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US housing market hit a ‘significant slowdown’ in recent weeks, Redfin CEO says

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Re: US housing market hit a ‘significant slowdown’ in recent weeks, Redfin CEO says

#21

Post by r00fus »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #12
danjoc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really what happened in the last crash though. The people who bought, held. The only people who got hurt were home owners who go underwater and then lose a job. They can't afford to wait it out, they can't afford to make the payment, so they end up in foreclosure. Then the bank holds and it ends up as a zombie home.[1] The zombie falls to pieces, so the bank gets a bail out, the home is written off, and th…

Flippers are like canaries in the mine. They are usually leveraged like crazy on short term loans, not flipping the house quickly can be fatal to them. Rental won’t let them pay off there loans when they come due in a couple of months.

Cant rental (ie, passive) income be used to secure additional funding?

I know that was the case when I considered buying property to rent back before the 2008 crash (I ended up not doing that, luckily).

Re: US housing market hit a ‘significant slowdown’ in recent weeks, Redfin CEO says

#23

Post by r00fus »

dijit wrote: post #2

At some point you hit the cap of what people can possibly spend. Depressed earnings in all but a tiny sector, and incredibly inflated house prices. Perpetual growth is unsustainable in this manner, but is expected by investors. I hope the market corrects. Not for my sake (I live in Sweden and have no US desires) but for those who hope to have a life and family near their ancestral home. I am not preaching to the choi…

> At some point you hit the cap of what people can possibly spend.

Local population can be priced out if external buyers (ie, foreign cash) can pick up the slack / drive up demand.

Foreign investment is likely why case-shiller is so high since mid-2000s.

Re: US housing market hit a ‘significant slowdown’ in recent weeks, Redfin CEO says

#25

Post by JumpCrisscross »

nutjob2 wrote: post #6
dijit wrote: post #2

At some point you hit the cap of what people can possibly spend. Depressed earnings in all but a tiny sector, and incredibly inflated house prices. Perpetual growth is unsustainable in this manner, but is expected by investors. I hope the market corrects. Not for my sake (I live in Sweden and have no US desires) but for those who hope to have a life and family near their ancestral home. I am not preaching to the choi…

Pretty sure my ancestral home is somewhere on Mayfair. I demand access to an affordable London flat thereabouts! Also if you're talking about the Bay Area, much of the real estate pricing there is driven by the anti-development tendencies of the owners of ancestral homes, either lining their own pockets or pushing some misguided political wheelbarrow (especially in SF). In that sense it's largely self inflicted. In o…

> Pretty sure my ancestral home is somewhere on Mayfair. I demand access to an affordable London flat thereabouts!

We’d better get around to ceding Manhattan back to the Lenape, too.

Re: US housing market hit a ‘significant slowdown’ in recent weeks, Redfin CEO says

#26

Post by tompetry »

paulie_a wrote: post #17

Redfin didn't exactly do anything interesting or unique. It was literally yet another real estate app/website. It's not surprising.

To be fair, Redfin is a technology focused MLS member and agency, not just a listings aggregation app. You're entitled to your opinion if you don't think that is interesting or unique, but their offering is far more than just a website and app. Interesting data on their agent stats and comp here: https://www.redfin.com/blog/2018/01/how-much-do-redfin-agent...

Re: US housing market hit a ‘significant slowdown’ in recent weeks, Redfin CEO says

#27

Post by redisman »

dijit wrote: post #2

At some point you hit the cap of what people can possibly spend. Depressed earnings in all but a tiny sector, and incredibly inflated house prices. Perpetual growth is unsustainable in this manner, but is expected by investors. I hope the market corrects. Not for my sake (I live in Sweden and have no US desires) but for those who hope to have a life and family near their ancestral home. I am not preaching to the choi…

I don't know how the housing market doesn't affect you - Stockholm is one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world. Much move expensive than most US cities.

Re: US housing market hit a ‘significant slowdown’ in recent weeks, Redfin CEO says

#28

Post by ericd »

paulie_a wrote: post #17

Redfin didn't exactly do anything interesting or unique. It was literally yet another real estate app/website. It's not surprising.

Actually, they're very different from most others, in that they're a vertically integrated brokerage rather than just connecting you to random brokers who advertise through them a la Zillow.

Re: US housing market hit a ‘significant slowdown’ in recent weeks, Redfin CEO says

#29

Post by EvilEndures »

r00fus wrote: post #21
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flippers are like canaries in the mine. They are usually leveraged like crazy on short term loans, not flipping the house quickly can be fatal to them. Rental won’t let them pay off there loans when they come due in a couple of months.

Cant rental (ie, passive) income be used to secure additional funding? I know that was the case when I considered buying property to rent back before the 2008 crash (I ended up not doing that, luckily).

Conventional financing isn't available to heavily leveraged flippers as the loans aren't profitable. They usually use non-conventional loans with higher interest rates.

Now, they could re-finance the property into a conventional rental property but none of them can afford to do it for all of their properties. Flippers tend to do 4-5 at a time, not just one.

Re: US housing market hit a ‘significant slowdown’ in recent weeks, Redfin CEO says

#30

Post by paulie_a »

ericd wrote: post #28
paulie_a wrote: post #17

Redfin didn't exactly do anything interesting or unique. It was literally yet another real estate app/website. It's not surprising.

Actually, they're very different from most others, in that they're a vertically integrated brokerage rather than just connecting you to random brokers who advertise through them a la Zillow.

I worked in the technology side of real estate for a decade, they really are nothing special. It's marketing buzz and same old thing.
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