Travis Jackson walks through his modest ranch house, admiring the kitchen’s built-in spice rack and the red-oak floors. He draws back the curtains, and sunlight illuminates the pride on his face.
The young banker just bought Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s childhood home at a foreclosure sale.
“This is where it all happened,” marvels Mr. Jackson, a 27-year-old loan officer at First Citizens Bancorp, which is down the street from the old Bernanke place. “Kind of a surreal feeling, isn’t it?”
Mr. Bernanke’s family sold the property more than a decade ago. It ended up on the block late last year after its former owners fell behind on their mortgage payments.
The small town that gave the Fed its chairman is suffering more than most from the financial and economic crisis he’s struggling to fix. Already hit by the long decline of the local tobacco and textile industries, Dillon County is facing a fresh assault of plant closings and layoffs that have pushed its unemployment rate to 14.2% — almost double the national average.
So, has anyone been buying homes (assuming you have a job to be able to afford one) or trying to buy a home (but can’t get a lender to lend) or do you still think we haven’t hit bottom yet and are waiting? If you are buying, is a regular, sign in the yard, for-sale home or a foreclosure?
Relax Dave. As soon as this “Obama” guy wins the election these problems will turn right around.
Oops.
In the San Francisco Bay area nice property in good areas are still in demand. the prices have dropped some but people are looking for ‘bargains’. If you were thinking about buying to live in it start looking, if you are just a ‘flipper’ or just an investor, you will have to do your homework.
I built a house last year, starting in May. No problem getting a construction loan of $276,000. (about 4x my income)
Financed the completed home in February, same $276k loan on a $345k house.
No issues. House even appraised for the same value that the *plans* appraised for back in May.
I just watched the Bernancke interview on 60 minutes. The guy is quintessentially American and really won me over, totally convincing until the very last sentence of his interview when he started to jaw on about how the American worker was “the best in the world.”
So, he fell into a bit of shtick. He still won me over, but he’s not immune to protecting his position.
Its not that the American worker is not the best in the world, although I don’t see why there wouldn’t be a 15 way tie, its just that the willingness/ability of the American worker to work has about ZERO to do with the cause and solution to this depression.
#1 & #2==way to live up to your numbers.
If you have a good FICA and 10% down the money is there. I think they’re back to the 40% rule, and they really look at your earning potential hard. But that was the way it was in the 80’s when I first shopped. You went to the Bank, they ran the numbers and told you what they would lend you, and you went looking. You really need to clean up your credit and not have huge car payments or other consumer debt.
I bought a house a few years back. I saved 20% down even as a first time homebuyer and paid a reasonable price (a good price back then, which I have to downgrade to “reasonable” based on today’s market).
I think people who have good credit and approach the sale like I did then will have no problem even today. The people who needed the 80-15-5 loans, or things even more exotic than that to be able to buy are probably SOL.
I wish I’d happened to reach that point in my life right now, when I had tens of thousands in cash saved up and was looking to buy my first house. The first-time home-buyer credits on top of the current lower prices (plus the glee of having most of my money in cash as the market went down) would have been nice. I envy people like me who were a few years later on the curve and who can leverage all of that to their advantage right now.
Oh well, at least I still* have a below-market (< 5% 30yr fixed) interest rate due to when I bought, and I’m not in foreclosure, so I can’t really complain I guess.
I took out a preemptive HELOC to which I’ve had no balance on for ~ 2 years to help supplement my cash reserves which frankly get sucked into home improvements, and I hope that I can renew that when the time comes. I assume that’s not going to be a problem either, but if I lose enough equity to declining prices, I suppose that’s a possibility.
My brother in law bought a non-foreclosure home last summer and had no problems. My neighbor bought a foreclosure to flip it because he’s insane.
Waiting… waiting…
Not going to buy a house until the market hits bottom + a few months. Why not? I am still seeing people bail out of their homes around here. I’ll get more for less later. Likely buy a fixer upper to get even more.
# 4 bobbo – I again agree on workers. The mindset has to change. But I think current conditions will hopefully affect to a large degree the mentality of getting as much piece of the pie as possible when no regard to outcome.
Personally I try to deliver more value than I am paid. More need to act like that. Starting at the top of companies. Who anymore is a leader trying to build a company and legacy?
My wife and I bought our first home in 2001, after looking for a suitable property for over 2 years (following 15 years as renters). Every house we looked at was priced way beyond what our credit union would finance, and we would only bid as much as they’d agreed to lend us. Even if the owner’s asking price was within our range, someone else would always bid higher, and we lost out on some nice homes. Eventually, we hit the jackpot, thanks to a nasty divorce settlement (wife ended up with the house, but couldn’t meet the mortgage payments without ex-husband’s income). She still made a nice $100K profit over what she paid for the place 6 years earlier, though.
Now, I laugh when I think of all those suckers who paid too much for a modest house in California. We were outbid at least nine times or more.
We stuck to our guns, and paid what the bank agreed to finance, and I took money out of my IRA to help with the downpayment (only possible for first-time homebuyers). We’re going to be fine (knock wood) in our modest little 3-Bedroom/1.5 Bath home, but I can see so many foreclosures all over town that I can’t laugh too hard, knowing all the other families who have had their American Dream shattered by these circumstances.
Any one of those foreclosed homes could have been mine.
i have two condos with 2 blocks that were built in 2007 and available for occupancy
in the beginning of 2008.
one is 32units the other looks like maybe
25-30, though the 2nd one is super-lux fancy schmancy gated $800k on the water. -the first one has sprayed stuco textured styrofoam external window frames.
-they want $150k for foam windows sills that break if you lean on them..!
both condos thus far have only 1 tenant living in them..they must be bleeding the investors.
my garden apt complex (77 units) has 11 empty units..
-so i’m not seeing any positive action in housing here.. (throggs neck area, bronx, NY)
-s