Monthly Archives: November 2009

Weekend Open Discussion

Posted on November 15, 2009 by grim

This is the time and place to post observations about your local areas, comments on news stories or the New Jersey housing market, open house reports, etc. If you have any questions you wanted to ask earlier in the week … Continue reading →

Posted in General | 115 Comments

Sign of the times (Or how $415,000 became $895,000 and ended up $330,000)

Posted on November 13, 2009 by grim

Step 1: Buy a house for $415,000 (April, 2000) Step 2: Cash out to the tune of $600,000 (June, 2005) Step 3: Sell out and profit, a 115% gain in 6 years seems reasonable (May, 2006) MLS# 2276951 10 Brookvale … Continue reading →

Posted in Housing Bubble, New Jersey Real Estate, Risky Lending | 356 Comments

October foreclosures up 19%

Posted on November 12, 2009 by grim

From the WSJ: US Foreclosure Filings Up 19% In Oct, But Positives Seen The number of U.S. properties for which a foreclosure filing was received grew 19% in October from a year earlier, but declined for the third month sequentially, … Continue reading →

Posted in Housing Bubble, National Real Estate, Risky Lending | 462 Comments

New Jersey home prices down in Q3

Posted on November 10, 2009 by grim

From the National Association of Realtors: Metropolitan Area Existing-Home Prices and State Existing-Home Sales Metropolitan Area / Q3 Year over Year Price Decline Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ / Down 6.1% Atlantic City, NJ / Down 10.4% New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, New Jersey Real Estate | 269 Comments

Fearing a crisis? It’s already here.

Posted on November 10, 2009 by grim

From NJBIZ: Fearing a commercial real estate crisis Distress among commercial real estate mortgages in New Jersey is intensifying, with more properties in the state going back to the lenders. Some industry insiders say a crisis may be in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, New Jersey Real Estate | 366 Comments

“Towns have a choice: We can do it ourselves or wait for the state to do it for us.”

Posted on November 9, 2009 by grim

From the Star Ledger NJ Voices Blog: Sussex Borough and Wantage: A tough sell on N.J. town mergers In a leafy corner of the state, far from the epicenter of a nasty gubernatorial election, voters from the Sussex County towns … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, New Jersey Real Estate, Politics | 138 Comments

What Recession?

Posted on November 8, 2009 by grim

From the Philly Inquirer: N.J. has been hit hard by the recession From 2004 through the end of 2007, the go-go years of the national real estate bubble, New Jersey’s private-sector job growth was just 2 percent, less than a … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, New Jersey Real Estate | 77 Comments

Unemployment/Underemployment Reaches 17.5%

Posted on November 7, 2009 by grim

From the NY Times: Broader Measure of Unemployment Stands at 17.5% For all the pain caused by the Great Recession, the job market still was not in as bad shape as it had been during the depths of the early … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, National Real Estate | 111 Comments

Save Housing, At Any Cost (again)

Posted on November 6, 2009 by grim

From the WSJ Developments Blog: It’s (Almost) Official: Home Buyer Tax Credit Extended, Expanded Congress voted on Thursday to extend the tax credit and President Obama plans on signing it into law Friday morning. The $8,000 credit will apply to … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, National Real Estate | 251 Comments

Construction loan crisis

Posted on November 5, 2009 by grim

From the Philly Inquirer: Bad home-building loans plague banks As financial regulators shift their sights to the mounting problems with commercial real estate loans, many Philadelphia-area banks remain bogged down in bad loans for residential construction. Led by construction loans, … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Housing Bubble, New Jersey Real Estate | 248 Comments

All eyes on the fat man

Posted on November 4, 2009 by grim

From the Star Ledger NJ Voices Blog: Property taxes the major concern for N.J. voters despite political affiliation Route 78 cuts through New Jersey. More accurately, it cuts through the many New Jerseys. Every dozen or so miles, the towns … Continue reading →

Posted in New Jersey Real Estate, Property Taxes | 308 Comments

Get out and vote

Posted on November 3, 2009 by grim

From the Star Ledger: Next N.J. governor is in hands of voters Now it’s voters’ turn: Polls will be open across the state from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. today for the General Election. Three major candidates, Democratic Gov. Jon … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 315 Comments

Own a priceless piece of history (at its 1987 price)

Posted on November 2, 2009 by grim

From the Star Ledger: Whitney Houston unloading Mendham estate Whitney Houston has put the 5-acre Mendham estate where she married singer Bobby Brown on the market for $2.5 million, far less than its assessed value of $5.6 million. The 12,561-square-foot … Continue reading →

Posted in Humor, New Jersey Real Estate | 24 Comments

East Rutherford Auction Sells Out

Posted on November 2, 2009 by grim

From the Record: Hard-to-move condos go quickly at auction In one afternoon, the developer of an East Rutherford condo complex sold 26 units in his 32-unit complex. Sales of the two-bedroom, two-bath homes in the new Courtland Arms building had … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, New Jersey Real Estate | 204 Comments