Monday, April 10, 2006

New Jersey Second Home Sales

From the Record by Prashant Gopal:

Rising number of home buyers going back for seconds and thirds

Jim O'Brien purchased a small three-bedroom getaway pad in the Poconos five years ago. Then last year, he bought a larger house right next door.

O'Brien, a 61-year-old Tenafly resident who retired from Merck & Co. two years ago, jokes that the first house, which he opens to his many children and grandchildren, is now the "guesthouse."

He is part of a growing segment of the real estate market -- people buying second, third or even fourth homes. Such sales have been increasing steadily in recent years, and represented four of every 10 transactions in 2005, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday.
...
New Jersey, the Shore is the most popular location for vacation homes. LoanPerformance, a subsidiary of First American Real Estate Solutions, estimated that 38 percent of mortgages last year in Atlantic and Cape May counties were for second homes. Only Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Naples, Fla., had a higher percentage of second mortgages, the company said.
...
New Jersey, the Shore is the most popular location for vacation homes. LoanPerformance, a subsidiary of First American Real Estate Solutions, estimated that 38 percent of mortgages last year in Atlantic and Cape May counties were for second homes. Only Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Naples, Fla., had a higher percentage of second mortgages, the company said.
...
Many real estate experts say landlords who plan to hold onto their properties for the long term are relatively safe even if the market tanks. But the experts caution that speculators trying to turn a quick profit are playing a risky game.

The market has already shown signs of cooling. And many people have taken on tremendous debt to cover ever-climbing real estate costs.

Caveat Emptor!
Grim

6 Comments:

Blogger grim said...

So who wants to wager on the 10Y breaking 5% this week?

grim

4/10/2006 07:45:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you couldn't afford it in the first place you had no right to buy the house.
If many go foreclosure, the free markets are doing its job of correcting excesses and dumb financial decisions.

4/10/2006 08:15:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't forget that the minimum payment for credit cards doubled in December.

Someone with a credit card balance of $10K used to have to come up with $200 minimum, now that's $400.

Add that to the mortgage adjusting up, and it's serious trouble.

4/10/2006 08:24:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Which came first: The snake oil seller or the snake oil buyer?

Behind every homeowner making a dumb decision is a duplicitous banker/realtor/mortgage lender using every trick in their book to make the sale, and a government turning its head the other way.

When given the choice of smacking down a dumb homeowner or the devious moneyman, I choose the latter. Because we do not hold these snake oil salesmen to account, this will happen again and again and again.

I do think the free market game can work brilliantly, but only with active, independent free-market referees calling out bad plays. The ones in this game slept on the benches, and we will all pay the price for their inaction.

4/10/2006 09:07:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In Brigantine it is just insane. My sister in-law bought a little two bedroom house (w/ 2br apt. on back) there 10 or 12 years ago for 110k six houses from the beach. Being from LI I had never been there, but now I live in Summit and we go there a lot. Beautiful underrated beach! Now contractors are knocking all the old houses down and putting up monster homes. It's too bad, once a great island where people of modest means could buy a second home is no longer. But that's capitalism I guess. We'll see what it's like down there this summer.. 'til then...

4/10/2006 08:58:00 PM  
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4/18/2006 11:15:00 PM  

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