Entries from Searchlight Crusade tagged with 'markets'

Why the Current State of New Developer Housing

I've seen many new home developments with vaulted ceilings, mini-vineyards, huge houses on little tiny lots...Why can't some developer built some homes for us regular people? A normal sized home with plenty of closet space and a decent (not...

Buyer's Markets: Time for Listing Agents To Earn Their Money

One of the most common things I'm seeing as I roam about the East County looking for bargains: Agents not doing their jobs. Even when there were 40-plus sellers per buyer, single family detached homes that are priced appropriately were...

Buyer's Markets Are A Great Time For Moving Up

I have said repeatedly that buyer's markets are not the time to be selling a property if you have any choice. There is one exception: People looking to turn around and buy a more expensive property. If you're looking to...

Fear and Greed, or How Did The Housing Bubble Get So Big?

(This was originally written February 16, 2006, but it's relevant still) One of the occasional questions I get from people has to do with why the housing bubble got so big (or if you're one of those still in denial...

What Do You Mean Back To Basics?

For a period of several months when the market started imploding, I got mass messages from basically every lender I do business with, saying it's time to "get back to basics". My favorite A paper lender became the last to...

Yield Spread is a Beneficial Tool That Can Be Misused

If you read the papers and the congressional record on the housing crisis, you might think yield spread is the central culprit for the entire meltdown. You would be wrong. Yield spread is a beneficial tool, offered voluntarily by lenders,...

Manufactured, Modular, and Site-Built Homes: How Lending Practices Drive the Sales Market

Many people are unaware how profoundly lending policies influence the market for residential property and the various kinds of housing and methods of construction. So I am going to go over the various gradations in available loans for various types...

"Contractor's Specials"

I was looking through some real estate listings and saw one property described as: "Contractor's special, first time buyers and investors. House needs TLC." Does contractor's special mean u better be a contractor if you wanna buy this place? It...

The Era of Make Believe Loans and The Law of Unintended Consequences

One of the things I've heard and read other agents complaining about is that they can't find qualified buyers to represent. Welcome to Unintended Consequences 101. The way that the market had been working is this: Young, often unmarried, buyers...

When Selling, You Need To Understand Your Target Market

One of the hard things to get through to sellers is to understand the characteristics of the sort of buyers they need in order to have a successful transaction. If a given set of prospective buyers can't afford the property,...

Where Would I Invest A Million Dollars?

Somebody asked me that. Well, I'd want to set some aside for liquidity and reserves, in case something happened where I needed money now. invest those funds in a diversified mutual fund and money market portfolio. Once that's done, I'd...

Economics of Housing in High Density Areas

Here are the facts of the situation, whether you're talking about San Diego or Manhattan, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, or any of the other densely packed, high cost areas where all the employment and career opportunities are. Fact 1:...

When You Should Not Buy Real Estate

Okay, I did an article called Why Renting Really Is For Suckers (And What To Do About It). Fairness demands that I do a companion article on situations where buying is not a good idea. There actually are some. First...

Some Secrets to Good Transactions

Be prepared for trouble before it happens, know how strong your position is or isn't, and don't ever overplay your hand. Real estate transactions are the largest transactions most folks get involved in. Even small percentages of $500,000 or more...

I'm Competing Against Multiple Offers. How Do I Proceed?

The first thing to consider is that maybe you shouldn't. You never want to get involved in a bidding war. There's a classic riddle I ask every single one of my buyer clients at least once. "How often does...

Full Circle: Back to More Traditional Lending Standards

When things went south in the real estate market, I saw more changes in the lending industry in a few months than the previous five years. But those changes mostly restored us to the place we were a few years...

The Measurement Unit For Desirability Is Dollars

I have been asked by more than one person how to measure desirability of real estate objectively. Fortunately, the Phoenicians did all the hard work for me three thousand years ago when they invented money. Precisely what that measurement unit...

Efforts to Rehabilitate the Negative Amortization Loan

The negative amortization loan is a very popular loan with certain kinds of real estate agents and loan officers. It has two great virtues as far as they are concerned. First, it has a low payment, and despite the fact...

You Want an Agent That Can Pay ENOUGH Attention to YOU

A lot of advice gets given to choose a "top producing" agent. These highly corporate offices may have the name of an individual agent attached to them, but they are in fact transaction mills. They have done pretty well for...

What Do Buyer's Agents Do?

Got this search: "should I get a buyer's agent if I've already found a house" The answer is almost certainly yes, but I am going to examine both the pros and cons. Full disclosure: This is what I do for...