New Jersey Real Estate Report

According to the National Association of Realtors, the answer is no, it has always been a good time to buy…

…even during the darkest depths of the Great Depression. Unemployment was nearing 16% and approximately 8 million Americans were unemployed. Banks were in turmoil, with roughly 2,000 banks failing in 1931, including the New York Bank of the United States (the largest bank failure in the history of the nation at the time). You might think that in the midst of the worst economic downturn the world had ever seen the Realtors might would show some restraint.

Nope, it’s a great time to buy a home!

From Screaming Frog Productions:

http://www.screamingfrog.com

More information about this clip can be found here:

http://www.thejobtheshort.com/

Hat tip to chicagofinance for this gem.

From the New Jersey Association of Realtors:

Realtors say New Jersey home sales are healthy

Sales volume of existing single family homes, condominiums and co-ops in the fourth quarter of 2007 are stable.

According to statistics released by the National Association of Realtors last week,“New Jersey’s real-estate market continues to offer a number of tremendous opportunities,” said NJAR 2008 President Drew Fishman. “With extremely low mortgage interest rates and large selections of homes for sale, conditions are good right now for people to enter the housing market.”

Fishman noted that the fourth-quarter statistics show that home sales in New Jersey remain healthy and that New Jersey does not follow national housing trends. New Jersey’s seasonally adjusted annual rate of home sales equaled 128,400 in the fourth quarter of 2007.

“While other states have seen home sales plummet, New Jersey’s housing market remains stable,” added Fishman. “Some housing markets in New Jersey have even experienced a slight appreciation in home sales prices.”

After Binghamton, New York, fourth quarter median sales price of existing single-family homes in the Atlantic City area showed the largest increase in the entire Northeast region.

The median sales price grew from $251,900 in fourth quarter 2006 to $278,800 in 2007, an increase of 10.7 percent. The Trenton-Ewing market also experienced an increase in median sales price. The median sales price rose from $289,000 in the forth quarter 2006 to $306,800 in 2007, an increase of 6.2 percent. In the Newark-Union area the median sales price increased by 5.3 percent and in the metropolitan Philadelphia area prices rose by 1.1 percent.

“Looking at national statistics or even statewide statistics doesn’t paint the full picture,” Fishman said. “All real estate is local, and that it is why it is so vital to contact a Realtor. A Realtor can help explain local housing trends and give you better understanding of what is truly happening in your local market.”

From the SF Gate:

A would-be real estate mogul follows boom tips straight to bust

Real estate, also a world where appearances often trump content, operates according to a similar couching of reality. “Putting together” a loan package, for instance, or “writing up” an offer or “leveraging” your investment — all these practices have their customary manipulations that many insiders give the nod to — even when the practices are illegal, unethical or sometimes just stupid.

So when some loudmouth neophyte comes along with the sordid blow-by-blow of his real estate dealings — from the “get real estate quick” seminars to the credit card-funded down payments, the stated income loans (a.k.a. “liar loans”) to the over-leveraged portfolio, all collapsing in multiple foreclosures — it’s a confession worth listening to.

Welcome to the world according to Casey Serin, a 24-year-old real estate investor and author of the self-flagellating blog Iamfacingforeclosure.com. If Robert Kiyosaki was the pin-up patriarch for the real estate boom, Casey must be the poster child for its fall.
…
What does Serin tell us about his situation? Basically everything. The ins and outs of his deals, how much he paid, what went wrong and how he is now going begging to the banks for approval to do a short sale (to avoid foreclosure by selling the houses at less than the amount of the debt). He expresses worry about whether he will go to jail for mortgage fraud and posts the distress letters he’s written to his lenders. He even explains his strategies for avoiding creditors’ nagging phone calls.

What Serin reveals about himself is that he’s a sucker for every real estate myth that the industry has been feeding us for the past 10 years: that the market will always go up, that if you buy at a discount you’re safe from financial risk, that gurus are doling out useful advice for the beginning real estate investor — and that if you make enough deals, you’re sure to come out ahead.

From the Onion:

Home Sales Dropping

For the third straight month, sales on preexisting homes dropped, leading realtors to call it a “buyer’s market.” Here are some strategies sellers are using to entice buyers:

• Dropping price by 50 bucks
• Carrying around wad of money; acting like owning this house got them that money
• Pointing out dishwasher several times
• Explaining to potential buyers how fulfilling it is to make mortgage payment on time
• Telling long, touching story about how grandmother needs $312,500 for kidney operation
• Letting third blouse button go
• Drowning out sound of noisy furnace with soulful vocals of Michael McDonald
• Reassuring buyers that people purchase things they can’t afford all the time

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