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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

#71

Post by pyoung »

Anecdote, but my wife and I dropped out of the market recently and rented instead. The rent was 30-40% cheaper than a mortgage would have been on a similar place (including taxes, insurance, etc...). So we figured we would just put the after-tax difference into a 401k (because 401k is pre-tax, for every dollar we 'saved' in housing cost, we are putting ~1.4 dollars into 401k). I figure that building equity in a house has similar investment timeline to the 401k, so it doesn't really bother me whether my net worth comes from one or the other, and unlike a house I can diversify the 401k via different index funds. In terms of ROI, the buy vs rent calculators are all starting to lean towards renting[1], so unless we are going to be in the same house for 12-15 years (unlikely) renting seems to win (and this assumes fairly good/neutral economic outlook, if you turn some of the knobs on the calculator to assume negative growth, oh boy...) .

Add to the fact that most folks don't really know how the new tax laws will impact them until they do the calculations early next year, and the fact the rising interests rates should put downward pressure on the market, and the rather volatile political situation (who really knows where this tariff thing is going to go, and how it will impact the economy), and it just made more sense to wait it out.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-cal...

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

#72

Post by debacle »

tomrod wrote: post #55
debacle wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though the MLS is pretty distrubuted, these days you can consider it as a single entity for the most part, though the shenanigans from the early 2000s still happen every day.

Shenanigans from the early 2000s?

There's windows that you have to put a property up in (e.g. 72 hours), but if your company can act as both buyer and seller you can double(ish) your commission, so you either:

1. Try and get an offer before that window is up.

or

2. Put the listing up with enough wrong information that you get 2-3 more days to try and sell the property.

Apart from that, there's a lot of minor lying when it comes to these listings. Maybe the lot was 2 acres before it was subdivided, so you say on the listing that it's 2 acres. Maybe you jiggle the handle on the listing for the first week or so so it shows up as new/updated every day. Maybe you say that the listing has "central window unit AC" to try and confuse people into showing up.

It's mostly a lot of light treason against buyers and sellers. Real estate is a bit of a dogfight and much of it falls into the "technically illegal but not worth suing" bucket.

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

#73

Post by scarface74 »

dantheman wrote: post #60
scarface74 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? The high tax states are also paying more in Federal taxes than they receive. The low tax states are already subsidized by the federal government.

The high tax states drive the federal tax policy and spending. When California and New York push large federal programs and higher federal taxes and then are able to exclude themselves from the cost it's wrong.

How can the high tax states push policy when they mostly elect Democrats and the Republicans control Congress? The tax law that just passed was very unfriendly to blue states.

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

#74

Post by debacle »

paulie_a wrote: post #57
debacle wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though the MLS is pretty distrubuted, these days you can consider it as a single entity for the most part, though the shenanigans from the early 2000s still happen every day.

You absolutely cannot consider it as a single entity. It is not distributed, it is fractured. There is zero consistency. I got out of that industry a while back and I still have the local MLS phone number memorized. It's a complete shit show as of 2013. Basically anything that is on any MLS I've seen is probably incorrect.

Yeah it was pretty bad 5-10 years ago, but working with it as recently as Tuesday, I can say that the major benefit of sites like Zillow and Redfin is that MLS companies have had to adapt fast to stay competitive. The realtor I'm working with has changed MLS platforms three times in the last year alone.

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

#75

Post by shoo »

parrellel wrote: post #36

Why does this link say Google?

From the url it looks like marketwatch.com site is using google's AMP thing to implement a lightweight site, then google is mirroring it / distributing it through some AMP CDN hosted from a google domain.

(this explanation is perhaps only 60% right, someone who actually knows about AMP may like to weigh in and correct me)

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

#76

Post by debacle »

raincom wrote: post #43
r00fus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Yes, 75% of rent can be used. It is called "market rent", according to Fannie Mae. Remaining 25% is used for Vacancies, etc. In California markets, rental properties are not profitable, when you consider 20% downpayment, 75% rent, etc. There are 4 kinds of buyers in this market: 1. First home buyers: renters becoming buyers. 2. Second home buyers: thanks to the appreciation of their primary residence, people have bou…

Things I learned from Donald Trump:

In most markets, rental properties are not profitable. Almost all of the profit comes when you sell the building, from appreciation. If you're breaking even on a rental, you're actually ahead of the game.

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

#77

Post by froindt »

CamTin wrote: post #8

Just today (in Austin) I saw a banner by the road outside a bank offering "100% financing" for homebuyers. If banks breathlessly pitching to lend buyers the entirety of a home's price is not a sign of an overheated debt-led housing market, I don't know what is.

For what it's worth, I saw the same in a hot market in Iowa. I was taken aback, because generally speaking we saw a much less bad 2008-era than other places across the country. We have particularly low unemployment, which could be leading things to get stupid.

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

#78

Post by ams6110 »

alexibm wrote: post #64
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, flippers aren’t taking conventional housing loans on the properties they are flipping. They are getting short term lines of credit instead because they don’t expect to have the house for more than a few months.

I'm not sure what kind of flippers you are referring, but usually there are no loans. Cash purchases - 100% for the entire value of the property. Source: my parents are prof. flippers.

Aggressive flippers. If you have enough cash to fund N home flips, someone will lend you money and you can do N + X flips in the same time (if all goes well....)

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

#79

Post by raincom »

farnsworth wrote: post #67

I closed on a condo in Seattle literally this morning. Did I buy at the exact worst possible time?

Usually, lots of people buy homes in a hot market. Definitely, not worst, if you plan to live in that condo and if your commute is 15 minutes.

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

#80

Post by shoo »

farnsworth wrote: post #67

I closed on a condo in Seattle literally this morning. Did I buy at the exact worst possible time?

It depends why you were buying it. Were you buying to flip it as a short term investment, or a place to live in for the next 5-10-20+ years?

the market price only matters if you're forced to sell or forced to buy. if you dont need to sell or dont need to buy, you can ignore it

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