Deeds and Weeds

Results in Mortgages Back to Deeds and Weeds Index

Is the Housing Market About to Hit Bottom?

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 Comments

Lots of news the last couple of days about the housing market, led by today's report that housing prices suffered their biggest quarterly drop, year over year, in the 21-year history of the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index. According to the index, U.S. home prices are at levels similar to the fourth quarter of 2002.

Also today, Bloomberg.com had a comprehensive story on the housing market in which a survey of analysts predicted a bottoming of the housing market in June (good news, sort of) and an unusually slow and sluggish recovery (bad news):

"The slump in the U.S. housing market that caused the median value of homes to decline 24 percent since 2006 may bottom next month without any prospect of a rebound for another year, according to estimates from chief economists at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Mortgage Bankers Association and national realtors and homebuilder groups."

The full text of the story, including a number of golf related anecdotes, is here.


-- G.R.

Posted by Geoff Russell
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BofA Exec Cuts Price of Spring Island Home

Monday, May 18, 2009 Comments
Life hasn't been a bowl of cherries lately for embattled Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis. The latest sour fruit: According to this story from the Wall Street Journal, Lewis has cut the price on the vacation house he has been trying to sell at Spring Island, S.C. (home of the very fine Old Tabby Golf Links, designed by Arnold Palmer), for the last two years.

Lewis bought the 5,700-square-foot home with Dennis Thompson, founder and CEO of Firebirds International, in 2002 for $3 million. Current asking price (after the reduction): $3.3. million. The story includes a nice slideshow of the house.

-- G.R.
Posted by Geoff Russell
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Sacramento Real Estate in Recovery?

Tuesday, May 5, 2009 Comments
Not about golf, but a front-page story in today's New York Times suggests that the real estate market in Sacramento -- one of the country's hardest-hit areas during the mortgage crisis -- may be showing signs of bottoming out.

"Investors and first-time buyers, the traditional harbingers of a housing rebound, are out in force here, competing for bargain-price foreclosures," says the article. "With sales up 45 percent from last year, the vast backlog of inventory has diminished. Even prices, which have plummeted to levels not seen since the beginning of the decade, show evidence of stabilizing."

The story goes on to say that other markets that had been slumping, including Las Vegas and parts of Florida, are also seeing increased activity.

What does this have to do with golf? Obviously, when the real estate market in a particular area goes through a tough period, the golf market there usually gets slammed right along with it. This is certainly true of Sacramento, where (as we've written about on Deeds & Weeds) country clubs are having as hard a go of it these days as anywhere in the country (vanishing initiation fees, declining memberships, private to semi-private to public, etc.)

An improving real estate market isn't going to cure all of the Sacramento's golf woes, but it's certainly a start.

-- G.R.

Posted by Geoff Russell
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Need A Hand?

Thursday, February 19, 2009 Comments

Whitehousepicture President Obama was in hard-hit Arizona yesterday talking up his stimulus program and a help-for-homeowners package called the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan. It doesn't apply to second homes, alas.

There's comprehensive coverage in the Wall Street Journal, as usual. If you're interested in learning more or just want to know if you're eligible, there's a decent, plain-English summary of the plan on the White House web site. Have a look here.

-- P.F.

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The Shrinking Tax Credit?

Wednesday, February 11, 2009 Comments

Tax_credit Looks like that $15,000 tax credit for homebuyers probably won't make it into law after all. The Wall Street Journal is reporting the House version of the stimulus bill will cut the credit to a max of $7,500. 

The Journal story has a couple of other interesting (if no more uplifting) nuggets for housing stats fans: "The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that mortgage applications fell last week to their lowest level since November. Also, the MBA index that measures new home loan purchases fell to its lowest level since December 2000."

-- P.F.

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Toll Builders Offers 3.99 Percent Mortgage

Saturday, January 24, 2009 Comments

It's a buyer's market for golfers interested in joining golf clubs -- and it isn't bad for those who want to build a house on a golf course either.

Toll Brothers, the Pennsylvania-based giant (but recently struggling) home construction company -- many of whose communities are attached to golf course developments -- this week announced an aggressive program to try and entice cautious customers off the sidelines. Contract with Toll to build your new home and the company will give you a 30-year mortgage with a fixed interest rate of 3.99 percent (that's for a non-jumbo mortage, i.e., less than $417,000). That's about a point below the national average.

According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, the program comes on the heels of other enticements offered by Toll (free gourmet kitchens, tropical vacations and travel reimbursements for customers who wind up making a purchase), as well as similar deals offered by other builders (for example, Centex will give buyers a 3.5 percent mortgage for two years, then lock in at 4.5 percent).

-- G.R.

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WSJ: Mortgage Relief For Second Home Owners?

Thursday, January 22, 2009 Comments

At first glance, this question-and-answer from the "House Talk" column in today's Wall Street Journal doesn't seem to have anything to do with golf. But if you bought a second home on a golf course, and now find yourself dragged down by the subprime mortgage crisis -- or some other catastrophe resulting from the economic downturn -- you might find it of interest.

-- G.R.

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