Chuck Ponzi May 15th, 2008

If you know any flippers in trouble in Orange County, Flip This House wants to know about them. Yes, you know… that show. I think it’ll be interesting to see if there are any great stories that come out of them. Basically, as a blogger, I can stand back and watch the fireworks from a distance without getting my hands dirty, a kind of sanitized schadenfreude that comes with not getting involved.

However, if you know someone who tried to flip in Orange County and couldn’t pull it off, or just is having a hard time, Brandy from Flip This House wants to hear from you. Write to her at the following address: realestatenightmares(at)gmail.com Of course, I get no part of this other than the sick satisfaction of seeing the final product like other train-wreck watchers out there. Besides, the way I feel about it is that I warned people publicly as early as April 2005 that flipping was a dangerous sport, so if you falldowngetbooboo, I don’t have any sympathy for you. Pound sand.

On the other hand, if you get some kind of sick pleasure out of watching other people financially crash and burn after they’ve been warned that they’re playing with fire… well, you’re my kind of people.

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Chuck Ponzi May 13th, 2008

There are 2 must-reads for the future of foreclosures:

1. Calculated Risk has a great visual of projected 2008 foreclosures in “1000 Foreclosures per Day in California”

2008 is off the charts. Anyone calling a bottom at this point doesn’t have the facts straight. Notice of Defaults are projected at over 450K based on Q1 data. You may start to see some houses make sense in pricing, but there’s no doubt we’re going to overshoot fair valuation on the way down this time. No doubt at all.

2. The second one is Mr. Mortgage’s videolog and blog where he recieved California Foreclosure stats from Foreclosure Radar 2 days early. You can alternatively read it here
if you cannot access youtube. (at work, anyone?)

Some great excerpts:

we will have approx 122,000 units slamming the CA auctions over the next 4 months.

That’s over 1000 per day. That’s making the 90’s bust look like a walk in the park. However, when one considers that it is likely that more than half of all purchases within the last 3 years were speculative, the toll is likely largely hitting only those who took excessive risk. Boo Hoo.

Remember to visit Angry Renter. Please be sure to check out ways to contact your local representative to voice your opinion against any kind of government intervention. The invisible hand of the market is in the process of sifting the wheat from the chaff.

In California, renters and homeowners with no mortgage outnumber by a wide margin the number of reckless individuals who overextended themselves. Don’t let yourself be duped into inaction. I’ll post more on specifics later.

• Foreclosures , Speculation , Unintended Consequences
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Chuck Ponzi May 13th, 2008

This is a travesty.

No mortgage bailout! None at all! Not to striving homeowners, not to the insanely-paid CEOs. Risk has penalties too.

Here’s our typical homeowners:

Here’s the problem with CEOs:

• Bubble , Housing Crash , Psychology , Speculation
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Chuck Ponzi May 5th, 2008

Today’s Happy birthday post has been for sale considerably longer than a year, but it’ll do for the discussion. This little puppy comes directly to us from Corona, the ugly stepsister to Orange County. Though, you wouldn’t be able to tell from its listing price of 635K that it’s not near the coast at all.

Even more interesting is that the asking has not changed a single time while on the market for now 490 days. I can only think of 2 reasons for this possible problem:

1. The sellers don’t really care to sell

2. The Realtor passed on and noone thought to cancel his/her listing. A quick lookup shows that the listing agent is “OUT OF AREA ESTEIBAR” Excellent.

It appears that the agent might have been having a heart attack as he/she wrote the description on the property:

SUPER SHARP HOME!! SHOWS LIKE A MODEL. THIS HOME IS READY TO MOVE-IN. DOWNSTAIRS MASTER BEDROOM & BATH. LIVING ROOM & FAMILY ROOM WITH FIREPLACE. LIVING ROOM ENTRY WITH CATHEDRAL CEILINGS. NICE LANDSCAPED BACKYARD KOI POND ON THE FRONT YARD. LOCATED IN QUIET CUL-DE-SAC NEIGHBORHOOD.

I can only assume that the realtor was dictating and therefore the secretary took the agonizing screams of pain as the cue to capitalize everything. Nice touch. This really adds to the ambience of the listing.

We can only assume that the seller really needs to get this price, as it’s really a bit over the top for the area. That seems to be the only really wrong thing with this listing, as there seem to be no congenital defects with the property (other than it’s location in the inland empire). It’s even close to Norco (and I believe in the Norco school district, which is considerably better than Corona).

How over the top might you ask? Judge for yourself. Here’s another listing also on Ginger, with almost 200 sq ft more listed for 275K less (43% less than the first), and in my mind, a prettier exterior to boot plus this one has a 3 car garage. Sorry, no caps on the description.

Happy birthday, hardly seems a year has come and gone so quickly.

• Happy Birthday SoCal
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