I had a dream....

[SinkingFast]

Did anyone see Good Morning America this am? Talked about how the foreclosure rate is climbing. The adjustables are starting to raise. Said it could be good for homebuyers, not for homesellers.

The first set of buyers that expressed interest in our house "appeared" well qualified and were supposedly gonna offer a fair, price, within 95% of asking. We got so excited. They weren't contingent. Pre approved supposedly. They wrote the offer, faxed it off to be signed, and everything came back but the signature page. How odd. Just that one page. Then we hear the guy wants to think about it a bit more. Next thing we knew, it turns out they couldn't afford to buy our house after all. The couple had snookered the Real Estate Agent. Suddenly that couple is shopping houses less than half the price of ours.

Months go by, and we get the next offer. It was $20K below asking to start and the couple wanted us to pay all closing costs. $10K worth of closing costs. What twerked me was it was a Corporate relo for Sprint. I am almost certain that Sprint was picking up the tab and they were just trying to gouge us on the closing costs. Even at that, we woulda cleared the mortgage, our costs and thiers, and cleared less than $5K on the house. We said, "No thank you!" to that offer.

The offers got worse. Our contingent buyer's offer expired a couple days ago. He hasn't been able to sell his house. And his offer to us was $5K less than where we woulda been if the Sprint Relo couple had bought. By selling for less, our costs were lower, the buyer was paying thier own costs, so we woulda made the same money. That deal never came thru.

A couple weeks ago, we had an offer for $20K less than we owe on the property and $40K less than we're asking. The people wanna knock out this wall and expand the kitchen. They want to remodel that. They figured all the costs to do what they wanted into their offer and that's where they came up with thier really low ball figure.

In the meantime, our contingent buyer is desperately trying to sell his house so he can buy our house. He's pestering our Realtor for us to drop our price $15K more so he can drop his price on his house. Then we got the Foreclosure sale notice. The Realtor told the buyer we can't go as low as he wants because the bank wants more money than he's asked us to drop to. He finally shut up, his contingency expired, and our house gets auctioned off in a couple of weeks.

It's a buyer's market right now. The Realtor says everybody (meaning other realtors and Real Estate offices) is slow and buyers are tendering lower offers.

[Minnymouth]

Gonna be lots of auctions in the future......................

[robivi3]

Down here, money flows. There are alot of hatians and South Americans walking around with 40 or 50 grand and finding their home and bidding wars ensue. You have to be careful about lumping SoFla into the pot. We are an anomaly and the housing market is still good, not as hot as a year ago, for sellers, still very good.

The lady across the street is a single mom, she and her mom did the bidding thing about six months ago and put down 40 grand. According to several friends in Real Estate the foreclosures are going to hit the 600,000 and up range real well. That's that income level where you just jump the mark to qualify. People i work with are buying 400,000 and 500,000 dollar homes but given the nature of the job and longevity alot of them are paying 40 - 50 % down, good management over the years. There are $18.00 an hour car Cleaners where i work who own Apt. Buildings, and they are not few. They are not huge million dollar complexes but some of the guys where i work do maintenance for some of the other guys and they say that most fix them up nicely and try to get steady renters. Money is different here because it comes from all over, the place is an anomoly.

Likely most of the places i showed you have a contract, anything below 300 grand here sells quickly. The CU pulled my Credit Report and approved me for a HELOC in two days (this week). We are repairing HCane damage, redoing bathrooms and Stuccoing the front. They don't even want an appraisal. I want to get the house ready to sell.

[FilingOnMyOwn]

I had heard of the 50 year mortage and then it made the news again this morning......

Guess thats for when you buy at home at 18 years of age, huh.....

Imagine the interest paid out on that loan..............

The ONLY advantage I can see to this loan would be, if you were in a situation to make big payments from time to time. Like self-employed, or took your income tax return every year and bonuses towards your mortgage. Then your payment would be lower, but you'd pay extra when you could. And this is assuming they don't penalize you for paying ahead of schedule.

[aa06a47]

It is really only a good mortgage if your plan on moving in a short period of time, like 5 years or less. Most people around where I live anyway, never pay there house off, they house hop ever 3-5 years.

[robivi3]

AMIS, the problem here for buyers is that alot of folks aren't moving or won't lower the price. As you know in Florida your taxes can only increase 3% per year if you remain in the home. If you bought at 86,000 you apy taxes at the that rate plus 3% per year. Now, in my case the fols who just bought at 240,000 are paying about 5000.00 per year, I pay 1645.00.

You can't lump SoFla with the rest of the Country. They talk about recessions and all and falling prices, yeah it's slowed some here, but we are OUT of land and people white, black and latin are coming in daily in large numbers and new 400,000 SF homes are still selling well with no problem. The economy here is totally different from the rest of the Country. There is one hell of alot of money down here, just wish i had some of it. People are still bidding on homes. Mr. Chavez has even had a direct effect on real estate in Boca, those homes will never decrease in price, Venezuelans will do business and gain more wealth and drive the prices higher. Saw this place off and look at it as a curiosity, it ain't TN, TX, MD, PENN or any of those, it is an anomoly.

It is likely that Latins own much of Cumberland County land in TN. A realtor friend of mine in Cumberland County told me that South Florida money is driving up the market in Tennessee. He says people from Miami are coming up and just buying plats of lots CASH. Latins are very business savvy. When that area goes, they'll move on to another hot area.