Thursday, August 9, 2007

"Suddenly It's Not So Easy to Borrow"

As is often the case the New York Times says it best. Click on the link below for an easy to follow explanation of how we got into trouble:

Housing Busts and Hedge Fund Meltdowns: A Spectator's Guide


As new money loans dry up, sellers may have to consider creative financing to help buyers get in the front door, including; seller financing, land contracts and lease options. These concepts are not new, but feel more difficult to approach as sellers grapple with "the house that sold down the street two months ago for over asking price and closed in two weeks." As part of our service to sellers, we hope to expose your home to the largest pool of buyers, sell your home for the most money possible, and do our best to ensure that you never have to look back. Creative financing might help accomplish the first two tasks, but may keep your purse strings tied to the picket fence.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hidden in the chart's explanation of how a crisis in the subprime sector of the mortgage market has affected Wall Street as a whole, is an astute observation of the role of local players in the real estate market:

"The mortgage process became fragmented, with numerous players reaping lucrative fees from home buyers:
> New mortgage companies, with looser lending standards,
> Real Estate agents,
> Brokers, and
> Appraisers (once independent and randomly assigned, many are now picked by brokers or real estate agents, creating a possible conflict of interest: inflating home valuations for the benefit of all three)."

The East Bay real estate market was whipped up into a frenzy by all of these local players. It was a bubble, after all.

It will be very interesting to see what the new credit crunch will do to Bay Area home prices, now that the majority of home buyers are looking at jumbo loans with giant rates. I laughed out loud when I read that jumbos are for loans over $419K; that's gotta be the average for the Bay Area!

Anonymous said...

I fail to see how we can blame anyone in particular for the housing situation.

Hyper-consumerism is the rule of the land. Our government encourages it and we revel in it.

When there is money to be made, there are always going to be shady people there to do it. There are also true professionals who aren't only in it during good times. Wait and see who is left when things become normal again and you might have a pretty good idea of people you want to work with.

Besides, how many people would do their job for the love of it? Aren't we all pretty much in it for the money?

Berkhills Blogger said...

Motivation:
We are motivated by what is best for our clients, not by commissions. We believe that bringing honesty, diligence and intelligent representation to every transaction is good from both a human and a business perspective. When we serve clients well, we feel good about the work we do, our clients are happy, and they refer their friends to us. More than 80 percent of our clients come from referrals. And the original clients return- sometimes decades later – when it’s time to move on to a different house. Many of our current clients are old friends and our reputation is built on these relationships.