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Agency Agreements for First Time Home Buyers - Colorado Springs Realtors

www.selleygroup.com The fundamental steps of what the first-time homebuyer can expect when initially meeting with Cherise Selley, who is a top ...

Colorado Springs Real Estate

exitontime.com Hello Im Rondi with EXIT Realty. Did you know that according to officials that 70% of Real Estate Agents didnt sell a single home ...

Colorado Springs Realty Estate Agents Guide in Pricing your House

Hello my name is Rondi with EXIT Realty and I am here to talk with you about pricing your house. Did you know that according to officials that 70 ...

Colorado Springs Luxury Real Estate - Luxury Homes in Colorado

Colorado Springs real estate. Luxury home in a gated golf community - Flying Horse in Colorado Springs. CONTACT: JoAnn Gadkowski of Prudential ...

Under Water

Some personal observations from the field:

Almost anyone with debt is either now “under water” or well on their way to being so. 

Home prices have not begun to rebound.    Zillow.com  reports that twelve markets can be classified as having entered into a “double dip” decline, including such places as Augusta, GA and Colorado Springs, CO.  Others, such as Boston, MA, are well on their way with four months of consecutive decline. 

The last three months of Case-Shiller numbers tell us that, at best, home prices are flat:  presently some 4% above the bottom and 30% below the top.  But, many – at least 8 of the 20 major markets tracked by C-S, have begun to decline yet again. 

And, today, the Wall Street Journal reminds us that these problems have been occurring in the face of massive efforts by both the federal government and the Federal Reserve to prop up the housing market.   Despite these massive efforts, they remind us that we’re now entering year five of what is now appearing to be a “permanent” crisis.

Add to this mix the rising pattern of what is being called “strategic foreclosure”, where homeowners finally come to see that paying a mortgage on a non-appreciating (err, “depreciating”) asset not only can’t be justified, it’s simply bad financial planning.   Bank of America recently announced that they will begin working more seriously on principal reduction plans for under-water borrowers, mostly, it seems, to forestall the rising ”strategic foreclosure” trend.

What we’ve come to, in effect, is that it may be that the ethical back-bone of our society is all that is holding (propping up) the financial system.  God help us. 

You do recall the “banking crisis” of the past year or two?  Well, it never went away really, it’s just been swept under the rug of rushing news headlines and government assurances.  TARP, et all, hasn’t made banks more solvent, it has merely patched up a broken facade of confidence.

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