I can tell you that in the Los Angeles Area it is still moving..

I work for the gas company and we almost can not keep up with all the demolitions going on... They are buying the old stuff up (900 to 1000 sq ft) for 800K to 1 mil tearing them down and putting up 3+ million homes..

I talked to one guy the other day.. He buys 1 house a year tears it down and builds new (real nice work.. High dollar finish work) he makes about 800 K to 1.3 Million per house. He has done it for the last 10 years and does not finance anything now. Just reinvests his own money in the new houses.

This is going on all over the area since there is no land left to develop.. Some are even buying 2 houses side by side and merging the lots fo bigger houses!!..

 

and Shhhhhhhhh don't talk about the market falling.. I bought mine in 2000 for 240K.. I won't tell you what it is worth today... and it is only 980 Sq ft with a detached 2 car garage...

 

from what I can tell, its going to be really good for me...
Kalifornians seem to want to move to the Arkansas/Oklahoma area and I bought my house for $30K under appraisal.

 

I look at as if everything in R.E. is on sale! Just as with the stock market buy low and sell when high. Even if you have to sell one to buy 2 fixers it is well worth the $$$. The market is not going down for long invest, invest, invest!

I took it in the shorts in 1992 ,(divorce), when the bottom fell out and wish I'd have bought 2 or 3 smaller houses then!! It will not happen to me again!!!

Rick

 

My neck of the woods is a bit different, in that we are in the Columbia Gorge Scenic Area, which makes building something outside the urban growth boundary pretty much impossible.

We also have a major computer outfit building a big campus in town, and the combination has attracted real estate speculators from out of the area buying up houses.

Though prices are still rising here and in the rest of Oregon, I expect to see a major correction.

Eventually there won't be another real estate speculator to flip property to, and there just aren't that many people in town that can afford a $300,000 mortgage.

Some people seem to be operating under the assumption that you can flip a house for twice your investment within a year, and that it will always be that way.

It is easy to draw a parallel with the high tech stock crash. People knew that the company's limited assets and red ink didn't justify the price of the stock, but felt that there would always be someone else willing to pay more for the stock...

I don't know if we will see a crash, but I expect 20 or 30% reduction for a couple years in a row. Any significant reduction at all will be enough to drive a bunch of people into forclosure. Lots of people who used low down, or interest only loans to get into houses they couldn't afford could be in a world of hurt.

 

I'm talking long term investment! Flipping a house never made much sense to me. 5 year commitment minimum and double your money or forget selling!
In the mean time rent loan or hook your parents up with free rent whatever it takes to make a return on your investment the easy way.

"Buy cheap land because they cannot make more of it!"

Rick

 

I was talking with my banker the other day , he says there will be foreclosures coming in the next 2 months in this area. People with floating interest rate can not afford their payments as rate goes up.

 

Booming up here can't find enough trades people