We are not in a home construction melt down.

[flamin lib]

I heard three Republican spokespeople refer to the current situation as a "housing correction". See, it's all the homebuilders' fault for overbuilding . . .

[rucky]

1. Phoenix is. Las Vegas is.

They were building huge developments on spec that are now priced out and sitting half empty.

But you're mostly right. Not so much of a meltdown in the rest of the country.

[Warpy]

2. Same thing in central NM

They built a bunch of high profit yuppie barns to satisfy a market mostly of out of state speculators. 1/3 of new construction in 2005-2006 went to out of state speculators. They started to dump this housing on the market last year when it failed to appreciate (one jerk bought up a whole cul de sac!). Now we have an oversupply of trophy houses and an undersupply of affordable family housing.

In the spec areas of town, I'm starting to see more and more empty storefronts in shiny new strip malls as the population to support them simply failed to materialize.

[rucky]

3. I went back to 'Burque over the 4th

and wound up in Corrales. I didn't even recognize it from when I was there 2 years ago.

[crikkett]

5. "oversupply of trophy houses" -well put. n/t

[sandnsea]

4. Yes, places without regulations

are being hit much harder than towns like ours that tightly regulated sprawl. The developers hated it and were just about ready to get people to jump on the development bandwagon, boy did we miss a big bullet. But the dumbasses will never admit it.

[stevedeshazer]

6. It's great that Oregon has these laws restricting sprawl

I have land in a rural area and a house in Portland.

Big surprise, their value has continued to climb, the rural part nearly as much as our urban house.

I think Oregon's land use planning is great, even though it prevents me from subdividing my 19 acre parcel of forest land.

[Maggie_May]

7. Michigan was over built

I was caught up in the mess bought and new home 4 bedroom 2 1/2 bath and the whole nine yards. I was lucky though sold before the crash and moved because of job relocation. The home I am in now is almost 1/2 the house payment and is smaller but so glad I got smart. They really over built in Michigan and now the new homes are sitting empty. The housing there is a huge problem there are so many foreclosures in my old neighborhood because the people who bought them refinanced to the hilt and know can't afford the payment and are walking away. It was like the we all got caught up in the bigger nicer home thing and thought hey we can sell in a few years and make some money.

[rainbow4321]

8. Foreclosures in my TX county are up 40% in the last year

The reddest repuke county in the state. I just looked at the interactive map in my immediate neighborhood alone and 3 houses within 1-2 blocks of my house have already foreclosed.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/classifieds/news/homecenter/realestate/stories/071808dnbusdfwforeclosures.644eb406.html

Home foreclosure postings in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are up 18 percent in the latest filings.

Despite the big increase since last year, total foreclosure filings for the D-FW area are below the recent peak in February, when more than 5,300 postings were recorded

Denton and Collin counties had the biggest percentage gain in foreclosure postings – up about 40 percent from a year ago.

Number of foreclosure filings each month in the four-county area.
January: 3,672
February: 5,315
March: 4,161
April: 4,109
May: 4,426
June: 3,839
July: 3,747
August: 4,582

---------------

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/classifieds/news/homecenter/realestate/stories/0718dnbushomesales.3dec4cc.html

All but a few area residential districts experienced fewer home purchases in the first half of this year, according to the latest home-sales data.Some of the declines have been sharp – including a 35 percent drop in northwest Dallas and a 30 percent decline in North Dallas – compared with the first half of 2007.

Overall pre-owned home sales in North Texas were off by 15 percent in the first six months of 2008 from the previous year, according to statistics from North Texas Real Estate Information Systems and Texas A&M University's Real Estate Center.

"Builders tell us that even with a careful pre-qualification process, many buyers are still falling out at closing."

-------------------------
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/classifieds/news/homecenter/realestate/stories/071808dnbuspropertymarketoulook.65374f90.html

Texas property markets will continue to outpace the nation, but things are likely to cool a bit through next year.

“The Texas housing markets are going to be spotty,” said Dr. James Gaines, a research economist with Texas A&M University’s Real Estate Center.

With the tougher lending standards and a pullout by home investors, the drop-off in sales in Texas could have been much steeper.

But the recovery of Texas’ housing markets may take awhile – particularly on the construction side.

“Residential projects are almost dead in the water now,” he said. “It’s very difficult to find lenders willing fund them.”

[Lorien]

9. There's some truth to that

I think that if there were a moratorium on building spec homes, then sales of existing homes would certainly be more brisk-especially if there were tax incentives for improvement of existing primary residences.

In my neighborhood there are loads of spec homes on the market. The maddening part of it is that they are all McMansions, building that replaced much more modest homes from the 20's and 30's that were bulldozed by the builders. So instead of a home that would have sold from 250-300k, I'm surrounded by unsold 1.7 million dollar homes. The other action builders have taken is to buy up whole blocks of historic homes, knock them down, and replace them with pricey condos. Both types of new builds are wrecking the neighborhood, both in removing the trees and structures that made it "historic" and in flooding the market with more unsold properties. Also, a friend of mine lives in a Cleveland suburb that was always surrounded by a beautiful swath of forest. Recently a builder bought up the forest, leveled it and is building a whole new subdivision on the property....right across the road from neighborhoods with dozens of homes still on the market! Nice way to screw over you neighbors, eh? But then, greed and logic rarely coexist.