Never before have there been so many squalid, dilapidated homes on the market: 3 out of 10

[Liberal_in_LA]

These homes for sale stink
Never before have there been so many squalid, dilapidated homes on the market - and they're helping to exaggerate already-plummeting home prices.

By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: August 23, 2008: 10:29 PM EDT


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Mold, maggots and piles of festering trash - no wonder home prices are in freefall.

It's not just the subprime mortgage crisis that's to blame for plummeting home prices. A flood of squalid properties on the market is helping to exaggerate the post-bubble price declines.

"Part of the reason home prices are declining is a fundamental deterioration in the housing stock," said Glenn Kelman, CEO of the online, discount broker Redfin. "During the boom, nine out of 10 houses for sale in many markets were in prime condition. Now, for every 10 houses, at least three are dogs."

Most of these mutts are foreclosed properties that have been permitted to fall into disrepair by lenders overwhelmed with thousands of vacant homes. If these houses sell at all, they're going for bargain basement prices that are hurting home values throughout the neighborhood.

"I've never seen so many houses in this condition before," said Ray Anderson of Buyer's Advantage Real Estate in Auburn Calif., near Sacramento. "And I've been in the business 20 years. I've seen bank-owned properties in the past. They were never like this."




http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/20/real_estate/subprime_homes_lead_downward_charge/index.htm?cnn=yes

[MichiganVote]

1. Just can't beat the trickle down tax cuts (piss on you) for a good time.

[Greyhound]

2. The inevitable result of the artificially created hyper-inflated house prices

They made trillions doing the same thing in the .com scam, they took that show on the road to the housing industry, and now they've moved to commodities.

[skids]

3. Slapped together with cheap materials...

...some of them. When anything resembling a house sells like hotcakes, why splurge on things like floorboards that won't sag or offgas carcinogens.

And to boot you get a lot of first time homebuyers who would in an earlier day and age start out in a beater of a house and thereby gain a better appreciation of all the damage the last owners did, instead sold more than they could afford leaving brand new stock exposed to their tender inexperienced mercies. It's not an inborn human instinct to know, for example, that the tiny annoying puddle from water beading off the bottom of the toilet bowl on humid days is going to rot your floorboards if you don't wipe it up regularly and make sure the floor seals are good.

This country would be in much better shape if there were more starter homes for bachelors and couples to get into the system (and cut their teeth on) instead of rows of McMansions.

[arcadian]

4. Cheap ass shit from big box stores.

n/t

[Egnever]

7. Good post but this strikes me

This country would be in much better shape if there were more starter homes for bachelors and couples to get into the system (and cut their teeth on) instead of rows of McMansions.


Isnt that exactly whats out there now according to the article?

[skids]

8. No, the article describes homes...

That would be more in the "fixer upper" category at this point. A starter home generally is small and has a couple minor problems but no major disasters like mold, which would require tearing out all the baseboard and replacing everything. Unless you want to suffer health problems.

At any rate, the market is getting better but being someone who's a potential first time home buyer I'm looking still at paying over $100K for something that's essentially a stand-alone studio apartment. Not low enough yet in my area. I know in places where the economy has collapsed houses are nice and cheap, but that's not where the jobs are.

[madrchsod]

5. the banks ,savings and loans,and the state and federal government

did nothing to prevent or place the breaks on home forecloses. they just let the whole fucking thing collapse. i feel sorry for those who have lost their dreams but i do not feel sorry for those who had the power to stop the bleeding.

[onethatcares]

6. when the main concern is to flip the house

no one is gonna care if they are putting lipstick on a pig. Imagine having 5 mortgages on as many homes and doing quality work? Ain't gonna happen.

The cause of this is pure and simple greed.