by Calculated Risk on 1/03/2010 09:16:00 AM

From Peter Goodman at the NY Times: Real Estate in Cape Coral, Fla., Is Far From a Recovery (ht Craig)

As we navigate this speculator’s paradise turned financial wasteland, Mr. Joseph stands at the front of the bus in a green polo shirt, highlighting specimens like this one: a white stucco house fronted by palm trees and topped by a Spanish tile roof on a canal emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. It last sold in 2005 for $850,000. Yours today for $273,000.

Goodman takes us along on a foreclosure tour and provides a few anecdotes about the MESS.

by Calculated Risk on 1/02/2010 11:01:00 PM

From Dina ElBoghdady at the WaPo: Cash-rich real estate investors trigger bidding wars, frustrate other buyers

Investors have reemerged with brute force in the Washington region's real estate market over the past few months, triggering bidding wars in some neighborhoods teeming with foreclosed properties and hindering traditional home buyers ...

"What's happening in this area reflects what's happening in other parts of the country," said Sam Khater, senior economist at First American CoreLogic, which plans to release a report soon on all-cash deals. "In markets where price declines have been steep, we've seen quite a bit of competition between the low-end, first-time home buyers and investors."
...
"There are bidding wars out there. It's like the 2005 market but at discount prices," said Stella Barbour, a real estate agent at Jobin Realty in Northern Virginia.

We've been seeing a competition all year between cash flow investors and first time home buyers in California. This has pushed up prices in many low end distressed areas (but not all).

Back in early 2005, I drew a couple of rough supply-demand diagrams viewing the bubble era speculative buying as storage. This pushed up prices during the bubble (removing properties from supply), and pushed down prices during the bust (forced selling added to the supply). Unlike those speculators, many of the current cash flow investors are probably happy with the return and won't be forced sellers. But they could become sellers in the future, limiting future appreciation.

And it is important to remember that the numbers don't work for investors in the mid-to-high end areas (the rent to price ratio is lower), so this competition is mostly in the low end areas - the same areas that attract first time home buyers.

These bidding wars should be setting off some alarm bells with regulators - not because of the cash flow investors, but because of the loose lending standards for FHA loans.

by Calculated Risk on 1/02/2010 08:18:00 PM

Here is Professor Krugman's presentation to the Allied Social Science Associations this coming Monday: CRISES

Krugman discusses several currency crises and compares them to the current U.S. deleveraging cycle. Here is an excerpt (picking up near the conclusion):

Plunging prices of houses and CDOs ... don’t produce any corresponding macroeconomic silver lining. ... This suggests that we’re unlikely to see a phoenix-like recovery from the current slump. How long should recovery be expected to take?

Well, there aren’t many useful historical models. But the example that comes closest to the situation facing the United States today is that of Japan after its late-80s bubble burst, leaving serious debt problems behind. And a maximum-likelihood estimate of how long it will take to recover, based on the Japanese example, is ... forever. OK, strictly speaking it’s 18 years, since that’s how long it has been since the Japanese bubble burst, and Japan has never really escaped from its deflationary trap.

This line of thought explains why I’m skeptical about the optimism that’s widespread right now about recovery prospects. The main argument behind this optimism seems to be that in the past, big downturns in the world’s major economies have been followed by fast recoveries. But past downturns had very different causes, and there’s no good reason to regard them as good precedents.

Living in a crisis-ridden world

Looking back at U.S. commentary on past currency crises, what’s striking is the combination of moralizing and complacency. Other countries had crises because they did it wrong; we weren’t going to have one because we do it right.

As I’ve stressed, however, crises often – perhaps usually – happen to countries with great press. They’re only reclassified as sinners and deadbeats after things go wrong. And so it has proved for us, too.

And despite the praise being handed out to those who helped us avoid the worst, we are not handling the crisis well: fiscal stimulus has been inadequate, financial support has contained the damage but not restored a healthy banking system. All indications are that we’re going to have seriously depressed output for years to come. It’s what I feared/predicted in that 2001 paper: “[I]ntellectually consistent solutions to a domestic financial crisis of this type, like solutions to a third-generation currency crisis, are likely to seem too radical to be implemented in practice. And partial measures are likely to fail.”

Maybe policymakers will become wiser in the future. Maybe financial reform will reduce the occurrence of crises: major financial crises were much rarer between the end of World War II and the rise of financial deregulation after 1980 than they were before or since. Meanwhile, however, the fact is that the economic world is a surprisingly dangerous place.

by Calculated Risk on 1/02/2010 04:53:00 PM

Lauren Beale asks at the LA Times Money & Company blog: 2010: The year of the real estate auction?

Auctions gained traction in last year's down housing market as a way to sell real estate -- in all price ranges. It's a trend I expect to see more of in 2010, and not just for bank-owned homes.
...
Why I'm expecting to see more auctions in the mainstream: It gives the seller a defined time frame; if the house doesn't meet the "reserved price" the seller had in mind, then it can be always listed later; and the idea is still novel enough that the marketing is an attention-grabber for the house.

Ms. Beale features a high end home in her post (a very high end home!)

I think short sales will be a huge story in 2010 with the recent push by the Obama Administration. And I also expect short sale fraud be to be huge story (related party sales, under the table payments to sellers, and more)

by Calculated Risk on 1/02/2010 11:59:00 AM

From Roger Vincent at the LA Times: Retail space opens up as big chains shrink

Amid a still-tepid economic recovery, big retail chains are expected to continue closing their less productive stores and retrenching on expansion plans. But at the same time, others will be hurtling into the breach to take advantage of falling rents and vacancies in neighborhoods they couldn't get into a few years ago.

"The prediction for next year is more re-sizing and relocating of retailers," said real estate broker Richard Rizika of CB Richard Ellis.

There are almost 100 empty big-box retail stores in Los Angeles County, according to a study by Rizika. They have a combined total of 4.5 million square feet, or about 78 football fields' worth of vacant space for rent or sale. Most of that came from liquidated businesses Circuit City Inc., Mervyns and home furnishings chain Linens 'n Things Inc.

The vacancy rate is expected to rise further in 2010, and this will continue to push down rents - leading to more distressed retail properties - and also less investment in Multimerchandise shopping structures.

Reis is expected to report the U.S. mall vacancy rate for Q4 next week. Reis reported in October that the strip mall vacancy rate hit 10.3% in Q3 2009; the highest vacancy rate since 1992.

"Our outlook for retail properties as a whole is bleak," Victor Calanog, Reis director of research, said. "Until we see stabilization and recovery take root in both consumer spending and business spending and hiring, we do not foresee a recovery in the retail sector until late 2012 at the earliest."