Rate your realtor

AgentQOS.com of Whittier allows consumers to rate their real estate agents. Full story

New builder sales technique: auctions

Rising unsold inventories are causing builders to look at auctions as a necessary evil for clearing back inventories. Full story

A delightful Times romp

One has to appreciate an op-ed exploring concepts of loss in real estate sales that ends with lines like "Extreme libertarians and fundamentalists make conservative Republicans look moderate."
Full story in the Los Angeles Times

Homeowners in trouble

According to the Los Angeles Times, default notices have more than doubled in the July-September period of this year vs. 2005, for a total of more than 26,000 notices being mailed in the state. Almost as worringly, the rate of those who entered default and actually lost their homes tripled, from 6% to 19%. On the positive side, defaults have not risen to 1996 levels, when nearly 60,000 homes entered default in one quarter. Illustratory vignette:
"Just Wednesday morning, Zhang dealt with a Lancaster resident who had taken out a $310,000 adjustable-rate mortgage with a starter interest rate of 5.4% and a monthly payment of $1,050. In July, the interest rate climbed to 8.5% and the monthly payment jumped to $2,306. A year-end adjustment will send the monthly payment to $2,744."
Favorite quotation from an agent:
"We were putting buyers in homes with loans they could not afford to sustain over the long haul," said Bob Casagrand, a San Diego real estate agent. "If you're a marginal buyer with an adjustable mortgage, you're rolling the dice on the future."
Full story

Am I Reading The Onion or The NYT?

Every once in a while, one comes across an article that sparks this question. NYT's real estate section had a piece this morning that verges on Onion territory. The subject is the pickiness of children in real estate, and their tendency to make mean, hurtful comments about the inferior properties of others. Let's go to the article: "Children, once assumed to be oblivious to the nuances of real estate, now know what is prized and what is not, and often feel free to comment on what they observe." The best, however, is the caption on the accompanying photo: "Henry Friedman took his classmates on a house tour." Glad to now that's part of the news that's fit to print.

Full story

Sales Decline

SoCal homes sales are down 25% vs. figures from a year ago, while prices rise less than 3%. Full story