), this property needs to be sold for more than $566,000 to break even.

Didn’t the Realtor commercial say that the price of a property doubles every 10 years?

If so, this place should be selling for $1,216,000.

Here we are, TWENTY years later and the property hasn’t even come close to doubling on a nominal basis.

I guess that doesn’t have the same ring to it.

It deserves a ‘booyah’. I haven’t given up hope yet. I’m bangin’ my head against the wall and I continue to scrape money together. Who said war was easy? ;)

tol: The answer is bifurcated. If your target is commutable to NYC wait. If not, these people a f—ed beyond recognition so go for it. The NYC pain is just starting in earnest. It will take a summer to bake into a nice souffle.

You want anecdotes?

My GSB/Cornell alumni events usually take a couple of weeks to fill up. Now any event with the slightest whiff of a financial bent sells out instantly.

I’m hearing stories about the all kinds of bankers sitting in the Starbucks reading the WSJ cover-to-cover again….

This SUV “station wagon” is a mild hybrid with a 4 cylinder engine with an electric motor mated to the tranny (transmission). Base price is 21 K plus options for the non-hybrid. The mild hybrid adds only 2 k to the price, but gets 32 average mpg highway and 25 mpg local and weighs about 4k lbs.

I plan on moving and want decent mileage for a commute plus something new, and I had to get rid of the Hummer by May.

GMAC is willing to wipe the remaining 2 payments and 5k miles over the lease limit.
I save about 2k on the H3 lease and I was able to negotiate another 1k off the price plus lock in 1.9% financing.

I will be one of the first in NJ to drive this new 2008 Saturn VUE Hybrids since I snatched the dealer model before it arrived from Mexico.

I purchased this silver hybrid model.

http://www.edmunds.com/apps/vdpcontainers/do/MediaNav/styleId=100951659/firstNav=Gallery

Pray for me that it is not a lemon…..

Can I get a booyaah?

71 Primrose Lane, Closter (aka Upper Haughtyville) NJ

Purchased: 12/19/2006
Purchase Price: $580,000

MLS# 2800974
Original List Price: $655,000

Currently asking: $499,000