Where have all the houses for sale gone?
Real estate expert Fabian Calvo says there’s more to the story about rising prices in the housing market than what’s reported by the mainstream media. Calvo charges, “There’s a tremendous amount of manipulation . . . Yes, prices have gone up 3%. I see it, but it’s because the inventory has been suppressed on purpose by big players . . . not foreclosing on properties.” Calvo should know because he runs a company called TheNoteHouse.us. It buys and sells $100 million annually in distressed debt and real estate. Calvo says, “Over 20 million houses, on any given night in America, are completely sitting vacant.” According to Calvo, the economy is being helped by “shadow stimulus.” It’s coming from millions of underwater homeowners who have stopped making mortgage payments. Calvo says, “Money that would have been otherwise allocated towards a housing payment is going into consumer spending.” The Fed is also propping up housing by suppressing interest rates. Calvo says the fragile real estate market would crash if rates rose just a little, and he adds, “That’s why you’re going to see low interest rates . . . through 2015 or until there’s some kind of dollar or bond crisis.” Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Fabian Calvo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMpaaGr6YBs
I believe Fabian. I have some anecdotal evidence of what he says is going on in the market. For instance, there is a SFH foreclosure across from one of my rentals. It was foreclosed on and the owners were kicked out about 90 days ago (I know this because the owners moved across the street into my rental). The house has been winterized and it is vacant but it is still not on the market.
It is really tight here in Collin and Dallas Counties. There is just a little under 3 months supply of houses on the market. The last time we were at these levels was at the height of the housing bubble.
If you think it's tight in Dallas, come over to San Diego. We're down to 1 month's worth of active inventory. I expected that at the end of summer we would be done seeing rising prices. Instead they've continued to rise at what appears to be a faster pace throughout these winter months. According to Trulia, San Diego is up about 15% year over year. I've seen a lot of subdivisions on the lower tier going for 25% more than they did at the end of last year.
Definitely a manipulated market. I don't think anyone on here will disagree with that. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on which side of the fence you're on) that doesn't make it any less a reality.
Same thing up here in the Inland Empire Rob, less than one month of entry level inventory on the books. It is no secret that a couple Hedge funds came out and took over at least $100 million in shadow inventory across the IE from Fannie Mae, etc. I agree something is being manipulated, wonder if it has anything to do with Wall Street getting into the home rental business?
We were just looking at this on another post http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/56/topics/79566-pay-attention-if-you-are-in-the-real-estate-market
Here in MB the Bank Owned Houses are getting scare too, I used to get at least 10 a day, now there are 4-5 and not such good deals..
I'd get 10 houses in my email, not my pocket.. :-(
Originally posted by Tiger M.:
We were just looking at this on another post http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/56/topics/79566-pay-attention-if-you-are-in-the-real-estate-market
Good post Tiger M. Lets continue the discussion there.